Re: Via EPIA

I'm having some trouble getting SDRAM to work on this mother board.

I have a 256mb DIMM From the data sheet

its 32M x 8bit ( 8M x 8-bit X 4 Bank) CL3 PC133

I just can't get it to boot it crashed at the following

Initializing PCI devices...
PCI devices initialized
sizeram: returning 0x3fc00 KB
totalram: 64M
Initializing CPU #0
Enabling cache...
Setting fixed MTRRs(0-88) type: UC

I have the vt8601 Datasheet from VIA's website and i've changed what i think needed changing. Does any one have the BIOS porting guide for this chipset?

Is it possible to redo the ram setup code using SPD data?

any help or code examples would be most welcome.

Cheers
  Russell

Via EPIA - Success

[Russell Gower]

Ok,
I now have my Via EPIA 5000 booting into Linux :-)

The Image from cwLinux wouldn't work for me.

After a couple of days and countless chip swaps I've got it working with
SDRAM detection using the code in borthbridge/via/vt8601/raminitspd.inc

I've tested it with 2 diffrent DIMMS one 128mb and one 256m. Its actually
reporting 9mb less, I think 8mb of that is SMA memory set aside for the
framebuffer ( which i'm not using ) the other 1mb i'm not sure but would
this be the memory from 0x00000000 -> 0x000a0000?

It's passed 7 passes of MEMTEST so i think it's pretty stable, for me at
least.

Any way it works for me so I can now concentrate on the rest of my
application, a car based MP3 player.

How do I submit my modification, assuming you wan't them of course!

Russell

Via EPIA - Success

[Ronald G. Minnich]

On Fri, 7 Feb 2003, Russell Gower wrote:
> How do I submit my modification, assuming you wan't them of course!

send me output of diff -u. Talk to Andrew Ip about what might have gone 
wrong. He is the current expert on that board.

ron

Via EPIA - Success

[Andrew Ip]

Sounds great.  Just send the patch to the list.  I can put that in the cvs.
Thanks.  Good work.

-Andrew

On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:29:11AM -0000, Russell Gower wrote:
> Ok,
> I now have my Via EPIA 5000 booting into Linux :-)
>
> The Image from cwLinux wouldn't work for me.
>
> After a couple of days and countless chip swaps I've got it working with
> SDRAM detection using the code in borthbridge/via/vt8601/raminitspd.inc
>
> I've tested it with 2 diffrent DIMMS one 128mb and one 256m. Its actually
> reporting 9mb less, I think 8mb of that is SMA memory set aside for the
> framebuffer ( which i'm not using ) the other 1mb i'm not sure but would
> this be the memory from 0x00000000 -> 0x000a0000?
>
> It's passed 7 passes of MEMTEST so i think it's pretty stable, for me at
> least.
>
> Any way it works for me so I can now concentrate on the rest of my
> application, a car based MP3 player.
>
> How do I submit my modification, assuming you wan't them of course!
>
> Russell
>
> Linuxbios mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios

Via EPIA - Success (o/t comments, hopes)

[John van Vlaaderen]

Hi, I have been talking to vendors about this board, including the 12v 
power supply people (car batt == ups).

Global economy being what it is, and the need for a cheap business box 
extreme, I am wondering out loud if VIA might be a political target for 
the VgaBIOS ??

Also, lightweight cheapo boards only make sense if they support legacy 
keyboards and mice for emerging markets, and much of the USA.  If memory 
serves correctly, the board only wants USB.

For clusters they make sense w/ serial, gigabit ethernet, DoC and lots 
of memory and nothing else.

On that topic, politically  again, if the global VGA standard might be 
extended to XVGA, 800X600.  I will be talking to UNESCO soon, they have 
60,000,000 USD to blow on our toys.  Maybe they can create a unified 
technology effort to bootstrap the global economy, LinuxBIOS at the core 
of it.

I am going try to sway VIA your way through (via??) their distributors.

Please send comments -- if you have any -- or suggestions for other 
boards/makers that I should target w/ good advice (or political arm 
twisting or whatever)

On behalf of the plane Earth I think I can say, great work.

John

On Friday, February 7, 2003, at 10:03 AM, Andrew Ip wrote:
> Sounds great.  Just send the patch to the list.  I can put that in the 
> cvs.
> Thanks.  Good work.
>
> -Andrew
>
> On Fri, Feb 07, 2003 at 11:29:11AM -0000, Russell Gower wrote:
> > Ok,
> > I now have my Via EPIA 5000 booting into Linux :-)
> >
> > The Image from cwLinux wouldn't work for me.
> >
> > After a couple of days and countless chip swaps I've got it working 
> > with
> > SDRAM detection using the code in borthbridge/via/vt8601/raminitspd.inc
> >
> > I've tested it with 2 diffrent DIMMS one 128mb and one 256m. Its 
> > actually
> > reporting 9mb less, I think 8mb of that is SMA memory set aside for the
> > framebuffer ( which i'm not using ) the other 1mb i'm not sure but 
> > would
> > this be the memory from 0x00000000 -> 0x000a0000?
> >
> > It's passed 7 passes of MEMTEST so i think it's pretty stable, for me 
> > at
> > least.
> >
> > Any way it works for me so I can now concentrate on the rest of my
> > application, a car based MP3 player.
> >
> > How do I submit my modification, assuming you wan't them of course!
> >
> > Russell
> >
> > Linuxbios mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
>
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