[coreboot] GeodeLX RAM initialisation issue

Nathan Williams nathan at traverse.com.au
Thu Nov 26 08:09:59 CET 2009


Marc Jones wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Nathan Williams <nathan at traverse.com.au> wrote:
>> Marc Jones wrote:
>>> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 12:27 AM, Nathan Williams
>>> <nathan at traverse.com.au> wrote:
>>>> I managed to get the commercial BIOS to boot on my board and diffed it with coreboot:
>>>>
>>>> http://coreboot.pastebin.com/m39b22c21
>>>>
>>>> The only differences I can see are related to interrupts, which shouldn't matter in relation to
>>>> my RAM problems.
>>>>
>>>> I have also run a memtest86 with the commercial BIOS (from bootable CDROM) and as a payload in coreboot.
>>>> The commercial BIOS didn't have any errors, but my coreboot did.  So the hardware can't be too bad.
>>> That looks like just the southbridge cs5536 target. The memory
>>> differences would be in the processor geodelx target. Can you send
>>> those results?
>>>
>>> Marc
>>>
>> I did some new MSR dumps.
>>
>> Diff:
>> ./msrtool -t geodelx -t cs5536 -d amd_ref_bios
>> http://coreboot.pastebin.com/m5e487f87
>>
>> AMD NAS reference BIOS:
>> ./msrtool -t geodelx -t cs5536 -l -s amd_ref_bios
>> http://coreboot.pastebin.com/madc04ac
>>
>> My Coreboot:
>> ./msrtool -t geodelx -t cs5536 -l -s nathan_bios
>> http://coreboot.pastebin.com/m7f35d855
>>
>>
>> The diffs I did today show some differences with GLCP_DELAY_CONTROLS.
>> Last time I added some code to force it to match the commercial BIOS
>> GLCP_DELAY_CONTROLS MSR, but it didn't seem to make any difference.
>>
>> I also tested all the SODIMMS I have here (about 10) with the commercial BIOS.
>> Each time I did a msrtool diff to one I saved on disk.
>>
>> Most are 333MHz, but 2 are 400MHz.  There weren't any changes to the MSRs.
>>
>> Could there be an issue with the initialisation sequence that reading MSRs
>> after booting won't show?  Also, quite a few MSRs aren't defined in geodelx.c yet.
>> Are there any obvious ones that should be added in?
>>
> 
> --- AMD NAS reference BIOS
> +++ Nathan's coreboot v3
> #
> # GLCP_DELAY_CONTROLS
> #
> -0x4c00000f 0x83f1_00aa_5696_0404
> +0x4c00000f 0x8271_005a_ 5696_ 0404
> 
> It looks like coreboot and the ref bios detect different dimm
> configuration. This timing setup could be part of the instability (I
> don't think it explains the reset problem). Look at the code here:
> SetDelayControl(void) and anywhere else that GLCP_DELAY_CONTROLS gets
> set to see what might be happening. Make sure that MTest is disabled
> in the ref bios setup. This setting is based on the number of devices
> (load) there is on the dimm.
> 
> I didn't realize that so few registers were in the msr tool for
> geodelx. You should add these:
> 20000018h R/W Refresh and SDRAM Program (MC_CF07_DATA)
> 10071007_00000040h Page 227
> 20000019h R/W Timing and Mode Program (MC_CF8F_DATA) 18000008_287337A3h Page 229
> 2000001Ah R/W Feature Enables (MC_CF1017_DATA) 00000000_11080001h Page 231
> 2000001Bh RO Performance Counters (MC_CFPERF_CNT1) 00000000_00000000h Page 232
> 2000001Ch R/W Counter and CAS Control (MC_PERCNT2) 00000000_00FF00FFh Page 233
> 2000001Dh R/W Clocking and Debug (MC_CFCLK_DBUG) 00000000_00001300h Page 233
> 
> 4C00000Fh R/W GLCP I/O Delay
> Controls(GLCP_DELAY_CONTROLS)00000000_00000000h Page 549
> 4C000014h R/W GLCP System Reset and PLL Control (GLCP_SYS_RSTPLL)
> Bootstrap specific Page 554
> 
> Marc
> 

I've now added the MSRs and uploaded to pastebin:

AMD NAS:
http://coreboot.pastebin.com/m53aed60b

My coreboot:
http://coreboot.pastebin.com/md23bc6a

./msrtool -d AMD_NAS:
http://coreboot.pastebin.com/m77663de5

Tomorrow I'll try the tests on the NAS hardware, instead of our own motherboards
just in case there are some hidden hardware issues.

Regards,
Nathan




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