Comment 16 for bug 64587

Hi people,

I'm running Feisty, too.
I hope this email will not create any false hopes as I did with my
earlier questionable contribution to this bug, but I had not a single
ata timeout since

$ uptime
 23:47:22 up 1 day, 3:54, 2 users, load average: 1.50, 1.22, 0.72

as the following command shows
$ dmesg | grep ata
[ 6.012000] libata version 2.20 loaded.
[ 6.440000] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: version 2.10ac1
[ 6.440000] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: MAP [ IDE IDE P1 P3 ]
[ 6.444000] ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x000101f0 ctl 0x000103f6
bmdma 0x000118b0 irq 14
[ 6.444000] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x00010170 ctl 0x00010376
bmdma 0x000118b8 irq 15
[ 6.444000] scsi0 : ata_piix
[ 6.772000] ata1.00: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 234441648,
hpa_sectors = 234441648
[ 6.772000] ata1.00: ATA-6: ST9120821A, 3.06, max UDMA/100
[ 6.772000] ata1.00: 234441648 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
[ 6.772000] ata1.01: ATAPI, max UDMA/33
[ 6.780000] ata1.00: ata_hpa_resize 1: sectors = 234441648,
hpa_sectors = 234441648
[ 6.780000] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
[ 6.944000] ata1.01: configured for UDMA/33
[ 6.944000] scsi1 : ata_piix
[ 7.980000] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

Recently I started using my notebook (Acer Aspire 9412WSMI) more
intensely and I had a freeze around every 40min until I
came across the following page:
http://www.caiacoa.de/wiki/index.php/Samsung_R40-T2050_Chasubi#DVD-Brenner

It's in german an the relevant part basically translates to:
 The integrated DVD-Burner TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-L632D caused
 serious problems including firmware version SC02 which led
 to spontaneous system freezes. A patched libata version helped
 but was a kludge.
 The firmware version SC03 (8th of February 2007) obviously fixed
 these problems. It is recommended to use at least this version
 if you want to omit problems with this burner under Linux. The
 firmware and the associated burn program can be downloaded
 from the Korean Samsung ODD website.

Sadly my notebook manufacturer is Acer and not Samsung, so I was looking
if I could flash the Samsung firmware. The only hints I found were some
forum articles saying that the hardware was identical regardless of the
OEM manufacturer.

As I was pretty setup with the freezes I chose to crossflash the Samsung
SC03 firmware onto my Acer drive.
I used the Samsung SC03 firmware and flash program from
http://www.toshibaer.com/firmware/index.php?path=TS-L632D/
The flash program can be found in the Acer AC01 firmware zip file.

In order to be able to flash Samsung firmware onto an Acer drive you
have to invoke sfdnwin.exe from the commandline with the -noverify
switch.
Crossflashing the firmware has some implications:
 - the burning software provided by your vendor will stop working
 - the warranty of the DVD burner voids
 - you risk your drive, because cross-vendor flashing is
   unsupported

After flashing from Acer AC01 firmware to Samsung SC03 firmware I
watched a DVD movie, burned and read a Data-DVD with K3B and installed a
game under Windows XP from DVD, so everything seems to work as it used
to (I didn't try to burn a DVD under Windows XP).

I'd suggest to contact your hardware vendor, at least if you still have
warranty, and tell them that the Samsung firmware version SC03 seems to
fix these timeout issues. Maybe they will merge the Samsung fixes and
provide a firmware revision which doesn't void the drives warranty.

It seems the way HAL is polling this drive results in these timeouts,
see http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=117111946807912&w=2

If you're wondering why Samsung firmware, well TSSTcorp is a short form
of Toshiba Samsung Storage Tech corporation, thus Samsung is the
manufactorer. The first drives even started out with a different name
SN-S082D.

I hope this helps,
Christian

PS: !!!Do not crossflash your firmware if you are not willing to risk
your DVD burner!!!