[comp.sys.sgi] Problem with 4D-25S ?

johnson@EULER.JSC.NASA.GOV (Stan Johnson) (03/26/91)

We have an IRIS 4D-25S set up as a fileserver (running 3.3.1).  We have an
intermittent problem reading tar files from cartridge tapes: the message
"WARNING: dma_map: address C055FFFF not word aligned" will display over
and over until the machine is reset.  This is not at all repeatable, and
our field service person was not able to find any problems after running
all the diagnostics.  It seems like a memory problem to me; any ideas on
how I could force the error so that our field service person can fix 
whatever needs to be fixed?  Another, possibly unrelated, error that I
haven't been able to track down is the message "NOTICE: plp/audio:
unexpected interrupt", which appears every few days on the console.  Any
help on this will be greatly appreciated..

-Stan Johnson
 NASA / Johnson Space Center
 Houston, Texas  77058
 (713) 483-4692
 johnson@euler.jsc.nasa.gov

sweetmr@SCT60A.SUNYCT.EDU (michael sweet) (03/27/91)

> We have an IRIS 4D-25S set up as a fileserver (running 3.3.1).  We have an
> intermittent problem reading tar files from cartridge tapes: the message
> "WARNING: dma_map: address C055FFFF not word aligned" will display over
> ...

We had the same problem on our 4D/20 when we first added another SCSI disk.
Turned out that the SCSI cable we bought was a Mac SCSI cable; these cables
only carry enough of the standard SCSI signals as are necessary for the Mac
SCSI port (not that much!), and don't work with true SCSI ports...  Another
possibility is that the terminating resistor packs on your '25 are bad.  Why
a SCSI bus problem causes the DMA error is beyond me! (or maybe the error
isn't accurate!)

 -Mike
 

olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) (03/27/91)

In <9103261558.AA19295@euler.jsc.nasa.gov> johnson@EULER.JSC.NASA.GOV (Stan Johnson) writes:

| We have an IRIS 4D-25S set up as a fileserver (running 3.3.1).  We have an
| intermittent problem reading tar files from cartridge tapes: the message
| "WARNING: dma_map: address C055FFFF not word aligned" will display over
| and over until the machine is reset.  This is not at all repeatable, and
| our field service person was not able to find any problems after running
| all the diagnostics.

This happens when you have cabling problems sometimes, so that a device
sees a count incorrectly.  It can also happen if you have an unsupported
SCSI device that disconnects at any point in the transfer, rather than on
a word (4 byte boundary).  Due to a bug in the error handling code, it is
never recovered from.  It DOES recover from it in 4.0.

In any case, it is extremely unlikely to be a memory problem.  Check out
your scsi devices, cables, and termination.

| Another, possibly unrelated, error that I
| haven't been able to track down is the message "NOTICE: plp/audio:
| unexpected interrupt",

Sounds like you are using a parallel printer.  If the driver isn't expecting
an interrupt, you get this message.  It includes audio, because the same
chip and interrupt are used for both audio and the parallel port.
We do see this rarely on some of our print servers, and it usually is just
a less than optimal cable.  Nothing to worry about, unless it happens really
frequently.
--

	Dave Olson

Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.