The new machine is a VIA. I will try again without dma.
Were you manually turning dma on? If not, this is not likely to be a case where your problem was same as the one I mentioned. I was forcing dma on a chipset not listed in the distributed /sys/src/9/pc/ sdata.c.
I will also add in the bloom partition, but I'm low on memory at the moment (256MB doesn't sound low to me, but I find the new venti can be a bit greedy if not constrained), so I'm not sure if that is actually worth doing.
It's optional, and it's not causing your problem, so I don't want to distract from the immediate issue, but you can kinda get the best of both worlds if memory is tight by starting with a bloom filter, then dropping it from your venti conf as the system ages toward less write- intensiveness.
I will read the venti man pages more slowly to understand better.
sources/contrib/steve/doc/Venti-rescue.pdf is a mildly-dated but excellent supplement to the manual for the task you're attempting, and discusses memory allotment between venti and fossil in an appendix, too.
-- Josh
