[LinuxBIOS] I give up -- time for a new plan.

[Eric Poulsen]

Richard Smith wrote:

> On 5/9/06, Eric Poulsen <eric at 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.