Distribution: Debian Woody Hardware Environment: AMD-Athlon, 2xPromise Ultra 100 Tx2 Software Environment: 2.4.22 from kernel.org, no additional patches, no X Problem Description: I get hard lockups when transfering larger files from or to disks attached to the Promise controller. The problem disapears when dma is disabled. Before the lockup it is possible to observe a rising ERR counter in /proc/interrupts (about 100-200 per second). The problem shows up especially when more than one attached disk drive is accessed simultaneously at the same time. For my system this is true since the two controllers alltogehter have four drives attached (two each) which build a software raid 5. There are no messages in whatever log I search. When the lockup happens the num lock on the keyboard is not reacting. Steps to reproduce: Attach at least two drives to Promise Ultra100 Tx2 controller. Make sure you have DMA mode on. (Setup a software raid 5 over the disks - you may probably skip this). Transfer large files (>>100MB) so that _both_ drives are used simultaneously.
Does this problem still happen with recent 2.4 and 2.6 kernels?
I don't know. Since the problem was insistently ignored, i was forced to buy two new controllers from a different brand. I have, however, received two or three emails over the time from people with the same problem that had discovered this bug report and asked me if I had found a solution. The only thing I could tell them was that I would never buy anything from Promise ever again.
Thanks for this information. First of all sorry that your problem wasn't handled in time. I'm closing this bug. If anyone will contact you again regarding this bug, tell him to update this bug and we might be able to search for what was causing it.