From: Daniel Mierswa on
Some people have deeper problems with the Asus M2NPV-VM mainboard
(rather the chipset of the mainboard).
A google for "Asus M2NPV-VM apic" shows that. I'm one of them,
desperately searching a way to fix that, using that board with an AMD
Athlon64 X2 3800+ Dual Core Processor.
It wouldn't boot because of APIC and ACPI errors. There were "kind of"
workarounds by passing acpi=off/noirq and noapic to the kernel which
resulted in sometimes bad internal clock. I for myself had the same
problem and due to the error with my internal system clock all
applications and drivers gone mad, including
sound,video,graphics,usb,etc.. I googled around and saw the following:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25
Actually that was a patch created for the 2.6.18-rc4 kernel. I tried
several kernels all with the same results. Some of them are
2.6.18-mm3, 2.6.19-rc2, 2.6.17, 2.6.18, 2.6.18.1, some gentoo patched
sources and what not. All will hang after the io scheduler gets loaded,
passing acpi=off/noirq to the kernel will workaround that one. Then it
will boot on and finally reach the ochi_hcd driver which will not load
because of shared IRQ problems, passing nousb to the kernel will
workaround that. It will boot more and come to the dhcp client, where it
fails because of an Interrupt error.
Some people passing noapic acpi=off/noirq to the kernel got later sound
problems, they fixed that by passing "snd-hda-intel model=3stack
position_fix=1" which worked around that interrupt problem. So with the
patch provided on http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25 it all works out.
The internal system clock works just fine, the drivers load
all fine, no need to patch the sound,graphics or anything at all. No
need for kernel parameters either. Here's the patch again, created by
diff -ur on the current 2.6.18.1 kernel:

--- io_apic.c.orig 2006-10-18 08:02:50.000000000 +0200
+++ io_apic.c 2006-10-18 07:40:48.000000000 +0200
@@ -337,12 +337,12 @@
nvidia_hpet_detected = 0;
acpi_table_parse(ACPI_HPET,
nvidia_hpet_check);
- if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
+/* if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
acpi_skip_timer_override = 1;
printk(KERN_INFO "Nvidia board "
"detected. Ignoring ACPI "
"timer override.\n");
- }
+ }*/
#endif
/* RED-PEN skip them on mptables too? */
return;

Is there a small chance by getting that fixed in next kernel versions?
Greets impulze

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo(a)vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
From: Len Brown on
On Wednesday 18 October 2006 02:44, Daniel Mierswa wrote:
> Some people have deeper problems with the Asus M2NPV-VM mainboard
> (rather the chipset of the mainboard).
> A google for "Asus M2NPV-VM apic" shows that. I'm one of them,
> desperately searching a way to fix that, using that board with an AMD
> Athlon64 X2 3800+ Dual Core Processor.
> It wouldn't boot because of APIC and ACPI errors. There were "kind of"
> workarounds by passing acpi=off/noirq and noapic to the kernel which
> resulted in sometimes bad internal clock. I for myself had the same
> problem and due to the error with my internal system clock all
> applications and drivers gone mad, including
> sound,video,graphics,usb,etc.. I googled around and saw the following:
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25
> Actually that was a patch created for the 2.6.18-rc4 kernel. I tried
> several kernels all with the same results. Some of them are
> 2.6.18-mm3, 2.6.19-rc2, 2.6.17, 2.6.18, 2.6.18.1, some gentoo patched
> sources and what not. All will hang after the io scheduler gets loaded,
> passing acpi=off/noirq to the kernel will workaround that one. Then it
> will boot on and finally reach the ochi_hcd driver which will not load
> because of shared IRQ problems, passing nousb to the kernel will
> workaround that. It will boot more and come to the dhcp client, where it
> fails because of an Interrupt error.
> Some people passing noapic acpi=off/noirq to the kernel got later sound
> problems, they fixed that by passing "snd-hda-intel model=3stack
> position_fix=1" which worked around that interrupt problem. So with the
> patch provided on http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25 it all works out.
> The internal system clock works just fine, the drivers load
> all fine, no need to patch the sound,graphics or anything at all. No
> need for kernel parameters either. Here's the patch again, created by
> diff -ur on the current 2.6.18.1 kernel:
>
> --- io_apic.c.orig 2006-10-18 08:02:50.000000000 +0200
> +++ io_apic.c 2006-10-18 07:40:48.000000000 +0200
> @@ -337,12 +337,12 @@
> nvidia_hpet_detected = 0;
> acpi_table_parse(ACPI_HPET,
> nvidia_hpet_check);
> - if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
> +/* if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
> acpi_skip_timer_override = 1;
> printk(KERN_INFO "Nvidia board "
> "detected. Ignoring ACPI "
> "timer override.\n");
> - }
> + }*/
> #endif

I recall quite clearly that Nvidia told us that that acpi_skip_timer_override
was necessary in NFORCE2 days. I don't remember the HPET qualification to
that statement -- I guess that came later.
Unfortunately, my NFORCE2 board is dead, so I can't really test this out directly.

Perhaps checking for PCI_VENDOR_ID_NVIDIA is too broad and the workaround
is counter-productive on their newer NVIDIA chip-sets?

-Len

ps.
One (other) problem with this code is that it checks for an HPET table,
but doesn't check that the kernel has HPET support enabled.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo(a)vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
From: Robert Hancock on
Len Brown wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 October 2006 02:44, Daniel Mierswa wrote:
>> Some people have deeper problems with the Asus M2NPV-VM mainboard
>> (rather the chipset of the mainboard).
>> A google for "Asus M2NPV-VM apic" shows that. I'm one of them,
>> desperately searching a way to fix that, using that board with an AMD
>> Athlon64 X2 3800+ Dual Core Processor.
>> It wouldn't boot because of APIC and ACPI errors. There were "kind of"
>> workarounds by passing acpi=off/noirq and noapic to the kernel which
>> resulted in sometimes bad internal clock. I for myself had the same
>> problem and due to the error with my internal system clock all
>> applications and drivers gone mad, including
>> sound,video,graphics,usb,etc.. I googled around and saw the following:
>> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25
>> Actually that was a patch created for the 2.6.18-rc4 kernel. I tried
>> several kernels all with the same results. Some of them are
>> 2.6.18-mm3, 2.6.19-rc2, 2.6.17, 2.6.18, 2.6.18.1, some gentoo patched
>> sources and what not. All will hang after the io scheduler gets loaded,
>> passing acpi=off/noirq to the kernel will workaround that one. Then it
>> will boot on and finally reach the ochi_hcd driver which will not load
>> because of shared IRQ problems, passing nousb to the kernel will
>> workaround that. It will boot more and come to the dhcp client, where it
>> fails because of an Interrupt error.
>> Some people passing noapic acpi=off/noirq to the kernel got later sound
>> problems, they fixed that by passing "snd-hda-intel model=3stack
>> position_fix=1" which worked around that interrupt problem. So with the
>> patch provided on http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25 it all works out.
>> The internal system clock works just fine, the drivers load
>> all fine, no need to patch the sound,graphics or anything at all. No
>> need for kernel parameters either. Here's the patch again, created by
>> diff -ur on the current 2.6.18.1 kernel:
>>
>> --- io_apic.c.orig 2006-10-18 08:02:50.000000000 +0200
>> +++ io_apic.c 2006-10-18 07:40:48.000000000 +0200
>> @@ -337,12 +337,12 @@
>> nvidia_hpet_detected = 0;
>> acpi_table_parse(ACPI_HPET,
>> nvidia_hpet_check);
>> - if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
>> +/* if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
>> acpi_skip_timer_override = 1;
>> printk(KERN_INFO "Nvidia board "
>> "detected. Ignoring ACPI "
>> "timer override.\n");
>> - }
>> + }*/
>> #endif
>
> I recall quite clearly that Nvidia told us that that acpi_skip_timer_override
> was necessary in NFORCE2 days. I don't remember the HPET qualification to
> that statement -- I guess that came later.
> Unfortunately, my NFORCE2 board is dead, so I can't really test this out directly.
>
> Perhaps checking for PCI_VENDOR_ID_NVIDIA is too broad and the workaround
> is counter-productive on their newer NVIDIA chip-sets?
>
> -Len
>
> ps.
> One (other) problem with this code is that it checks for an HPET table,
> but doesn't check that the kernel has HPET support enabled.

I think the intent of the HPET check was that the quirk wasn't needed on
chipsets new enough to have an HPET. Unfortunately, even if the chipset
has an HPET it isn't always enabled by the BIOS.

Clearly this quirk is too broad, it should likely be only triggering on
known chipset revisions with the bad timer overrides and not on all
NVIDIA chipsets. What I am wondering is how these boards manage to work
fine in Windows, (presumably) without any such chipset-specific tweaks..

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr(a)nospamshaw.ca
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo(a)vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
From: Andi Kleen on

> I think the intent of the HPET check was that the quirk wasn't needed on
> chipsets new enough to have an HPET.

Yes.

> Unfortunately, even if the chipset
> has an HPET it isn't always enabled by the BIOS.

It was supposed to be correct in the NF5 reference BIOS, but somehow Asus
must have managed to break the reference BIOS.

> Clearly this quirk is too broad, it should likely be only triggering on
> known chipset revisions with the bad timer overrides and not on all
> NVIDIA chipsets.

That was impossible at the point where it was implemented.

> What I am wondering is how these boards manage to work
> fine in Windows, (presumably) without any such chipset-specific tweaks..

They use the RTC interrupt for timing instead AFAIK so a broken interrupt 0
won't affect them. That's probably why we have so many problems with
interrupt 0 on cheap systems.

I tried it once to use in Linux too BTW, but it unfortunately cannot generate
any of the standard Linux timer frequencies.

-Andi
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo(a)vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
From: Andi Kleen on
On Wednesday 18 October 2006 09:30, Len Brown wrote:
> On Wednesday 18 October 2006 02:44, Daniel Mierswa wrote:
> > Some people have deeper problems with the Asus M2NPV-VM mainboard
> > (rather the chipset of the mainboard).
> > A google for "Asus M2NPV-VM apic" shows that. I'm one of them,
> > desperately searching a way to fix that, using that board with an AMD
> > Athlon64 X2 3800+ Dual Core Processor.
> > It wouldn't boot because of APIC and ACPI errors. There were "kind of"
> > workarounds by passing acpi=off/noirq and noapic to the kernel which
> > resulted in sometimes bad internal clock. I for myself had the same
> > problem and due to the error with my internal system clock all
> > applications and drivers gone mad, including
> > sound,video,graphics,usb,etc.. I googled around and saw the following:
> > http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25
> > Actually that was a patch created for the 2.6.18-rc4 kernel. I tried
> > several kernels all with the same results. Some of them are
> > 2.6.18-mm3, 2.6.19-rc2, 2.6.17, 2.6.18, 2.6.18.1, some gentoo patched
> > sources and what not. All will hang after the io scheduler gets loaded,
> > passing acpi=off/noirq to the kernel will workaround that one. Then it
> > will boot on and finally reach the ochi_hcd driver which will not load
> > because of shared IRQ problems, passing nousb to the kernel will
> > workaround that. It will boot more and come to the dhcp client, where it
> > fails because of an Interrupt error.
> > Some people passing noapic acpi=off/noirq to the kernel got later sound
> > problems, they fixed that by passing "snd-hda-intel model=3stack
> > position_fix=1" which worked around that interrupt problem. So with the
> > patch provided on http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/13/25 it all works out.
> > The internal system clock works just fine, the drivers load
> > all fine, no need to patch the sound,graphics or anything at all. No
> > need for kernel parameters either. Here's the patch again, created by
> > diff -ur on the current 2.6.18.1 kernel:
> >
> > --- io_apic.c.orig 2006-10-18 08:02:50.000000000 +0200
> > +++ io_apic.c 2006-10-18 07:40:48.000000000 +0200
> > @@ -337,12 +337,12 @@
> > nvidia_hpet_detected = 0;
> > acpi_table_parse(ACPI_HPET,
> > nvidia_hpet_check);
> > - if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
> > +/* if (nvidia_hpet_detected == 0) {
> > acpi_skip_timer_override = 1;
> > printk(KERN_INFO "Nvidia board "
> > "detected. Ignoring ACPI "
> > "timer override.\n");
> > - }
> > + }*/
> > #endif
>
> I recall quite clearly that Nvidia told us that that acpi_skip_timer_override
> was necessary in NFORCE2 days. I don't remember the HPET qualification to
> that statement -- I guess that came later.
> Unfortunately, my NFORCE2 board is dead, so I can't really test this out directly.
>
> Perhaps checking for PCI_VENDOR_ID_NVIDIA is too broad and the workaround
> is counter-productive on their newer NVIDIA chip-sets?

I suppose Asus just "forgot" again to enable the HPET in their NF5 BIOS.
In general they seem to hate ACPI tables -- near all their mcfg tables are broken
too. Maybe we need to define the ASUS subset of ACPI (just kidding) @)

Anyways, I suppose we'll need a list of all unique PCI IDs for NF3,NF4 to key this
workaround on. Andy do you have a complete list?

>ps.
>One (other) problem with this code is that it checks for an HPET table,
>but doesn't check that the kernel has HPET support enabled.

Keying on PCI-IDs would fix that too.

-Andi
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo(a)vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/