Sata failure with main board gigabyte ga-g41mt-s2pt

[matt scott]

At first I thought it was a hard dive failure .. but sent it back and another drive did the same thing. Then, put the drive on a different machine and it booted/worked repeatedly with no problems. Got a 3rd drive from a different manufacturer, and it did the same thing. Running this particular main board, I can install ubuntu studio on a drive. Then, after about 3 or 4 days running, it refuses to access the drive. The O.S. doesn't crash, mouse moves etc. but I have to bring it down because it won't start an app, and often (but not always) kills the menu window while selecting a program.. and butts out of anything that seems likely to be requesting the drive. ...

 again ... take the same drive, connect to another machine and its dreamy. (this assertion needs more testing, so I am running another machine with such a drive long term at this point to double check that) Then, when I bring it back up, the O.S. won't boot. I can often get it back up by plugging the drive into a different sata slot or in one case, switching off the S.M.A.R.T. drive manager, but after a few days drive access fails again. The machine hangs at the dpmi data screen and eventually asks for a bootable drive. ...( but there is a drive that works on other machines.) .. googling finds nothing except the main board has a reputation for not booting from flash drives. Not the same deal. Because of that .. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the real time kernel because that's different, and rare enough that others may not have encountered the problem yet. No promises on that being true. no special gpu, and all of the hardware seems to work fine. About the only thing I can think of to try at this point is a different OS on this same machine ... pain in the behind, but maybe necessary to help track down the problem.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: linux-image-3.13.0-55-lowlatency 3.13.0-55.92
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-55.92-lowlatency 3.13.11-ckt20
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-55-lowlatency x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.11
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC2: matt 2107 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: matt 2107 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: matt 2107 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Sat Jun 20 15:55:43 2015
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=80bbb18e-6e1e-4e36-a10a-69e9a2783316
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-06-05 (14 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Studio 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.1)
IwConfig:
 eth0 no wireless extensions.

 lo no wireless extensions.
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. G41MT-S2PT
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-55-lowlatency root=UUID=78da8eaa-591b-48ac-8e2a-98d2b4cb7653 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.13.0-55-lowlatency N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.13.0-55-lowlatency N/A
 linux-firmware 1.127.12
RfKill:

SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 12/06/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F2
dmi.board.name: G41MT-S2PT
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF2:bd12/06/2011:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnG41MT-S2PT:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnG41MT-S2PT:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: G41MT-S2PT
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade? Was there a prior kernel version where you were not having this particular problem?

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest v4.1 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag: 'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

If you are unable to test the mainline kernel, for example it will not boot, please add the tag: 'kernel-unable-to-test-upstream'.
Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as "Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.1-unstable/

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

Please be patient ... I want to chase this bug to its end, but I have a lot of things to deal with right away ... We may need to make some decisions because I have only one of these boards. If I update the bios and it fixes the problem, we can't chase it down in the code. If we chase it down in the code first, then we can still try to find out if a bios update also fixes it. I have some things to do that are going to steal me away for 1-2 weeks .. potentially more, so please be patient.

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

I never didn't have this problem with the machine. However it has taken me time to realize that it is a combination between main board and OS. This machine was first put together about February. There is a new kernel that just loaded onto the machine in updates, so even that might unexpectedly fix it ... There are a lot of ways to chase this thing. Every time the bug activates it tends to become a little harder to get the system to go back up. However, I suspect that removing the battery of the mother board may enable a bare metal OS re-install. When the drive stops working its like the main board recognizes the thing but doesn't want to interact with it. I think that even trying a new install on the drive once it became deactivated didn't work. It could become necessary to take the drive to a different machine and mess with it before it could be put back on the original machine ... this looks tedious, and which ever route we take will exclude us from gathering some information or other , so we have some choices to make.

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

What I'm trying to point out is that I'm sure this board works with other OSs, and I'm just as sure that the OS works with other boards. If this were not true, neither the OS, nor the Board could be expected to be out in the public as alpha products because this is an utter failure of the system, not just a little quirk. This would tend to indicate that there are actually two bugs, one in the board and one in the OS. They are colliding with each other. So, the question is ... which one do we want to find the most? So please think about that, and come up with an answer so we can prioritize our next step.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

matt scott, just to advise:
>"If I update the bios and it fixes the problem, we can't chase it down in the code. If we chase it down in the code first, then we can still try to find out if a bios update also fixes it."

As per your vendor's website, you are already on the latest BIOS. Hence, unless you've confirmed a hardware failure (not a buggy BIOS), this report is pending your results from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1467184/comments/3 .

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

well that chops out the new bios idea, so the remaining issue is whether to try the upstream kernel or the newly downloaded kernel first.

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

ok, do you want me to test generic lpae, generic, or low latency? I am seeing all of these options here: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.1-rc2-vivid/ and not sure how to move forwards. Obviously these kernels are for later versions of linux. I would have preferred to install 15.04, but I understand it is not an LTS, and since there will be a lot of work in my setup, I will be wanting LTS. It may be that by the time I have things figured out for my build, I will be using 16.04.

[matt scott (mgshightech)]

I really wanted the low latency kernel for this build, but testing requirements come first.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

matt scott, generic is fine.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]