Re: [LinuxBIOS] Current Status of DFI P2XBL (440bx w/ w83977ew)

[roger]

I've got the P2BXL board running using Uwe's tyan/s1846.  Partial
problem with using more then two banks of DRAM on this DFI P2BXL board.
It's now running up until the point of elfboot.c as with the s1832/s1846
status.  Below documents the bugs I've traced but provide no patches or
solutions codewise. :-/

I've also found, 2 of the 3 SDRAM sticks I have, will only successfully
make it to "booting..." (just prior to elfboot.c), the other stick of
ram seems to always fail during verify/test.

So, one DRAM in DIMM BANK 0.  Most times will get to "booting..." using
Uwe's tyan/s1846 with this board.  (I've further trouble shooted it to
probably cheap sdram modules... as my Mushkin sticks from my tyan S1832
seems just fine maybe.)

I've found the major hang with the asus/p2b and found the problem lies
within the asus/p2b/auto.c.  I've removed lines & added lines similar to
tyan/s1846/auto.c, but I think this really gets down to an anomoly with
the ordering of the #includes!  BUT.  Both profiles will generate a 0xE7
during RAM Test/Verify.. guessing during the Test, but it's too fast to
notice at what point.  On the tyan/s1846/auto.c profile, there will be a
*blip* of an 0xE7 on the post card and then 0x80 when it gets to
"booting..." stage (just prior to elfboot.c). Then hang of course as
we've already documented in the past because elfboot.c (RAM related
we're guessing.)

On the asus/p2b/auto.c, when it gets to random areas within RAM
Test/Verify (at the stage where the tyan/s1846/auto.c generates the
*blip* of 0xE7) the asus/p2b/auto.c build will hang with the 0xE7.  So..
this could be a good thing for the asus/p2b/auto.c configuration.  The
tyan/s1846/auto.c configuration is probably ignoring it.

(For those reading this, remember to replace the superio being used
within tyan/s1846/auto.c with the winbond shown in asus/p2b/auto.c.
There are currently 3 lines specifying the chip.  Following shows the
lines to modify and is not a patch but info/learning purposes only.

./src/mainboard/tyan/s1846/auto.c
-#include "superio/nsc/pc87309/pc87309_early_serial.c"
+#include "superio/winbond/w83977tf/w83977tf_early_serial.c"
-#define SERIAL_DEV PNP_DEV(0x2e, PC87309_SP1)
+#define SERIAL_DEV PNP_DEV(0x3f0, W83977TF_SP1)
-       pc87309_enable_serial(SERIAL_DEV, TTYS0_BASE);
+       w83977tf_enable_serial(SERIAL_DEV, TTYS0_BASE);

Sun May 13 14:08:33 PDT 2007