Robert wrote:
quoted text
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:55:18 -0400
> Ted Unangst <ted.unangst@gmail.com> wrote:
>> can be done about it, and 10 year old quirky PC hardware doesn't
>> attract a of interest...
> 
> As long as it's on [1] I hope it does?
> I guess I'm not the only one who uses a Pentium 4 (or older stuff) for
> firewalls and other systems, since they are very cheap to buy and
> replace, and are more than sufficient (speed) for a lot of tasks.
> 
> regards,
> Robert
> 
> [1] http://www.openbsd.org/i386.html

Well, as already stated, old hardware can be quirky, regardless of 
actual OS support of it...

I noticed that your wd0 is a really old 15 gig ATA clunker, while you 
also have access to a SATA controller on board with a modern disk attached.

The error you're experiencing suggests that either the old drive is 
failing, the cabling between the drive and the controller is faulty or 
the controller simply isn't that well supported in the first place (or 
at all working - there have been buggy IDE/ATA controllers out there).

(Or that, like Ted indicated, there are problems with the bios, pci 
controller, network i/f or with other hardware, or some sort of conflict 
in between. When I've seen that particular error myself it's been even 
money between a drive failure and some sort of hw conflict being the 
culprit.)

My first suggestion would be to get rid of the dusty old drive and get a 
SATA drive as the root volume, eliminating the ATA controller from the 
equation. Not only would that likely do wonders for your system's MTBF, 
there is a good chance it actually solves the problem too.


Regards,
/Benny

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