Bug 31201 – Autodetection of scsi hangs on aic7xxx_old on Dell Precision Workstation 610

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Release Media

[Description Otto Tronarp 2003-10-15 07:48:14 UTC]

When I try to boot the LiveCD on Dell PW 610 it detects my aic7xxx correctly,
but then it continue to scan for aic7xxx_old and hangs.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot the LiveCD

Actual Results:  
It hangs.

Expected Results:  
Not hang.

[Comment 1 Mike 2003-10-18 20:58:15 UTC]

This refers to bug #12185 which was previously closed, but that problem now
exists in the latest LiveCD 1.4rc4.

I have a scsi cd on an Adaptec AHA-2940 UW (aic7880) with the latest firmware
that will not boot the LiveCD because it hangs while detecting the aic7xxx_old
driver and after successfully detecting the aic7xxx driver.

Any chance that the aic7xxx_old driver may be removed from the LiveCD?

[Comment 2 Tony Vroon (RETIRED) 2003-10-25 14:04:28 UTC]

Preliminary fix:

Have the LiveCD boot with noscsi, to get it in "Oye, no drives, here's a
terminal, *you* figure it out", modprobe aic7xxx, Ctrl+D.
This one has bitten me too.

Removing the aic7xxx_old driver wouldn't hurt, I can't think of a configuration
that works with aic7xxx_old but fails with aic7xxx.

[Comment 3 David Westley 2003-10-25 14:10:03 UTC]

I've got the same on a home made Dual Athlon system.

I agree that the aic7xxx_old module should be removed as it appears to be
causing a fair few problems for people using hardware supported by the aic7xxx
module.

[Comment 4 Ryan Koski 2003-11-30 09:46:08 UTC]

What's really interesting is that, while the aic7xxx_old driver causes the described problem in the LiveCD, one has to use it when one builds a production kernel, as the "new" aic7xxx driver will randomly hard-lock SMP systems.  See http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=91175.

I can confirm both problems:  I have a Dell Precision 530 (dual Xeon 1.7Ghz).  The aic7xxx_old driver causes the LiveCD to hang.  However, after getting the entire system setup and building the "new" aic7xxx driver into the gentoo-sources kernel, the system would randomly hard-lock.  Using the aic7xxx_old driver in my SMP kernel resolves that problem.

[Comment 5 Mario Vazquez 2003-12-13 12:38:34 UTC]

I got a Dell PowerEdge 4300 with 2 CPUS (500MHz), it also hang up with 1.4 CD.

[Comment 6 Tony Vroon (RETIRED) 2003-12-13 12:41:49 UTC]

I can't duplicate the SMP hangup of the aic7xxx driver here, though.
Not on an NCR WorldMark with two AIC7880U controllers and not on a dual Athlon MP 1800+ with one 29160 controller either.

[Comment 7 Walter A. Ambrosch 2004-01-25 10:26:20 UTC]

This problem also happened when I booted into my freshly generated kernel. During initrd processing, both the aic7xxx and aic7xxx_old modules get loaded, and the latter gets hung retrying on a bus timeout. I had to remove aic7xxx_old from the linuxrc script, now the system boots ok. - My hardware IS old: the 7870 is about 10 years old, but obviously too new for that module...

[Comment 8 Varun Sinha 2004-01-31 17:39:34 UTC]

I was able to resolve this by running

gentoo noscsi
cd /modules/storage
modprobe ./aic7xxx.o

It resolved it for me

[Comment 9 Tony Vroon (RETIRED) 2004-01-31 17:48:25 UTC]

This bug has been open for a while now, might as well RESO WONT and shove the 2.6 LiveCD's forward? If 2.4 LiveCD remain the standard for another few months, this does seem worthy of getting handled....

[Comment 10 John Davis (zhen) (RETIRED) 2004-03-04 22:50:30 UTC]

has this been tried w/ the new 2004.0 livecd using 2.6?

[Comment 11 Benjamin Judas (RETIRED) 2004-03-22 02:34:31 UTC]

The old driver will be no longer supported