x86: ata Timeouts During Boot (6586621)

ata driver timeouts might occur during system boot on Intel multiprocessor systems. These timeouts occur when the root device is on a drive with the HBA controller bound to the legacy ata driver. These timeouts lead to a momentary hang, hard hang, or a panic during system boot with console messages similar to the following:

scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: reset bus, target=0 lun=0
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: early timeout, target=0 lun=0
gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0):
        Error for command 'read sector'   Error Level: Informational
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Sense Key: aborted command
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Vendor 'Gen-ATA ' error code: 0x3
gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0):
        Error for command 'read sector'   Error Level: Informational
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Sense Key: aborted command
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Vendor 'Gen-ATA ' error code: 0x3
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: abort request, target=0 lun=0
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: abort device, target=0 lun=0
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: reset target, target=0 lun=0
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: reset bus, target=0 lun=0
scsi: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0 (ata0):
        timeout: early timeout, target=0 lun=0
gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0):
        Error for command 'read sector'   Error Level: Informational
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Sense Key: aborted command
gda: [ID 107833 kern.notice]           Vendor 'Gen-ATA ' error code: 0x3
gda: [ID 107833 kern.warning] WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,2/ide@0/cmdk@0,0 (Disk0):

Workaround: Choose one of the following workarounds:

To avoid performance degradation, workaround 3 or workaround 4 should only be used temporarily until workaround 5 can be used .

• Workaround 1: Enable AHCI in BIOS if available on the system. Enabling this setting requires a reinstall of the Solaris OS.

• Workaround 2: Install Solaris on a disk on a controller which does not use the ata driver.

• Workaround 3: Disable MP in the BIOS setup so that a single processor is active.

• Workaround 4: Disable MP in Solaris so that a single processor is active. Perform the following steps from the Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) menu:

  1. Type e to edit your selected Solaris entry.

  2. Navigate to the line that begins with kernel.

  3. Type e to switch to the GRUB edit mode.

  4. Append -kd to the line.

  5. Press Enter to accept the change.

  6. Type b to boot the selected Solaris entry.

  7. At the kbmd prompt, type the following command:

     use_mp/W 0 :c

  8. If you are performing a system boot, proceed to Step 10, otherwise install the Solaris 10 10/08 software.

  9. At the end of the installation, reboot the system. Repeat steps 1 through 7.

  10. To make this change permanent so that the above steps do not need to be repeated for subsequent boots, do the following:

      Become the super user, when the system boot is completed.

  11. Open the /etc/system file.

  12. Add the following line:

      set use_mp = 0

• Workaround 5: Disable microcode update. Type the following command:

  # mv /platform/i86pc/ucode /platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled

  Microcode update can be invoked manually after the system is up:

  # ucodeadm -u /platform/i86pc/ucode.disabled/intel-ucode.txt