Linux x86_64 frozen by heavy I/O on PE2950 with PERC 5/i

[Jeffrey Paul]

I seem to be having the same problem described in this thread from  
April of this year:
http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2008-April/035727.html

It can be reproduced by copying 500+ MB to/from the disk, causing the  
PERC to write data to the disk(s).  The system iowait spikes and  
becomes totally unresponsive for 5-20 seconds.  The system contains  
4GB of memory and is only very lightly loaded.

My kernel is a recent vanilla 2.6 with the xen 3.2.0 patches.

HOST ~ # megacli -AdpAllInfo -aALL | head -25

Adapter #0

= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
= 
========================================================================
                     Versions
                 ================
Product Name    : PERC 5/i Integrated
Serial No       : 12345
FW Package Build: 5.2.1-0067

                     Mfg. Data
                 ================
Mfg. Date       : 00/00/00
Rework Date	: 00/00/00
Revision No     : T_rySe

                 Image Versions In Flash:
                 ================
Boot Block Version : R.2.3.12
BIOS Version       : MT28-8
MPT Version        : MPTFW-00.10.61.00-IT
FW Version         : 1.03.40-0316
WebBIOS Version    : 1.03-04
Ctrl-R Version     : 1.04-019A

HOST ~ #

As you can see below, I have installed the latest 5.2.1-0067 firmware  
package as suggested in the thread referenced above.

HOST ~ # megacli -AdpFwFlash -f ./FW3165ii.rom -a0
Adapter 0: PERC 5/i Integrated
Vendor ID: 0x1028, Device ID: 0x0015

Package version on the controller: 5.2.1-0067
Package version of the image file: 5.2.1-0067
ERROR: The image file has older version than or same as that on the
        controller. The controller is not flashed.

HOST ~ #

My chassis has 6x 1TB 7200RPM SATA drives in it.  The first two are a  
1TB RAID1 and the last four are a 3TB RAID5.  The problem exists when  
using either logical drive.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for investigating or  
remediating this problem?

Cheers,
-jp

-- 
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Rev. Jeffrey Paul    -datavibe-     sneak at datavibe.net
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