timeout on siside0

[Roy Bixler <rcbixler%nyx.net@localhost>]

Hi:

I am new to this list but not to NetBSD.  I tried NetBSD long ago when
it was at v. 1.6.  I have come back to it in part because I have some
old hardware and prefer a lighter OS and in part because I do not like
the recent trend in the Linux world towards replacing the init system
with something like systemd.

I came back to NetBSD with the 6.x series and my first few
installations of it went flawlessly.  However, I came upon a
configuration where I could not install it.  It is a dated PC with a
SiS chipset.  What happens is that the kernel boots but I get timeout
errors as soon as it tries to mount the filesystem for the installer.
I don't think that this is a hardware problem per se, since I was able
to install Debian wheezy and OpenBSD v. 5.5 on this system.  I also
successully used the FreeBSD v. 10 LiveCD.  This gives me hope that I
can also fix the problem in NetBSD.

I wrote down what I think are the relevant boot messages:

siside0 at pci0 dev 2 function 5
siside0: Silicon Integrated Systems 96X UDMA6746 IDE controller (rev. 0x00)
siside0: primary channel interrupting at ioapic0 pin 14
atabus0 at siside0 channel 0
siside0: seondary channel interrupting at ioapic0 pin 15
atabus1 at siside0 channel 1

and then:

siside0:0:1:0: lost interrupt
     type atapi tc_bcount: 2048 tc_skip: 0
siside0: bus master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x61
siside0: device timeout, c_hcount=2048, c_skip=0

I also saved the boot messages for the FreeBSD and OpenBSD
installations, in case those are helpful.  (The FreeBSD boot messages
in particular seem to be detailed.)  If there are more NetBSD boot
messages I should write down, then I could do that too.  Does anyone
have ideas on steps I could take to get the installer to boot or to
debug this problem?

-- 
Roy Bixler <rcbixler%nyx.net@localhost>
"The fundamental principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the
sole test of the validity of any idea is experiment."
-- Richard P. Feynman