Re: IOMMU and DMA mode of pata_jmicron

From: Jeff Garzik
Date: Tue Dec 28 2010 - 20:00:38 EST


(CC'd linux-ide, Joerg)

On 12/28/2010 06:43 PM, Steffen Moser wrote:
I've encountered a problem with my AMD 890FX based system
and linux-2.6.35.10 (x86_64 platform).

After activating the option "IOMMU" in the mainboard's BIOS
setup, the onboard P-ATA controller "JMicron Technology Corp.
JMB361 AHCI/IDE (rev 02)" puts itself back in the PIO mode.
When loading the module, the kernel reports:

pata_jmicron 0000:06:00.1: BMDMA: failed to set dma mask, \
falling back to PIO
[...]
As soon as I deactivate IOMMU in BIOS setup, the P-ATA channel
runs in the DMA mode again. The S-ATA controllers don't seem
to be affected.

My question is: Is this a known behavior? Are there any
things I have to consider when activating IOMMU (which seems
to be AMD-Vi) on an 890FX based system? Is it a problem of
the chipset and/or the controller or is it related to a
problem in the libata area?

Some information about the affected system:

- Mainboard: ASUS M4A89TD Pro/USB3
- BIOS version: 1101 (most recent version)
- Chipset: AMD 890FX
- Processor: AMD Phenom 1090T
- Memory: 4 x 4 GB (Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/4G)
- Distribution: openSUSE 11.3
- Kernel: 2.6.35.10 (from "kernel.org"), x86_64


This condition occurs when the PCI API cannot set the PCI device's DMA mask to the 32-bit value
#define ATA_DMA_MASK 0xffffffffULL

That is an unusual failure for such a modern system, which certainly can handle 32-bit masks like that, one would think.

Jeff



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