Added RAM - lost connection to 2 SATA-drives. Removed RAM and drives work again

[TheFinePrint]

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS 64-bit desktop being used mostly as server. The server was running fine for considerable time before I took it down to install 2GB ram (1 module) in addition to the 2 x 1GB-modules already installed. After doing so it would not recognise drives connected to the PCIe-SATA-card, despite checking wiring, testing with different wiring and 4 distinct drives (3 x Samsung 500GB, 1 x Seagate 80GB).

Rebooting did nothing to aid, only when I removed the RAM-module did it work properly.

NOTE! Everything else appeared to work fine; Gnome, Partition manager, FreeNX-server, internet, etc. Hence the specific RAM-module is not of itself faulty.

With the help of erUSUL on IRC: #Ubuntu i got the following verified: Driver loaded and running.
$ lspci
03:00.0 RAID bus controller: Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3132 Serial ATA Raid II Controller (rev 01)

 <erUSUL> rmn: driver is sata_sil24 run « lsmod | grep sata_sil » does it output something ?
sata_sil24 20484 2
libata 176432 5 ata_generic,pata_acpi,pata_atiixp,sata_sil24,ahci

$ dmesg
[ 850.947249] ata1: reset failed (errno=-5), retrying in 8 secs
[ 858.725083] ata1: hard resetting link
http://paste.ubuntu.com/74488/

A number of these lines appear fo ata1 and ata2, until it gives up.

In dmesg.1.gz the following lines appear (also in kern.log):
[ 345.748858] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1278024
[ 345.748865] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 159753
[ 345.752028] end_request: I/O error, dev sr0, sector 1278024
[ 345.752031] Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 159753

Hardware:
MB: ASRock AliveXFire ESATA 2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+
RAM: 2x 1GB Kingston ValueRAM DDRII PC667 CL5
RAM: 1x 2GB Kingston ValueRAM DDRII PC667 CL5
VGA: Galaxy GF 7200GS PCIe 128MB
PCI: Delock PCIe 2xSATAII Raid (drives not run in RAID)

Summary:
The only symptom I noticed was that I lost contact to the drives, and got an error-led on the drive-bay. hddtemp failed, etc.
The symptom only occured after adding RAM, all other things equal.
The symptom did not go away by checking/replacing cables and drives.
The symptom did indeed go away by removing the extra RAM-block, all else equal.

[kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor)]

Hi TheFinePrint,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 300090

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]