ALI15X3 IDE DMA problem still current?

[Topi Junkkari <topi.junkkari@iki.fi>]

Hi all,

I have a Netra X1 currently running Debian Sarge and I am planning a 
clean reinstall with Etch r1 soon. (I prefer a reinstall rather than 
dist-upgrade for reasons that are not relevant to this question.) The 
machine has been running for several years with the ide=nodma option 
set, as there used to be some problems with IDE DMA on the ALI15X3 
controller that resides on board the Netra X1.

Now that I am going to reinstall the system in any case, I was wondering 
if the IDE DMA problem has been solved and if I could drop the ide=nodma 
option. Unfortunately I cannot run any tests to determine this myself as 
the machine is a production server and I need to minimise downtime. So 
if anyone has anything to say about enabling IDE DMA on a Netra X1 with 
the most recent Debian release, please post to the list.

Best regards,
Topi