freebsd 4.10 ATA problem

[Roger 'Rocky' Vetterberg]

Hi list.

I recently installed FreeBSD 4.9 on a Dell Poweredge 1500SC with dual 
PIII 1.3GHz, a SCSI drive for the OS and some IDE's for storage. I 
experienced crashes that seemed to be related to the IDE controller so 
I cvsuped to latest 4.10, but the problem is still there.

Here are the last lines from the log/console:

Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: ad0: READ command timeout tag=0 serv=0 
- resetting
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: ata0: resetting devices .. ad0: DMA 
limited to UDMA33, non-ATA66 cable or device
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: ad1: ATA identify retries exceeded
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: ad1: timeout waiting for cmd=c6 s=00 e=00
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: ad1: timeout waiting for cmd=ef s=00 e=00
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo last message repeated 4 times
Aug 10 02:46:54 rambo /kernel: done
Aug 10 02:58:07 rambo /kernel: ad0: READ command timeout tag=0 serv=0 
- resetting
Aug 10 02:58:07 rambo /kernel: ata0: resetting devices ..
Aug 10 02:58:07 rambo /kernel: ad1: removed from configuration
Aug 10 02:58:07 rambo /kernel: ad0: DMA limited to UDMA33, non-ATA66 
cable or device
Aug 10 02:58:07 rambo /kernel: done

After this, the box freezes, it totally locks up. Its not a panic, it 
just stops responding. Only way to recover is hard reboot. This seems 
to happen randomly within 1-5 days uptime, and its not related to 
heavy loads. I have tried to really put some stress on the IDE drives 
to force a lockup, but so far they have managed to survive all the 
torture tests Ive been able to think of. Still, the box has so far 
never managed more then 5 days without a crash.
Do I have a f*cked up IDE controller on this motherboard or is there 
some setting I can try?

Im gratefull for any and all suggestions.

--
R