Richard Smith wrote:
On 5/9/06, Eric Poulsen eric@zyxod.com wrote:
I've been researching the IDE/DMA/Linux issue that appears to plague the VT8235 southbridge. Seems there is _no_ reliable fix for this issue, which has been known to exhibit itself even in Windows if you're using the old/stock via drivers. Even if I do get the LB issues figured out, the DMA issue (as far as I can tell) is _unfixable_. Reliability is a huge thing for me (hence the use of Linux). The Epia board is bound for Ebay.
Wow thats a major bummer. Can you summarize up everthing you have found? If that is really true that its _unfixable_ then it probally needs to be up on the wiki. Save someone else the trouble.
Not "unfixable" per se, but no fix that I could find that actually works 100%. There a bunch of hoops you can jump through that mostly involve recompiling the kernel and turning off several features (or turning off DMA -- not an option). In the end, you'll only reduce the likelyhood of a crash.
What epia boards does this affect?
Well, there's a known issue with the VT8235 Southbridge under heavy DMA usage. typically: Heavy IDE usage + Network | PVR | Audio.
From
'http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=22&DCatType=3&DSCat=155', I gather that these boards have the problem:
VIA EPIA-MS10000E EPIA-M mainboards EPIA-MII mainboards EPIA-TC mainboard EPIA-PD mainboard VIA EPIA M mainboard VIA EPIA MII mainboard VIA EPIA SP mainboard VIA EPIA CL mainboard
Note that the "fix" is a new BIOS, which is useless to potential LB users. Also, the ML (my board) is not on there, but it has the EXACT same symptoms.
(mini-itx, preferrably), that has all the usual goodies (IDE,USB,VGA,serial, etc) that is known to work well with LinuxBios? Naturally, one without a VIA chipset?
Working well with LB is the kicker. You could join us on the GX1 quest. There are several GX1 boards out there. If you get one like Chris's with an external VGA chip then you won't have to mess with the VSA stuff. I think the GX1 is close to working good but it just need a few tweaks to get there.
I'll look into them ...