Slow boot and very slow DVD access when using os2ahci

[losepete]

I installed the v1.31 ahci package and rebooted.

After several attempts at booting - a good clue there is a problem somewhere - I finally got to a working Desktop.

I did notice with all the above (re)boots that booting took noticably longer than when not using the os2ahci.add driver - over a minute longer.

I have read that AHCI is faster for drive access than IDE. That does not seem to apply here, if anything drive access is slower.

I also see a problem with accessing my SATA DVD Burner. Having loaded the disc and waited for the drive LED to stop flashing I clicked on the DVD Burner icon to open the drive window. The system "froze" for over 30 seconds - the Desktop was totally un-responsive, mouse pointer moved but nothing could be selected - and then the drive window opened to show the contents. If I Right Mouse Button on the drive it takes a very similar amount of time for the popup menu to appear - and the system is "frozen" while waiting.

I have attached 2 logs:-

BOOT_dadzone-20131009-ahci-1.31.log is the boot log to try and ascertain if there is a problem during boot.

RUNTIME_dadzone-20131009-ahci-1.31.log is a runtime log to try and ascertain why it takes so long to access my SATA DVD Burner.

[losepete]

Any news on this issue?

[David Azarewicz]

There are no problems, anomalies, freezes, or unusual delays shown in the logs you provided. From the logs, everything looks like it is working normally.

In OS/2, AHCI will take longer to boot, but can run more efficiently after booted. This is especially true on certain types of older AHCI hardware. Also, having multiple adapters with multiple unconnected ports (as in your case) makes it even worse. There is nothing wrong, that is just the way it is.

In the boot log, there are 2 transactions that the OS has issued to your DVD hardware that the DVD hardware has failed to respond to. These transactions are issued with a 10 second timeout specified, meaning that they are expected to possibly timeout. This added 20 seconds to your boot. This could possibly be because there is a disk in the drive. The boot will always take longer if there are CD/DVD(s) in the drive(s). It is the OS doing this, not the driver.

In the runtime log, there are no errors, timeouts, delays, or anomalies of any kind.

At this point there is nothing I can do since I do not have anything like you described on my hardware and I don't see anything wrong in the logs you provided. I am currently looking into some other unrelated issues with ATAPI devices. Perhaps if I end up changing something for those issues, it may help your situation, too.

[losepete]

I can put up with the 60+ second extra boot time - seems that 20 seconds of that is the os failing to communicate with the DVDWriter; no there was not a disc in the DVDWriter on any boot - but the overly long delay in being able to access my DVDWriter and the fact that the system is frozen while waiting is not acceptable.

As my system boots faster, has no DVDWriter access delays and accesses the hard drives faster when NOT using os2ahci I guess that is the route for this hardware.

[David Azarewicz]

I have multiple AHCI capable systems with AHCI connected disks, and AHCI connected DVD and Blu-Ray drives, and everything works just fine. I cannot reproduce anything like what you report. I also cannot see anything wrong with the OS2AHCI driver in any of the data you provided. The OS2AHCI driver appears to be working correctly on your hardware, also.

The only thing I can think of is there are reports on the Linux forums about some DVD drives that work fine in EIDE mode but don't work properly when operated in AHCI mode. I don't know if that is your problem, but the symptoms fit.

Given that I cannot reproduce any problems on my hardware, and I don't see any problems in the data you provided, there is nothing more I can do with this ticket.