Created attachment 711769 [details]
lspci -vvv - wotan.walhalla

Since the transition to kernel 3.8.x my PATA DVD-RW drive TSST TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182D, SB07 is behaving erratically when recording DVD-R's (CD-R's and CD-RW's do record OK). First of all, regardless of presence of media, when booting the machine the following messages appear on /var/log/messages:

Mar 18 02:24:02 wotan kernel: [    3.308122] ata9.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182D, SB07, max UDMA/33
Mar 18 02:24:02 wotan kernel: [    3.314127] ata9.00: configured for UDMA/33
Mar 18 02:24:05 wotan kernel: [   24.073841] ata9.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
Mar 18 02:24:05 wotan kernel: [   24.073883] ata9.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:60:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 dma 96 in
Mar 18 02:24:05 wotan kernel: [   24.073891] ata9.00: status: { DRDY }
Mar 18 02:24:10 wotan kernel: [   29.119971] ata9: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Mar 18 02:24:15 wotan kernel: [   34.119207] ata9: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
Mar 18 02:24:15 wotan kernel: [   34.119224] ata9: soft resetting link
Mar 18 02:24:15 wotan kernel: [   34.327644] ata9.00: configured for UDMA/33
Mar 18 02:24:15 wotan kernel: [   34.338706] ata9: EH complete
Mar 18 02:24:46 wotan kernel: [   64.302542] ata9.00: limiting speed to UDMA/25:PIO4
Mar 18 02:24:46 wotan kernel: [   64.302554] ata9.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
Mar 18 02:24:46 wotan kernel: [   64.302718] ata9.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:80:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 dma 16512 in
Mar 18 02:24:46 wotan kernel: [   64.302933] ata9.00: status: { DRDY }
Mar 18 02:24:51 wotan kernel: [   69.348716] ata9: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Mar 18 02:24:56 wotan kernel: [   74.343909] ata9: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
Mar 18 02:24:56 wotan kernel: [   74.343925] ata9: soft resetting link
Mar 18 02:24:56 wotan kernel: [   74.505588] ata9.00: configured for UDMA/25
Mar 18 02:24:56 wotan kernel: [   74.506741] ata9: EH complete
Mar 18 02:25:04 wotan kernel: [   82.276537] ata9.00: limiting speed to PIO4
Mar 18 02:25:04 wotan kernel: [   82.276549] ata9.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
Mar 18 02:25:04 wotan kernel: [   82.276713] ata9.00: cmd a0/01:00:00:20:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 dma 16416 in
Mar 18 02:25:04 wotan kernel: [   82.276928] ata9.00: status: { DRDY }
Mar 18 02:25:09 wotan kernel: [   87.322697] ata9: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Mar 18 02:25:14 wotan kernel: [   92.317952] ata9: device not ready (errno=-16), forcing hardreset
Mar 18 02:25:14 wotan kernel: [   92.317968] ata9: soft resetting link
Mar 18 02:25:14 wotan kernel: [   92.478360] ata9.00: configured for PIO4
Mar 18 02:25:14 wotan kernel: [   92.478698] ata9: EH complete

So the drive initially gets attached at UDMA/33 and then its speed falls down to PIO4. The first time I've seen this I've tried to exchange the cables - I'm using 80-wire cables for this drive. Nothing happened.

I've also updated the drive's firmware to the latest version (from SB06 to SB07) with the very same results.

Searching through my log files, I've seen that regressions started after Linux Kernel 3.8 was introduced. Kernel 3.7.9 shows the following for this device:

Feb 28 16:08:31 wotan kernel: [    3.203002] ata9: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0xdc00 ctl 0xd880 bmdma 0xd400 irq 45
Feb 28 16:08:31 wotan kernel: [    3.358181] ata9.00: ATAPI: TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182D, SB06, max UDMA/33
Feb 28 16:08:31 wotan kernel: [    3.364118] ata9.00: configured for UDMA/33
Mar  1 08:46:54 wotan kernel: [32075.274946] ata9.00: ACPI cmd ef/03:0c:00:00:00:a0 (SET FEATURES) filtered out
Mar  1 08:46:54 wotan kernel: [32075.274948] ata9.00: ACPI cmd ef/03:46:00:00:00:a0 (SET FEATURES) filtered out
Mar  1 08:46:54 wotan kernel: [32075.280939] ata9.00: configured for UDMA/33

With Linux kernels up to the last release of 3.7 series, I had absolutely no problems recording DVD's on this drive. However, since from the update to 3.8 series, DVD's are recorded with extremely low speeds (from 0.4x to 1.3x) when media clearly supports at least 16x recording. Hardware buffer utilization is low too, often going down to 5%. 

$ wodim dev=/dev/sr0 -v some-dvd-image.iso 
wodim: No write mode specified.
wodim: Assuming -tao mode.
wodim: Future versions of wodim may have different drive dependent defaults.
TOC Type: 1 = CD-ROM
wodim: Operation not permitted. Warning: Cannot raise RLIMIT_MEMLOCK limits.
scsidev:/dev/sr0'              
devname:'/dev/sr0'
scsibus: -2 target: -2 lun: -2
Linux sg driver version: 3.5.27
Wodim version: 1.1.11
SCSI buffer size: 64512
Device type    : Removable CD-ROM                                                      
Version        : 5 
Response Format: 2
Capabilities   :
Vendor_info    : 'TSSTcorp'
Identification : 'CD/DVDW SH-S182D'                             
Revision       : 'SB07'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD-R/DVD-RW.                        
Current: 0x0011 (DVD-R sequential recording)                                 
Profile: 0x0015 (DVD-R/DL sequential recording)    
Profile: 0x0016 (DVD-R/DL layer jump recording)
Profile: 0x002B (DVD+R/DL) 
Profile: 0x001B (DVD+R) 
Profile: 0x001A (DVD+RW) 
Profile: 0x0014 (DVD-RW sequential recording) 
Profile: 0x0013 (DVD-RW restricted overwrite) 
Profile: 0x0012 (DVD-RAM) 
Profile: 0x0011 (DVD-R sequential recording) (current)
Profile: 0x0010 (DVD-ROM) 
Profile: 0x000A (CD-RW) 
Profile: 0x0009 (CD-R) 
Profile: 0x0008 (CD-ROM) 
Profile: 0x0002 (Removable disk) 
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd).
Driver flags   : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE 
Supported modes: PACKET SAO
Drive buf size : 1048576 = 1024 KB
Beginning DMA speed test. Set CDR_NODMATEST environment variable if device
communication breaks or freezes immediately after that.
FIFO size      : 4194304 = 4096 KB
Track 01: data  2277 MB        
Total size:     2616 MB (259:10.33) = 1166275 sectors
Lout start:     2616 MB (259:12/25) = 1166275 sectors
Current Secsize: 2048
HINT: use dvd+rw-mediainfo from dvd+rw-tools for information extraction.
Blocks total: 2298496 Blocks current: 2298496 Blocks remaining: 1132221
Speed set to 22160 KB/s
Starting to write CD/DVD at speed  17.0 in real unknown mode for single session.
Last chance to quit, starting real write in    0 seconds. Operation starts.
Waiting for reader process to fill input buffer ... input buffer ready.
Performing OPC...
Starting new track at sector: 0
Track 01: 1356 of 2277 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf  35%]   0.5x.

Track 01: 1357 of 2277 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf  19%]   0.5x.

This particular tentative failed at last with the message 

wodim: faio_wait_on_buffer for writer timed out.
Track 01: 1358 of 2277 MB written (fifo  75%) [buf 100%]   0.0x.
Errno: 5 (Input/output error), write_g1 scsi sendcmd: no error
CDB:  2A 00 00 0A 9C 03 00 00 1F 00
status: 0x2 (CHECK CONDITION)
Sense Bytes: 70 00 02 00 00 00 00 0A 00 00 00 00 30 05 00 00
Sense Key: 0x2 Not Ready, Segment 0
Sense Code: 0x30 Qual 0x05 (cannot write medium - incompatible format) Fru 0x0
Sense flags: Blk 0 (not valid) 
cmd finished after 0.004s timeout 40s

write track data: error after 1423972352 bytes
wodim: A write error occured.
wodim: Please properly read the error message above.
Writing  time: 2150.193s
Average write speed   0.8x.
Min drive buffer fill was 3%
Total of 46 possible drive buffer underruns predicted.

While the problem is happening, there are absolutely no error messages on /var/log/messages - error messages regarding this drive appear only when the machine boots. I've recorded this very media on this very drive previously.

lspci -vvv is attached to this bug report.