Problems with AGP and DMA on second ide with nForce3 250 chip

[Chris Jones]

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.15-23-amd64-k8

These are known problems, as far as I can understand. But another report may be of at least some little interest.

The mainboard is a nForce3 250 chipset on a Gigabyte K8 Triton series, GA-K8NS board with an AMD 2800+ Semron CPU.

Could the DMA problem be connected with:

...missing nForce3/4 storage controller device IDs
(see)
http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nforce/1.0-0306/KnownProblems.html

I also have a vague unreliable memory of the AGP problem being fixed with the very latest kernel.

The latest Ubuntu kernel update does not fix these problems. I have downloaded the kernel source from Ubuntu and will attempt to read it and attempt to add fix patches, if I can find any... but, having a chronic illness which adversely affects memory and concentration as well as severe fatigue I wouldn't wait for me to do this... it could take months, assuming I can even get it together enough to patch and compile a kernel, which is uncertain.

I hope the below excerpts are enough information. (I doubt if a lspci will be of any benefit. I can be contacted at ccjonesatceinternetdotcomdotau if need be.)

The sections of the output from the boot messages are as follows:

First the AGP problem:
 Checking aperture...
[ 0.000000] CPU 0: aperture @ f8000000 size 32 MB
[ 0.000000] Aperture from northbridge cpu 0 too small (32 MB)
[ 0.000000] AGP bridge at 00:00:00
[ 0.000000] Aperture from AGP @ f8000000 size 4096 MB (APSIZE 0)
[ 0.000000] Aperture from AGP bridge too small (0 MB)
[ 0.000000] Your BIOS doesn't leave a aperture memory hole
[ 0.000000] Please enable the IOMMU option in the BIOS setup
[ 0.000000] This costs you 64 MB of RAM
[ 0.000000] Mapping aperture over 65536 KB of RAM @ 4000000

(and later, deleting APIC setting here)

 30.564349] agpgart: Detected AGP bridge 0
[ 30.564886] agpgart: Aperture conflicts with PCI mapping.
[ 30.564956] agpgart: Aperture from AGP @ f8000000 size 4096 MB
[ 30.565010] agpgart: Aperture too small (0 MB)
[ 30.565060] agpgart: No usable aperture found.
[ 30.565111] agpgart: Consider rebooting with iommu=memaper=2 to get a good aperture.
[ 30.565192] PCI-DMA: Disabling IOMMU.

Second, the DMA problem:

 NFORCE3-250: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:08.0
[ 31.307109] NFORCE3-250: chipset revision 162
[ 31.307160] NFORCE3-250: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
[ 31.307216] NFORCE3-250: BIOS didn't set cable bits correctly. Enabling workaround.
[ 31.307289] NFORCE3-250: 0000:00:08.0 (rev a2) UDMA133 controller
[ 31.307351] ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
[ 31.307483] ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
[ 31.307622] Probing IDE interface ide0...
[ 31.571564] hda: ST3802110A, ATA DISK drive
[ 32.182984] ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
[ 32.184442] Probing IDE interface ide1...
[ 32.448338] hdc: QUANTUM FIREBALLlct10 10, ATA DISK drive
[ 32.855766] hdd: SONY CD-RW CRX320E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
[ 32.907289] ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
[ 32.919087] hda: max request size: 1024KiB
[ 32.964705] hda: Host Protected Area detected.
[ 32.964708] current capacity is 156299375 sectors (80025 MB)
[ 32.964710] native capacity is 156301488 sectors (80026 MB)
[ 33.080802] hda: Host Protected Area disabled.
[ 33.080855] hda: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=16383/255/63, UDMA(100)
[ 33.113462] hda: cache flushes supported
[ 33.113688] hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
[ 33.161496] hdc: max request size: 128KiB
[ 33.161804] hdc: Host Protected Area detected.
[ 33.161805] current capacity is 20041967 sectors (10261 MB)
[ 33.161807] native capacity is 20044080 sectors (10262 MB)
[ 33.162313] hdc: Host Protected Area disabled.
[ 33.162365] hdc: 20044080 sectors (10262 MB) w/418KiB Cache, CHS=19885/16/63, UDMA(33)
[ 33.162547] hdc: cache flushes not supported
[ 33.162714] hdc:<4>hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
[ 63.116400] hdc: DMA timeout error
[ 63.116452] hdc: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 63.116634] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 63.119879] hdc1 hdc3
[ 63.125610] hdd: ATAPI 63X DVD-ROM CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
[ 63.125866] Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
[ 83.104470] hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
[ 93.089513] hdc: DMA timeout error
[ 93.089566] hdc: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 93.089748] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 93.091004] hdd: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[ 93.091174] hdd: status error: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
[ 93.091282] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 93.091375] hdd: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 93.091555] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 93.091633] hdd: drive not ready for command
[ 113.579879] hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
[ 123.564924] hdc: DMA timeout error
[ 123.564980] hdc: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 123.565161] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 123.566382] hdd: status error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
[ 123.566548] hdd: status error: error=0x04 { AbortedCommand }
[ 123.566656] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 123.566749] hdd: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 123.566929] ide: failed opcode was: unknown
[ 123.567012] hdd: drive not ready for command
[ 143.738734] hdc: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
[ 153.722779] hdc: DMA timeout error
[ 153.722832] hdc: dma timeout error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest }
[ 153.723013] ide: failed opcode was: unknown

[Chris Jones (ccjones)]

The agp problem is easily solved. Press control F1 with the bios setup menu and you will be presented with advanced bios setup features. An AGP memory size can then be set. In my case 128 MB. Called this an obscured feature of the nforce3 250 chipset bios setup, since it wasn't readily apparent in any documentation provided with the mainboard.

Have yet to work out the second ide problem since I disconnected the drive.

[Gareth Fitzworthington (mapping-gp-deactivatedaccount)]

This bug has had no activity for a considerable period. This is a check to see if there is still interest in investigating this bug report.

[Gareth Fitzworthington (mapping-gp-deactivatedaccount)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!