Test SeaBIOS AHCI support

[Kevin O'Connor]

Hi,

One of the qemu developers added AHCI support to SeaBIOS.  This
support has been tested on qemu, but not on real hardware.  It would
be great if folks with coreboot supported hardware could also test it.
(Unfortunately, my coreboot board doesn't have AHCI.)

To test, grab the latest seabios git (see: http://seabios.org/Download
), edit src/config.h and enable CONFIG_AHCI.  (Be sure to also set the
other coreboot settings - see: http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS .)

Thanks,
-Kevin

[Scott Duplichan]

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Kevin O'Connor
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 09:09 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: [coreboot] Test SeaBIOS AHCI support

Hi,

One of the qemu developers added AHCI support to SeaBIOS.  This
support has been tested on qemu, but not on real hardware.  It would
be great if folks with coreboot supported hardware could also test it.
(Unfortunately, my coreboot board doesn't have AHCI.)

To test, grab the latest seabios git (see: http://seabios.org/Download
), edit src/config.h and enable CONFIG_AHCI.  (Be sure to also set the
other coreboot settings - see: http://www.coreboot.org/SeaBIOS .)

Thanks,
-Kevin

[Kevin O'Connor]

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 10:21:32AM -0600, Scott Duplichan wrote:
> Hello Kevin,
>
> Thanks a lot. Is this native 16-bit AHCI support that doesn't rely on an option rom?

It's native AHCI DMA support.  (No option rom needed.)

-Kevin

[Scott Duplichan]

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 10:21:32AM -0600, Scott Duplichan wrote:
> Hello Kevin,
>
> Thanks a lot. Is this native 16-bit AHCI support that doesn't rely on an option rom?

]It's native AHCI DMA support.  (No option rom needed.)

]-Kevin

That is great to hear. Some HP notebooks have this capability, but
I know of no others. This setup should allow cutting seconds from
Windows boot time because Windows spends lots of time on IDE drives
that are not installed. If all IDE devices are disabled and only
AHCI visible, Windows can boot a lot faster.

I made an initial test using coreboot+seabios on an AMD RS780/SB700
system. So far it is not detecting the drives. But this test required
hacking in code to disable the SB700 IDE device and switch the SATA
device from IDE mode to AHCI mode. I have not yet checked to see if
that code is even working correctly. I will continue debugging this
in a day or two.

Thanks,
Scott

[Rudolf Marek]

Hi,

I think SATA port 4 and 5 may have some issues on SB700 (not detecting drive in 
linux and seabios)

Dunno why. I did not have time to try AHCI mode yet. But I think we can drop the 
wait for non BSY in coreboot beacuse the payload/linux should do that.

(the sata_drive_detect)

Thanks,
Rudolf

[Scott Duplichan]

]Hi,
]
]I think SATA port 4 and 5 may have some issues on SB700 (not detecting drive in 
]linux and seabios)
]
]Dunno why. I did not have time to try AHCI mode yet. But I think we can drop the 
]wait for non BSY in coreboot beacuse the payload/linux should do that.
]
](the sata_drive_detect)
]
]Thanks,
]Rudolf

It might have to do with the SB700 combined mode options.
Look at 'combined mode configurations' in
http://developer.amd.com/assets/43366_sb7xx_bdg_pub_1.00.pdf

Thanks,
Scott

[Rudolf Marek]

Hi

Thanks for the hint, I have seen that but it looks OK. I suspect my BootSwitch 
(SATA/PATA channel select) might play some role... Not sure yet. I think 
coreboot does not use combined mode at all. It sets all as IDE, and linux 
switches the combined mode in quirks.c (quirk_amd_ide_mode)

Thanks
Rudolf