I have several IBM x series servers at work and one of my machines  
drives seem to be acting up a bit. I get a major loss in system time  
and performance.

My dmesg tailed..

hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x61
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
hdb: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
Losing too many ticks!
TSC cannot be used as a timesource.
Possible reasons for this are:
   You're running with Speedstep,
   You don't have DMA enabled for your hard disk (see hdparm),
   Incorrect TSC synchronization on an SMP system (see dmesg).
Falling back to a sane timesource now.
hda: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hda: DMA timeout error
hda: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }

ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hda: DMA disabled
ide0: reset: success
spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.


This machine is our continues build environment that builds out  
several instances of our app and is under extreme load at times. I am  
wondering if this is a sign of a bad drive or if this has something  
to do with overload.

I am able to enable dma after the fact with hdparm.  I do not run any  
special hdparm option at boot. The only thing I do is build the ide /  
drive options in to my kernel.

Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks,
Brett
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