Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[erik quanstrom]

> > i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
> > working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
> > mp table.)
>
> No, my hack was for the Jetway NC92-330 motherboard, not
> the Intel board.  The Jetway gets the MP table only
> slightly wrong, so it's easy to fix up.

sorry.  my mistake it was somebody else that i helped get that
particular board mostly working.  iirc, the reason this board
hangs is because of the ich bug.  (ide interface.)  there's no mp
table and one other serious irq annoyance.  but i believe this
motherboard can boot with 9atom, if very s-l-o-w-l-y.  also
no ahci.

you can get it working, but do yourself a favor, if you're buying,
consider an upgrade.  this motherboard does have a proper
mp table, has 1 pata channel and supports ahci on all 6 ports.
2 pcie slots, too.  no sound.
https://www.acmemicro.com/estore/merchant.ihtml?pid=7205&step=4
(i don't know a think about this website. it was the first place
i found the motherboard.)

- erik

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[Steve Simon]

I  can vouch for the Supermicro X7SLA-H card, with erik's
help it is working absolutely solidly, its my main server and
this email comes from said machine.

	hugo% uptime
	hugo up 52 days, 19:54:04

Not up to Andrey's numbers but I didn't buy it that long ago.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[erik quanstrom]

> What could it be doing for that long? I wonder if you have a first
> example of the oft-rumored ACPI virus :-)

we've seen hangups of 1s for usb emulation.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[erik quanstrom]

On Wed Dec 30 21:47:08 EST 2009, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> > i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
> > working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
> > mp table.)
>
> It was easier to buy something that actually worked. As for that
> Intel piece of shit, I'm going to blend it during the transition
> to 2010.

i think it would be more valuable to explain exactly what's
not working and point to some of the workarounds, if they exist.

- erik

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

> i think it would be more valuable to explain exactly what's
> not working and point to some of the workarounds, if they exist.

What's not working is the ACPI component of the BIOS.  The P9 boot
fails very early on (right after E820 I think).  FreeBSD runs, but
something in the ACPI code wakes up every couple of seconds and leaps
into the ACPI BIOS code.  While it's in there it locks out all
hardware interrupts for 2-5 seconds, which makes the box pretty much
unusable for anything close to interactive work.

As to workarounds, I worked around to the computer store and bought a
non-Intel motherboard that actually implements Intel's ACPI spec
somewhat correctly.  I'm not going to spend time I could be billing
out to try to fix a completely braindead motherboard that I can
replace for what I earn in an hour or two.  Shitty hardware like this
deserves to die, not get fixed.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[ron minnich]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)
<lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:
> What's not working is the ACPI component of the BIOS.  The P9 boot
> fails very early on (right after E820 I think).  FreeBSD runs, but
> something in the ACPI code wakes up every couple of seconds and leaps
> into the ACPI BIOS code.  While it's in there it locks out all
> hardware interrupts for 2-5 seconds, which makes the box pretty much
> unusable for anything close to interactive work.

This is many times code doing a bug fix for hardware. It is most
likely in the System Management Mode (SMM) code, not in the ACPI BIOS
per se. Intel has told me they count on magic happening in ACPI/SMM to
fix up hardware bugs (for which they frequently refuse to release any
documentation so the OS can do the workaround instead). But 2-5
seconds? WOW. That's gotta be a record.

What could it be doing for that long? I wonder if you have a first
example of the oft-rumored ACPI virus :-)

>
> As to workarounds, I worked around to the computer store and bought a
> non-Intel motherboard that actually implements Intel's ACPI spec
> somewhat correctly.  I'm not going to spend time I could be billing
> out to try to fix a completely braindead motherboard that I can
> replace for what I earn in an hour or two.  Shitty hardware like this
> deserves to die, not get fixed.

I assume we can count on getting a video of whatever you do to it?

ron

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[erik quanstrom]

On Wed Dec 30 19:18:18 EST 2009, lyndon@orthanc.ca wrote:
> The Wiki's supported hardware list is getting quite moldy.
>
> I've created a new page for known broken hardware, working on
> the theory that people pissed off are more likely to document
> breakage than the blissful are their success.
>
> It's linked from the supported hardware page.

i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
mp table.)

- erik

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

> i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
> working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
> mp table.)

It was easier to buy something that actually worked. As for that
Intel piece of shit, I'm going to blend it during the transition
to 2010.

--lyndon

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[David Leimbach]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 418 bytes --]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) <
lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote:

> > i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
> > working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
> > mp table.)
>
> It was easier to buy something that actually worked. As for that
> Intel piece of shit, I'm going to blend it during the transition
> to 2010.
>
> --lyndon
>
>
> Blendtech?

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 729 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Broken Hardware List

[Richard Miller]

> i believe that richard miller has the intel D945GCLF2
> working via some careful hacking.  (i.e. a hand-coded
> mp table.)

No, my hack was for the Jetway NC92-330 motherboard, not
the Intel board.  The Jetway gets the MP table only
slightly wrong, so it's easy to fix up.

[9fans] Broken Hardware List

[Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX)]

The Wiki's supported hardware list is getting quite moldy.

I've created a new page for known broken hardware, working on
the theory that people pissed off are more likely to document
breakage than the blissful are their success.

It's linked from the supported hardware page.

--lyndon