[CentOS] Areca RAID controller on latest CentOS 7 (1708 i.e. RHEL 7.4) kernel 3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64

Is anyone running any Areca RAID controllers with the latest CentOS 7 kernel, 3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64?  We recently updated (from 3.10.0-514.26.2.el7.x86_64), and we’ve started having lots of problems.  To add to the confusion, there’s also a hardware problem (either with the controller or the backplane most likely) that we’re in the process of analyzing.  Regardless, we have an ARC1883i, and with the older kernel the system is stable, but with the new kernel it locks up within 1-12 hours of boot, with errors in /var/log/messages that start with things like
kernel: arcmsr0: abort device command of scsi id = 0 lun = 0
(that is indeed the RAID scsi device) and within a few minutes of those also things like
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: INFO: task xfsaild/dm-9:913 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: xfsaild/dm-9    D ffff88103eaa2000     0   913      2 0x00000080
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: ffff881033f67d48 0000000000000046 ffff88102f7c4f10 ffff881033f67fd8
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: ffff881033f67fd8 ffff881033f67fd8 ffff88102f7c4f10 ffff88103ada5300
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: 0000000000000000 ffff88102f7c4f10 ffff88103afe4528 ffff88103eaa2000
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: Call Trace:
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff816a94e9>] schedule+0x29/0x70
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04d1d16>] _xfs_log_force+0x1c6/0x2c0 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff810c4810>] ? wake_up_state+0x20/0x20
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04ddb9c>] ? xfsaild+0x16c/0x6f0 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04d1e3c>] xfs_log_force+0x2c/0x70 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04dda30>] ? xfs_trans_ail_cursor_first+0x90/0x90 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04ddb9c>] xfsaild+0x16c/0x6f0 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffffc04dda30>] ? xfs_trans_ail_cursor_first+0x90/0x90 [xfs]
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff810b098f>] kthread+0xcf/0xe0
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff810b08c0>] ? insert_kthread_work+0x40/0x40
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff816b4f58>] ret_from_fork+0x58/0x90
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: [<ffffffff810b08c0>] ? insert_kthread_work+0x40/0x40
Oct 19 23:06:57 radon kernel: INFO: task nfsd:1604 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
Eventually the system locks up completely.

Has anyone seen anything like this with these controllers and the latest kernel, or have any ideas of what to look for?

						thanks,
						Noam