Re: DEC PWS500au (MiataGL) EIDE Issues

Rhialto <[email protected]> Sun, 16 May 2021 14:35:18 +0200

Newsgroups	gmane.os.netbsd.ports.alpha
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

On Sat 15 May 2021 at 21:27:33 -0400, Alexander Jacocks wrote:
> All,
> 
> I?m trying to install NetBSD 9.1 on my Personal Workstation 500au
> (MiataGL), and I?m running into EIDE issues. Whenever I try to access any
> attached EIDE disk (or SATA disk, with a SATA/IDE bridge) I get the
> following:
> 
> wd0c: device timeout reading fsbn 9 (wd0 bn 0; cn 0 tn 0 sn 0), xfer 38,
> retry 0
> cypide0:0:0: geometry timed out
> 
> This happens across a bunch of disks, with several different IDE cables,
> both 40 and 80 conductor.
> 
> Does anyone have any ideas?

This sounds very similar to a known issue with DMA not being able to
cross some boundaries (64 K?) in the Miata's chipset.

A simple solution is to turn off DMA for the built-in IDE.
At some point I plugged in a separate PCI IDE card to get around it in a
different way. There was this in my kernel config for NetBSD 1.6:

# ST506/ESDI/IDE devices
wd*     at      pciide0 channel ? flags 0xffc   # Use PIO mode 4, no DMA
wd*     at      pciide? channel ?               # Allow DMA on IDE cards

or this from 2.0:

# ATA (IDE) bus support
# atabus0 at ata0
atabus0 at cmdide0 channel 0
atabus1 at cmdide0 channel 1
atabus* at ata?

# IDE drives
wd*     at      atabus0 drive ? flags 0xffc     # Use PIO mode 4, no DMA
wd*     at      atabus1 drive ? flags 0xffc     # Use PIO mode 4, no DMA
wd*     at      atabus? drive ?                 # Allow DMA on IDE cards

That's the latest version I have on my Alpha though (and currently it is
unused in storage).

I do notice your message mentions "cypide0" and not "cmdide0" so maybe
it's a different issue.

-Olaf.
-- 
___ Q: "What's an anagram of Banach-Tarski?"  -- Olaf "Rhialto" Seibert
\X/ A: "Banach-Tarski Banach-Tarski."         -- rhialto at falu dot nl

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