Bug 43039

Summary:	Acer Aspire 5560G Laptop: link online but device misclassified: only with some kernel configs
Product:	IO/Storage	Reporter:	Matthew Stapleton (matthew4196)
Component:	Serial ATA	Assignee:	Jeff Garzik (jgarzik)
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	alan, jlee, szg00000, tj
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:	3.0.0 - 3.3.1	Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:
Attachments:	dmesg.txt config-3.2.0-21-generic Server-kernel-3.0-gentoo_x86-64_smp.config HardenedServer-kernel-3.2-gentoo_x86-64_smp.config testkernel-3.0-rev3.config testkernel-3.2_basedonserver_x86_64_mainline250.config testkernel-3.2_ubuntu250.config

Description Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-04 01:48:41 UTC

I am getting "ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)" and then after failing to softreset, it gets "ata1.00: link online but device misclassified" on a laptop: Aspire 5560G laptop with an SSD but only on the Ubuntu standard kernel config, not my custom kernel configs that I use on servers that I've setup. Once this happens the laptop has to be power cycled to get the SSD working again.

The SSD is a AR120GBE and the AHCI controller is 1022:7804, subsystem: 1025:059f

At first I thought the problem was with the Ubuntu kernel, but the timeout also occurs on the mainline kernels: 3.2.0 and 3.2.14 with no added patches but using the Ubuntu kernel config.  I am using the following method to test the ubuntu config:
make mrproper && make menuconfig
  then I load the config and save to .config
make && make modules
  then I copy arch/x86/boot/bzImage to a network boot option with a custom minimal initrd and boot with the laptop.

The Ubuntu bug url is https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/965863

Comment 1 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-04 01:50:27 UTC

Created attachment 72803 [details]
dmesg.txt

This a dmesg log from one of the Ubuntu kernels with the timeout problem

Comment 2 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-04 01:52:11 UTC

Created attachment 72804 [details]
config-3.2.0-21-generic

standard Desktop Ubuntu kernel config that causes timeouts

Comment 3 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-04 01:53:30 UTC

Created attachment 72805 [details]
Server-kernel-3.0-gentoo_x86-64_smp.config

My custom server kernel config for kernel series 3.0 that works without timeouts on the laptop.

Comment 4 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-04 01:55:20 UTC

Created attachment 72806 [details]
HardenedServer-kernel-3.2-gentoo_x86-64_smp.config

My custom hardened server kernel config for kernel series 3.2 that works without timeouts on the laptop.  Even though this is configured for grsecurity I just loaded it on mainline 3.2.14 without any extra patches for this laptop timeout test.

Comment 5 Tejun Heo 2012-04-04 16:58:48 UTC

Hmmm... this could have been caused by the recent engine start change. Can you please try 3.3.1?

Thanks.

Comment 6 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-05 00:37:06 UTC

Same timeout with 3.3.1 and Ubuntu config.  Works okay with custom Hardened 3.2 config.  I also have also just tried 3.0 mainline with Ubuntu 3.2.0-21=generic config and got the timeout.

Comment 7 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-16 00:26:17 UTC

Created attachment 72929 [details]
testkernel-3.0-rev3.config

Tried another config which disables EFI and EDD options and still getting the timeout.

Comment 8 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-18 05:57:16 UTC

On kernel 3.0 x86_64, I think I have narrowed the problem down.  Setting CONFIG_HZ from 1000 to 250 causes the timeout if I try the load kernel from a power cycle boot up.  Sometimes I don't get the timeout if the kernel was loaded from a soft reboot.  Is there anything immediately obvious why changing CONFIG_HZ would cause ahci ports to timeout?

Comment 9 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-18 07:26:42 UTC

I just tried a few more x64_64 kernel builds with various configs.  Configs are attached below.

Comment 10 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-18 07:30:59 UTC

Created attachment 72949 [details]
testkernel-3.2_basedonserver_x86_64_mainline250.config

Tried this config with Mainline 3.3.2 and got the timeout.  I also tested the same config with CONFIG_HZ changed to 1000 and 100 and both those HZ configs didn't timeout.

Comment 11 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-18 07:33:53 UTC

Created attachment 72950 [details]
testkernel-3.2_ubuntu250.config

Tried this config with Mainline 3.4-rc3 and got the timeout.  I also tested the same config with CONFIG_HZ changed to 1000 and that didn't timeout.

Comment 12 Matthew Stapleton 2012-04-19 02:40:24 UTC

I just tried kernel: 2.6.27 with CONFIG_HZ=250 and got the timeout there as well.  Also, trying nohz=off on the command line doesn't help.

Comment 13 Matthew Stapleton 2012-05-28 00:56:41 UTC

Is there any more info I can provide to help solve the problem?

Comment 14 Alan 2012-09-04 12:45:00 UTC

Not that I can think of - other than classifying your machine is having utterly outweirded us not much obvious to progress this.