Re: [PROBLEM] Hw problem or software bug? DMA: Out of SW-IOMMU space....

From: Robert Hancock
Date: Sun Dec 07 2008 - 13:47:27 EST


Giangiacomo Mariotti wrote:
I'm running Linux 2.6.27.8.(PS. Today I've sent another e-mail about a
problem with my new Intel I7 920, but it doesn't seem related except
for the fact that with 2.6.26.8 neither of them seem to occur.)
I just read this through dmesg :
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.830078] DMA: Out of
SW-IOMMU space for 16384 bytes at device 0000:00:1f.2
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.830167] ata1.00: exception
Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.830175] ata1.00: cmd
35/00:00:af:e5:54/00:04:08:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 524288 out
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.830176] res
50/00:00:ae:e5:54/00:00:08:00:00/e0 Emask 0x40 (internal error)
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.830180] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897407] ata1.00: configured
for UDMA/133
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897420] ata1: EH complete
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897542] DMA: Out of
SW-IOMMU space for 16384 bytes at device 0000:00:1f.2
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897574] ata1.00: exception
Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897580] ata1.00: cmd
35/00:00:af:e5:54/00:04:08:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 524288 out
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897581] res
50/00:00:af:6d:70/00:00:74:00:00/e0 Emask 0x40 (internal error)
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.897584] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921416] ata1.00: configured
for UDMA/133
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921435] ata1: EH complete
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921552] DMA: Out of
SW-IOMMU space for 16384 bytes at device 0000:00:1f.2
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921586] ata1.00: exception
Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921592] ata1.00: cmd
35/00:00:af:e5:54/00:04:08:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 524288 out
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921593] res
50/00:00:af:6d:70/00:00:74:00:00/e0 Emask 0x40 (internal error)
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.921597] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.945397] ata1.00: configured
for UDMA/133
Dec 7 03:33:49 debian-hell kernel: [57102.945417] ata1: EH complete

Seems like you have lots of disks, it could be you just have too much IO in flight at the same time for the size of the IOMMU area. You might be able to avoid that by increasing the SW-IOMMU size.

However, your system should be AHCI capable, you should try to switch the SATA controller into that mode in the BIOS (possibly labelled RAID mode or something). Then it shouldn't need to use bounce buffers for disk access in the first place (plus give you NCQ support).

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