RE: [PATCH] Add quirk to set AHCI mode on ICH boards

[Allen Martin]

> > What I'm worred about is SMI traps implemented in the SBIOS for AHCI
> > workarounds that may be disabled when in IDE mode.
> 
> For Nvidia devices those would only be present if there were problems
> with the AHCI hardware right, which would mean you could 
> simply tell us
> what workarounds to implement.

Errata for which there is an SBIOS workaround are generally only
released to BIOS vendors and under NDA.  If Linux users were impacted by
such a bug we would most likely release a patch, but a much more likely
scenario is that it slips through the cracks because it's not a
configuration we would test in our QA.  So a small minority of users
that are running AHCI in class code 0101 would get some very rare but
serious errors that would be impossible to debug.

> > I believe most of the issues with sata_nv have been due to lack of
> > documentation of ADMA and swNCQ.  The NVIDA AHCI controllers that
> 
> I am glad Nvidia accept this point. It would be nice to see it fixed.

I don't have any say over that, but it's probably unlikely to be fixed.
Going forward we're only using open standards for storage.

-Allen
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