Re: occasional kernel freezes possibly related to aac(4) 2410SA

[Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@usta.de>]

Hi Marco Peereboom, hi Jim Razmus, hi misc,

last Xmas, i reported occasional problems with our i386 based
nfs file server using an Adaptec 2410SA SATA RAID controller, see

Message-ID: <20041223233510.GA5131@athene.usta.de>
Message-ID: <20041224042231.GB28407@mail.bonetruck.org>
Message-ID: <ED62BEBC-55D2-11D9-8DF9-000A95908CA4@peereboom.us>
Message-ID: <20041227194636.GA5438@athene.usta.de>

With controller firmware 4.0-0 (factory default), i had three
or four freezes during two weeks in december.  With controller
firmware 4.1-0 (=Build 7244), i had half a dozen freezes
during a few hours in a single day (Dec 26).  With controller
firmware 4.2-0 (=Build 7348), i now have one freeze after two
weeks: The machine has been working from Dec 27 until Jan 08;
today, it died once again.  Its last words were, as usual:

  sd0(aac0:0:0): timed out

My conclusion is:
 a) The freezes are very probably in some way or other related
    to the controller since their frequency varies with the
    firmware version in use, and
 b) 4.2-0 is better than 4.0-0 is better than 4.1-0,
    but 4.2-0 still does not seem to be perfect.

I had already gone back to the GENERIC kernel after one week
or so of stable operation, so once more i cannot tell which
SCSI command was the last one before the hang.  I will now
once more boot my "AAC_DEBUG=0x0C"-kernel and wait for the
next incident.

Please tell me when anybody is working on aac(4) or when
i can help with any testing.

Yours,
  Ingo

P.S. off-topic:
Btw, i'm pondering whether i should contact Adaptec asking
for better firmware or better hardware - the collected evidence
that this is rather due to the controller itself or its
firmware than to the rest of my box and the OS is not that
bad after all, isn't it?  There's no new info on the Adaptec
homepage yet, i just checked once more...