[Soekris] Sandisk SDCFX-2048 in 4801

[RW]

On Thu, 10 May 2007 18:00:00 +1000, Graham Menhennitt wrote:

>Emilio Perea wrote:
>> I've been using a 4801-50 with a SanDisk 1GB Ultra II CF card for a
>> while now, using OpenBSD without any problems.  But I was looking for
>> bigger, and preferably faster disk, and bought a Sandisk 2GB Extreme
>> IV CF card.
>>
>> This is almost four times faster in write speed according to my tests in
>> a laptop, which seemed great.  But in the 4801 I get disk errors.  I
>> put the new and old dmesgs online on
>>  http://hermes.walkereng.com/fubar.new and
>>  http://hermes.walkereng.com/fubar.old, but these are the diffs:
>>
>> *----------------------------------------------------------------------*
>> 29,31c29,31
>> < wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <SanDisk SDCFH-1024>
>> < wd0: 1-sector PIO, LBA, 977MB, 2001888 sectors
>> < wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2
>> ---
>>   
>>> wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <SanDisk SDCFX-2048>
>>> wd0: 4-sector PIO, LBA, 1953MB, 4001760 sectors
>>> wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, Ultra-DMA mode 2
>>>     
>> 58a59,98
>>   
>>> wd0(pciide0:0:0): timeout
>>>         type: ata
>>>         c_bcount: 8192
>>>         c_skip: 0
>>> pciide0:0:0: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x21
>>>     
>
>I had the same problem with a 4GB Sandisk under FreeBSD. You need to
>tell it to use PIO mode instead of DMA (which your old one seems to do
>without needing to tell it). Under FreeBSD 6.2, you do this by adding a line
>    hw.ata.ata_dma="0"
>to /boot/loader.conf. I presume that OpenBSD has something similar.
>
>Graham

Well FYI here are two readings of dmesg in a 4801 running OpenBSD:
(there's no hw.ata.ata_dma setting in sysctl)
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: <SanDisk SDCFB-512>
wd0: 1-sector PIO, LBA, 488MB, 1000944 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 2
That's a SanDisk

Here is an Apacer:
wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 1: <APACER CF SMI222AC>
wd0: 1-sector PIO, LBA, 495MB, 1014048 sectors
wd0(pciide0:0:1): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2

No error messages with either.
We prefer the Apacers on the basis of speed and reliability (the latter
based on our own  limited thrash testing).

FWIW/YMMV/ACNR ;-)

Rod/
A consultant is someone who's called in when someone has painted himself into a corner.  He's expected to levitate his client out of that corner.

-The Sayings of Chairman Morrow. 1984.