ad driver fails on 6.2, OK on 4.11 with Dell Latitude XPi P133ST

[Julian Stacey]

FreeBSD-mobile folks, Advice please for a Dell Latitude XPi P133ST :
Summary:	2 problems:
		  - ad driver fails on 6.2, OK on 4.11
		  - MBR problem ?

Laptop runs 4.11-RELEASE OK.  ( Installed a year back when I
	installed the MBR ready with space for FreeBSD-6 later).

I have this fdisk layout 
   F1   The data for partition 1 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
   4.11      start 63, size 1228689 (599 Meg), flag 80 (active)
             beg: cyl 0/ head 1/ sector 1; end: cyl 1023/ head 15/ sector 63
   F2   The data for partition 2 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
   6.2       start 1228752, size 1228689 (599 Meg), flag 80 (active)
             beg: cyl 195/ head 0/ sector 1; end: cyl 389/ head 14/ sector 63
   F3   The data for partition 3 is: sysid 165,(FreeBSD/NetBSD/386BSD)
   /usr1     start 2457441, size 5550111 (2710 Meg), flag 80 (active)
             beg: cyl 389/ head 15/ sector 1; end: cyl 775/ head 15/ sector 63

I NFS'd a 6.2 on, but on reboot, F2 just beeped; I suspected a
corrupt MBR, so to test, on 4.11 did :
	cd /usr/src; make install
	dd if=/dev/ad0c of=/dev/ad1c
	disklabel -B /dev/ad0s2
	reboot
F2 just beeped again. (same beep as for an invalid key)

Restored F2 back to 6.2 using NFS + AMD from another 6.2-RELEASE box &
	setenv DESTDIR /host/test/a
	grep "CFLAGS /etc/make.conf # "CFLAGS += -march=i586
	cd /usr/src;make clean all install # & install kernel etc
F2 still just beeped.
  
Booted 6.2-RELEASE floppies,
	6.2 kernel saw nothing on disc !  Offered ito install on whole disc.
I told it to to use same 1228689 for F1 & 1228689 for F2 as above,
( & it came up with 5552064 not 5550111 ) for F3. I accepted &
aloc'd F2 with / & var & usr & no swap, & F3 mainly for /usr1 with
300M swap at end).  I told it to set normal FreeSBD boot manager
etc, then it failed to write with:
	ad0 timeout READ_DMA timed out

Reboot ... No sign 6.2 has ever written disc.  F2 6.2 is intact
with data I'd expected wiped if 6.2 boot from floppy + newfs had succeeded.
	Is 6.2 ad driver too ambitious during install ? Needs more
	conservative sysctls to avoid failures to upgrade/ install ?

F1 4.11 is intact so I can easily run tests anyone might suggest.  I ran
	dd if=/dev/ad0 of=/dev/null
to see if any block errors. - None reported.
8007552+0 records 4099866624 bytes (1633191 bytes/sec)

About the only other thing I can think of is somehow within the floppy install
trying to add the equivalent of:
	/boot/loader.conf
		 hw.ata.ata_dma="0"
		 hw.ata.wc="0"
Though I dont believe that will solve the F2 beep.

Comments v. welcome !

dmesg extract:
  FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE #0: Fri Jan 21 17:21:22 GMT 2005
      root at perseus.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC
  Timecounter "i8254"  frequency 1193182 Hz
  CPU: Pentium/P54C (133.64-MHz 586-class CPU)
    Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0x52c  Stepping = 12
    Features=0x1bf<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,MCE,CX8>
  real memory  = 58720256 (57344K bytes)
  avail memory = 51699712 (50488K bytes)
  Preloaded elf kernel "kernel" at 0xc055c000.
  Intel Pentium detected, installing workaround for F00F bug
  pcib0: <Host to PCI bridge> on motherboard
  pci0: <PCI bus> on pcib0
  isab0: <PCI to ISA bridge (vendor=1066 device=8002)> at device 6.0 on pci0
  isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
  atapci0: <Generic PCI ATA controller> port 0xfe00-0xfe0f irq 14 at device 8.0 on pci0
  ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0
  ata1: at 0x170 irq 15 on atapci0
  orm0: <Option ROM> at iomem 0xc0000-0xcbfff on isa0
  pcic0: <Vadem 469> at port 0x3e0 iomem 0xd0000 on isa0
  pcic0: Polling mode
  ad0: 3909MB <TOSHIBA MK4006MAV> [7944/16/63] at ata0-master WDMA2

Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey. Munich Computer Consultant, BSD Unix C Linux. http://berklix.com
	Escape Microsoft 20th April 2007: http://berklix.com/free/talk/
		Ihr Rauch = mein allergischer Kopfschmerz.