DMA timeout

[V P]

On Apr 5, 2005 10:14 PM, Jamie Wilch <jamie at wilch.net> wrote:
> On my Dell Inspiron 1150 notebook, I sometimes get these errors in the log:
> 
> Apr  5 10:34:54 jwnotepad kernel: hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel: hdc: DMA timeout error
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel: hdc: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 {
> Busy }
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel:
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel: hdc: DMA disabled
> Apr  5 10:35:09 jwnotepad kernel: ide1: reset: success
> 
> The computer locks up for about 4-5 seconds while this is occurring.  It
> only occurs when reading/writing large amounts of data, but not always.
> 
> I've tried booting with the nodma switch on the kernel.  That fixes the
> problem, however, it slows down the computer noticeably.
> 
> Is there a chance of data loss when this happens?  It happens so
> infrequent, that I'd rather run with the faster DMA than without as long
> as there is not risk of data loss.

I faced that problem on my desktop (FC2) once. The problem disappeared
when I changed the IDE cable.
VJP


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