I've been having fun and games at home. Short story first. I have a fairly old system and one of the SATA drives is failing so I bought a replacement. The system didn't see it at all so I rushed out and bought another drive (Xmas!) but it wasn't seen either. Google told me it was a problem with the SATA chip on the motherboard, so I borrowed a SATA adapter. It kind of worked but gave lots of bus errors. I tried a couple of other adapters with similar results. I tested the drives and they're perfect. I read about power issues with SATA so I disconnected everything I could but that made no difference. So I started looking for a new system. Then comes the weird part. I've been running openSUSE 11.2 and have also tested Ubuntu 10.04 with similar results. Last night I tried Knoppix 6.4.3 and apparently everything worked perfectly. I still need to do more testing but maybe my old system can live a while longer. I'd be interested in any views people have about the prognosis. OK, now here's the details: The mobo is an MSI K8M Neo-V, which has two SATA 1.5 Gbps ports controlled by a VIA VT6420 chip (it has a broken design that can't see more recent drives). The failing drive is a Seagate 1.5 Gbps. The new drives are both Samsung 3 Gbps SATA drives; a 1 TB HD103SJ and a 320 GB. The smaller drive has a jumper to force 1.5 Gbps speed, while the larger one uses a software utility. I borrowed a PCI adapter based on the Sil 3512 and I've bought one based on the VIA VT6421A. Like all PCI SATA adapters, they're limited to 1.5 Gbps. The output from lspci (with the Sil controller) looked like this: 00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South] 00:0b.0 Mass storage controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3512 [SATALink/SATARaid] Serial ATA Controller (rev 01) 00:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB12LV26 IEEE-1394 Controller (Link) 00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80) 00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) 00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86) 00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South] 00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60) 00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1) Typical error messages were like this: Jan 5 22:53:27 piglet kernel: [ 157.040095] ata5: hard resetting link Jan 5 22:53:27 piglet kernel: [ 157.390039] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 5 22:53:32 piglet kernel: [ 162.390035] ata5: hard resetting link Jan 5 22:53:33 piglet kernel: [ 162.740037] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 5 22:53:33 piglet kernel: [ 162.780287] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/100 Jan 5 22:53:33 piglet kernel: [ 162.780294] ata5.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 Jan 5 22:53:33 piglet kernel: [ 162.780302] ata5: EH complete Jan 5 22:54:03 piglet kernel: [ 193.040089] ata5: hard resetting link Jan 5 22:54:03 piglet kernel: [ 193.390060] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 5 22:54:03 piglet kernel: [ 193.430287] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/100 Jan 5 22:54:03 piglet kernel: [ 193.430295] ata5.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0 Jan 5 22:54:03 piglet kernel: [ 193.430308] ata5: EH complete Jan 5 22:54:07 piglet kernel: [ 197.042033] ata5.00: limiting speed to UDMA/66:PIO4 Jan 5 22:54:07 piglet kernel: [ 197.042070] ata5: hard resetting link Jan 5 22:54:07 piglet kernel: [ 197.390059] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 5 22:54:07 piglet kernel: [ 197.430288] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/66 Jan 5 22:54:07 piglet kernel: [ 197.430305] ata5: EH complete Jan 5 22:54:08 piglet kernel: [ 197.821413] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/66 Jan 5 22:54:08 piglet kernel: [ 197.821437] ata5: EH complete Jan 5 22:54:38 piglet kernel: [ 228.040099] ata5: hard resetting link Jan 5 22:54:38 piglet kernel: [ 228.390046] ata5: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 5 22:54:38 piglet kernel: [ 228.430286] ata5.00: configured for UDMA/66 Jan 5 22:54:38 piglet kernel: [ 228.430309] ata5: EH complete You can see that it steadily reduces the bus speed. With the VIA adapter, lspci shows: 00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. K8M800 Host Bridge 00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 PCI bridge [K8T800/K8T890 South] 00:0b.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6421 IDE RAID Controller (rev 50) 00:0c.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB12LV26 IEEE-1394 Controller (Link) 00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA RAID Controller (rev 80) 00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) 00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 81) 00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 86) 00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237 ISA bridge [KT600/K8T800/K8T890 South] 00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60) 00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 78) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1) and error messages looked like this: Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441492] ata2.00: exception Emask 0x12 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x1000500 action 0x6 Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441517] ata2.00: BMDMA stat 0x5 Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441525] ata2: SError: { UnrecovData Proto TrStaTrns } Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441539] ata2.00: cmd c8/00:f0:58:05:57/00:00:00:00:00/e1 tag 0 dma 122880 in Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441541] res 51/84:48:00:00:00/84:58:00:00:00/e0 Emask 0x12 (ATA bus error) Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441555] ata2.00: status: { DRDY ERR } Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441561] ata2.00: error: { ICRC ABRT } Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.441575] ata2: hard resetting link Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.746050] ata2: SATA link up 1.5 Gbps (SStatus 113 SControl 310) Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.784313] ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33 Jan 12 20:51:18 piglet kernel: [ 109.784337] ata2: EH complete The errors didn't seem to cause any data corruption. Oh and the kernel versions are: openSUSE 11.2 2.6.31 ubuntu 10.04 2.6.32 knoppix 6.4.3 2.6.36 Has some kernel or driver update improved SATA handling significantly? Cheers, Dave -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org