using achi instead of ata_piix with Gloria x64

[dhdurgee]

I have an Intel DG41TY motherboard, which has ICH7, and I am finding that Gloria is using ata_piix with my SATA II drive as opposed to ahci. I would prefer to use ahci if possible, as it includes NCQ support that is not included in ata_pii, but I don't know how to have ahci support used instead of the ata_piix that is presently being used. Looking at /var/log/udev I see:

KERNEL[1247496186.612794] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2 (pci)
UDEV_LOG=3
ACTION=add
DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2
SUBSYSTEM=pci
DRIVER=ata_piix
PCI_CLASS=10180
PCI_ID=8086:27C0
PCI_SUBSYS_ID=8086:D612
PCI_SLOT_NAME=0000:00:1f.2
MODALIAS=pci:v00008086d000027C0sv00008086sd0000D612bc01sc01i80
SEQNUM=1196

and later in the log I see:

UDEV [1247496186.627491] add /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2 (pci)
UDEV_LOG=3
ACTION=add
DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2
SUBSYSTEM=pci
DRIVER=ata_piix
PCI_CLASS=10180
PCI_ID=8086:27C0
PCI_SUBSYS_ID=8086:D612
PCI_SLOT_NAME=0000:00:1f.2
MODALIAS=pci:v00008086d000027C0sv00008086sd0000D612bc01sc01i80
SEQNUM=1196

I am a newbie at this point, as it has been a long time since I last looked at linux, and don't know what I would need to add or change in terms of a configuration file to have the ahci support used instead of the ata_piix support. Could someone please point me to the appropriate configuration file and documentation on what I need to add or change?

Dave

[Husse]

Hmmm
My laptop has ICH7 and one controller uses ata_piix the other ahci and I suspect that the DVD burner uses ata_piix
I don't have a simple answer I'm afraid
First off check your BIOS there may be settings for this
Second it is possible to do some advanced tinkering to get this right, but I suspect you end up recompiling the kernel

[dhdurgee]

A bit of searching suggests I create a file /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf containing the line "alias scsi_hostadapter ahci" and then issue the command "dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-xxxxx" where "xxxxx" is my kernel version. This is supposed to work for Debian derived systems, which if I understand correctly includes mint. I have not tried this yet, as it seems a bit more involved than I was hoping, but it seems in line with your post.

Dave

[Husse]

Yes - I found a variety of that
And if it is for debian based it should work although the file is not there by default

[dhdurgee]

I gave it a try without change in behavior, so I must have missed something. The example I saw noted that there might need to be a digit added to the scsi_hostadapter, perhaps this is one of those cases. But what digit is needed? Looking at my syslog I see the following around the SATA drive in question:

ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: PCI INT B -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: MAP [ P0 P2 P1 P3 ]
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.2: setting latency timer to 64
scsi2 : ata_piix
scsi3 : ata_piix
ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf0e0 ctl 0xf0d0 bmdma 0xf0a0 irq 19
ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xf0c0 ctl 0xf0b0 bmdma 0xf0a8 irq 19
ata3.00: ATA-6: Areca ARC-5020-VOL#00, 0100 AX, max UDMA/133
ata3.00: 1052732928 sectors, multi 16: LBA48 NCQ (depth 0/32)
ata3.00: configured for UDMA/133
scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA Areca ARC-5020 0100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 1052732928 512-byte hardware sectors: (538 GB/501 GiB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 1052732928 512-byte hardware sectors: (538 GB/501 GiB)
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 < sda5 sda6 sda7 sda8 sda9 sda10 sda11 >
sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

Am I to take from this that I should try scsi_adapter2 instead of scsi_adapter in my local.conf file?

Dave

[Husse]

Am I to take from this that I should try scsi_adapter2 instead of scsi_adapter

Seems reasonable but I have never tried this and my desktops have nforce4 with other modules so it is not really possible for me to experiment (I could always try things like that on one of my many installed Linuxes)

[dhdurgee]

Unfortunately that didn't do the trick either, so now I am wondering if I am overlooking something in my BIOS settings. I only have five drive configuration options available to me:

Native
Legacy - SATA primary, PATA secondary
Legacy - PATA primary, SATA secondary
Legacy - SATA only
Legacy - PATA only

I originally had it set in Legacy - SATA primary, PATA secondary and have since switched to Natve, but even with this and setting the alias I am still getting ata_piix loading for the drive. I am going to check with Intel and see if I am missing something. If not, then I guess I need to see if there is a way to get the additional features I need, NCQ and port multiplexing, enabled with the ata_piix driver. Without port multiplexing I cannot access the additional RAID volume and without NCQ performance suffers.

Dave

[Husse]

This topic got a bit long - I only thought it was the eSATA that did not work
You could be bold and blacklist ata_piix (in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf) and add ahci to /etc/modules and see what happens
If it goes haywire you can use the live CD to revoke it
I don't give any detailed advice here partly because I think you know what to do and partly not to tempt someone without proper knowledge to experiment
I can't tell you at all what will happen - ahci will be loaded if boot succeeds but will it be used?

[dhdurgee]

It might be interesting to try simply to see what happened, but my guess is that I might get the SATA drive supported but lose access to my PATA attached CD-RW and DVD-RW drives. I have posted a query on the Intel support forums about my BIOS options, but I have received no response as yet. I think I will give it day or so before I try anything new on the linux side of the equation. I am hoping I am missing something, but it is possible that my BIOS lacks support for ahci mode. In that case I am unsure if it will be possible to force it into operation.

I might decide to take a bit of a tack and see if I can get pick up a copy of Windows XP and see if I can get it working with ahci support. If I can't do it with XP it probably can't be done.

Dave

[Husse]

Well there is no native support for achi in Win XP and possibly also Vista - you need to use some extra driver at boot, but it is possible to add it to an installed system

[dhdurgee]

That was my understanding as well. Given I am able to install both Mint and OS/2 - eCS without the ahci driver I imagine I will be able to do so with WinXP as well and then add the drivers to see if they will work for me or not. If it works then I will hold out hope for getting it to work with Mint as well. If not, I will have to see if there is any possibility of getting the advanced features working with the ata_piix drivers.

Dave