PCI guru consultant needed

[Richard Smith]

Bitworks needs help.

We currently Intel Celeron 440bx design that has ATI M1 video chips on 
board.  Off and on for the past 6 months or so I've been working to make 
them work under Linuxbios, ADLO, or testbios, etc.

I've have finally managed to show that the problem is hardware related 
to our design.  As I can make a PCI eval card from ATI work on a Asus 
P2B motherboard and linuxbios using X to softboot the card.  The same 
setup on our board fails to work.

Somehow the SDRAM inside the M1 chip is failing to initialize properly. 
  The video output has all the right VSYNC and HSYNC for the 800x600 
mode I setup but a black screen and a large square block for the cursor. 
  If I exit X and try to write/read a value into video ram I get garbage 
back.  This works on the Ausu P2B.

Things with our customer have gone critical. I've got to have something 
working by the end of October.

So I'm in search of people who really understand PCI and video stuff and 
are available for consulting either on site here or I can come to thier 
site.

Also any one have on know of place I can go to get a PCI complience test 
done?  Or hardware I can rent?  We reciently borrowed a HP 16500B logic 
analyzer with a Future+Systems passive PCI hookup but it dosn't do 
complience testing.  We need an additional card for that.

[Bari Ari]

Richard Smith wrote:
> Somehow the SDRAM inside the M1 chip is failing to initialize properly. 
>  The video output has all the right VSYNC and HSYNC for the 800x600 mode 
> I setup but a black screen and a large square block for the cursor.  If 
> I exit X and try to write/read a value into video ram I get garbage 
> back.  This works on the Ausu P2B.

Are you testing this on more than one proto?

Can you repeatedly read and write successfully to registers in the M1? 
Is sounds like you are having some success, since you have some display 
output.

Is there a PCI slot on the board or at least PCI test headers for all 
signals?

How do you know that the SDRAM is good inside the M1? I don't have the 
M1 data sheet, but I bet the SDRAM and the GPU are separate die mounted 
in the same package.

-Bari

[Richard Smith]

Bari Ari wrote:
> Are you testing this on more than one proto?

No. Unfortunaly I don't have but one proto.
> Can you repeatedly read and write successfully to registers in the M1? 
> Is sounds like you are having some success, since you have some display 
> output.

Yes.  From a software point.  Things appear to be ok.  I've also enabled 
all the IO output from testbios.  I can take testbios and run it on a 
different motherboard and with the PCI eval card I have and get a signon 
screen.  If I then duplicate this test on our board I get almost an 
identical log up until the point it starts testing 0xA0000 which fails 
and the logs then take different paths.

I've looked at the differences betwen the logs and they seem proper.

I've can also boot general software's bios on this board and the ATI 
card eval card does not work.  BUT I have other PCI video cards that DO 
work. Except they come up in monochrome mode.

I have an assiliant, nvidia, S3, matrox and a no name, PCI video cards 
that boot using general software's bios. Although they come up in 
monochrome mode.

But I also have 2 ATI (M1 and Rage pro), and a different S3 card that do 
not work.
> Is there a PCI slot on the board or at least PCI test headers for all 
> signals?

There is a single PCI slot on the board for testing.
> How do you know that the SDRAM is good inside the M1? I don't have the 
> M1 data sheet, but I bet the SDRAM and the GPU are separate die mounted 
> in the same package.

We have replaced the M1 chips on this boad once already.

I can plug the PCI eval card into any other PC and it works fine.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Richard Smith  [041001 18:47]:
> Somehow the SDRAM inside the M1 chip is failing to initialize properly. 
>  The video output has all the right VSYNC and HSYNC for the 800x600 
> mode I setup but a black screen and a large square block for the cursor. 
>  If I exit X and try to write/read a value into video ram I get garbage 
> back.  This works on the Ausu P2B.

Wild guess: 
 - Timing issues?
 - missing bridge initialization?

Stefan

[Adam Sulmicki]

have you tried    [e-mail] ? It has people who works on designing
PCI buses as their day to day job.

I think you send email to [e-mail] with subject
'subscribe'.

On Fri, 1 Oct 2004, Richard Smith wrote:
> Bitworks needs help.
>
> We currently Intel Celeron 440bx design that has ATI M1 video chips on
> board.  Off and on for the past 6 months or so I've been working to make
> them work under Linuxbios, ADLO, or testbios, etc.
>
> I've have finally managed to show that the problem is hardware related
> to our design.  As I can make a PCI eval card from ATI work on a Asus
> P2B motherboard and linuxbios using X to softboot the card.  The same
> setup on our board fails to work.
>
> Somehow the SDRAM inside the M1 chip is failing to initialize properly.
>   The video output has all the right VSYNC and HSYNC for the 800x600
> mode I setup but a black screen and a large square block for the cursor.
>   If I exit X and try to write/read a value into video ram I get garbage
> back.  This works on the Ausu P2B.
>
> Things with our customer have gone critical. I've got to have something
> working by the end of October.
>
> So I'm in search of people who really understand PCI and video stuff and
> are available for consulting either on site here or I can come to thier
> site.
>
> Also any one have on know of place I can go to get a PCI complience test
> done?  Or hardware I can rent?  We reciently borrowed a HP 16500B logic
> analyzer with a Future+Systems passive PCI hookup but it dosn't do
> complience testing.  We need an additional card for that.