FC3 and Drive Errors

[Bob Kinney]

--- Rick Stevens <rstevens at vitalstream.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 2006-09-18 at 14:04 -0400, mylar wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I am running Fedora Core 3 on a Dell Dimension 4700 desktop. It's a dual
> > boot machine. Windows resides on a 80 Gb SATA drive and Linux on a
> > regular 200 Gb ATA IDE drive attached to the PATA controller. When
> > running FC3 the system has been working fine for well over a year but of
> > late has been freezing up every now and  then. Everytime it freezes and
> > I go over the system logs I am seeing the following drive errors
> > occuring just prior to the system crashing...
> > 
> > 
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
> > > SeekComplete Error }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84
> > > { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
> > > SeekComplete Error }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84
> > > { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady
> > > SeekComplete Error }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: hdb: dma_intr: error=0x84
> > > { DriveStatusError BadCRC }
> > > Sep 18 04:02:20 brooklyn kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown
> > 
> > Any ideas what might be going on ? Is the drive going bad on me ? 
> > I am going to doi a check for bad blocks and see what happens. Any  other
> ideas,
> > hints, suggestions would be appreciated.
> 
> Those kinds of errors are usually indicative of a dying drive.  You're
> receiving CRC errors on the DMA transfers and seek incomplete errors.
> 
> This can also be caused by a dying power supply--particularly the +12VDC
> side of things, since that's what's used to turn the spindle and move
> the heads.  If you have the technical competence and a multimeter, check
> the voltages AT THE DRIVE using the meter.  You want the +12VDC level at
> about 12.7 to 13.0 volts.  IIRC, the 12V should be between the black
> (ground) and yellow wires on the drive connector.  If they're low, you
> should think about a new power supply.

I'm not sure I would agree with the voltage figures.  We are powering
electronics, not charging a battery.  The better the power supply, the
closer it can maintain *precisely* 12V with less ripple, over a wider
range of loads.

A quick google on "pc power supply 12v rail tolerance" turned up an
article claiming that the Intel spec for ATX is +/- 5%, or 0.6V on the
12V rail.  If you're at 13, you're probably cooking something.

I'd look into that a bit more . . .

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