VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Jason Cribbins]

I was wondering if its possible to find someone to create a driver 
support for the Via VT8251 South Bridge chipset which appears to have 
been around for about a year now.  I am unable to get any form of Linux 
to see my HDs connected to that on board controller.  Although I have 
successfully used it in non-raid mode on FreeBSD.  I need this for 
fedora if possible.

Is something like this possible?  And if so would it cost anything?

Thanks
Jason Cribbins

Re: VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Vojtech Pavlik]

On Sun, Nov 20, 2005 at 09:52:28AM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:

> I was wondering if its possible to find someone to create a driver 
> support for the Via VT8251 South Bridge chipset which appears to have 
> been around for about a year now.  I am unable to get any form of Linux 
> to see my HDs connected to that on board controller.  Although I have 
> successfully used it in non-raid mode on FreeBSD.  I need this for 
> fedora if possible.
> 
> Is something like this possible?  And if so would it cost anything?
 
The vt8251 is supported for quite some time by the IDE driver and its
vt82cxxx.c chipset driver.

-- 
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs, SuSE CR

Re: VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Jason Cribbins]

Can you explain the situation in the following URL?
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=68455&STARTPAGE=1

Also as I try to install fedora it reports that it is unable to find any 
installed HDs.  I have found an OpenBSD patch that does get it to work 
there but nothing for Linux that works as of right now.
My BIOS has the controller set to SATA mode right now and its not 
visible.  Even if I set it to RAID mode or AHCI modes I get the same 
result using fedora core4 and what ever kernel comes bundled with their 
installer.

Vojtech Pavlik wrote:

>On Sun, Nov 20, 2005 at 09:52:28AM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I was wondering if its possible to find someone to create a driver 
>>support for the Via VT8251 South Bridge chipset which appears to have 
>>been around for about a year now.  I am unable to get any form of Linux 
>>to see my HDs connected to that on board controller.  Although I have 
>>successfully used it in non-raid mode on FreeBSD.  I need this for 
>>fedora if possible.
>>
>>Is something like this possible?  And if so would it cost anything?
>>    
>>
> 
>The vt8251 is supported for quite some time by the IDE driver and its
>vt82cxxx.c chipset driver.
>
>  
>

Re: VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Jeff Garzik]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 09:03:34PM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:
> Can you explain the situation in the following URL?
> http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=68455&STARTPAGE=1
> 
> Also as I try to install fedora it reports that it is unable to find any 
> installed HDs.  I have found an OpenBSD patch that does get it to work 
> there but nothing for Linux that works as of right now.
> My BIOS has the controller set to SATA mode right now and its not 
> visible.  Even if I set it to RAID mode or AHCI modes I get the same 
> result using fedora core4 and what ever kernel comes bundled with their 
> installer.

The AHCI driver certainly won't work without adding PCI IDs to it...

did you try that?

These threads seem to indicate that AHCI needs updating for VIA.

	Jeff

Re: VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Andrew Joyce]

Jeff Garzik <jgarzik <at> pobox.com> writes:

> 
> On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 09:03:34PM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:
> > Can you explain the situation in the following URL?
> > http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=68455
> > 
> > Also as I try to install fedora it reports that it is unable to find any 
> > installed HDs.  I have found an OpenBSD patch that does get it to work 
> > there but nothing for Linux that works as of right now.
> > My BIOS has the controller set to SATA mode right now and its not 
> > visible.  Even if I set it to RAID mode or AHCI modes I get the same 
> > result using fedora core4 and what ever kernel comes bundled with their 
> > installer.
> 
> The AHCI driver certainly won't work without adding PCI IDs to it...
> 
> did you try that?
> 
> These threads seem to indicate that AHCI needs updating for VIA.
> 
> 	Jeff 

I hate to spoil the suspense but I imagine you will meet with the same results
others have.  There have been a few posts to this list regarding the chipset and
so far no concrete ideas about what may be going on.  The following will patch
your ahci.c file to provide the correct PCI ID and, if my experience holds, the
chip will be recognized but communicating with the drives will timeout.

--- ahci.c      2005-11-21 21:52:38.000000000 -0500
+++ ahci.c      2005-11-21 21:52:41.000000000 -0500
@@ -277,6 +277,8 @@
          board_ahci }, /* ESB2 */
        { PCI_VENDOR_ID_INTEL, 0x27c6, PCI_ANY_ID, PCI_ANY_ID, 0, 0,
          board_ahci }, /* ICH7-M DH */
+       { PCI_VENDOR_ID_VIA, 0x3349, PCI_ANY_ID, PCI_ANY_ID, 0, 0,
+         board_ahci }, /* VT8251 */
        { }     /* terminate list */
 };

Best of luck and please post your results of adding this ID to the AHCI driver.

Andrew

Re: VIA VT8251 on Asus A8V-MV

[Vojtech Pavlik]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 09:03:34PM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:

> Can you explain the situation in the following URL?
> http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=68455&STARTPAGE=1
> 
> Also as I try to install fedora it reports that it is unable to find any 
> installed HDs.  I have found an OpenBSD patch that does get it to work 
> there but nothing for Linux that works as of right now.
> My BIOS has the controller set to SATA mode right now and its not 
> visible.  Even if I set it to RAID mode or AHCI modes I get the same 
> result using fedora core4 and what ever kernel comes bundled with their 
> installer.

I'm sorry, I confused it with the vt8231. 

> Vojtech Pavlik wrote:
> 
> >On Sun, Nov 20, 2005 at 09:52:28AM -0500, Jason Cribbins wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> >>I was wondering if its possible to find someone to create a driver 
> >>support for the Via VT8251 South Bridge chipset which appears to have 
> >>been around for about a year now.  I am unable to get any form of Linux 
> >>to see my HDs connected to that on board controller.  Although I have 
> >>successfully used it in non-raid mode on FreeBSD.  I need this for 
> >>fedora if possible.
> >>
> >>Is something like this possible?  And if so would it cost anything?
> >
> >The vt8251 is supported for quite some time by the IDE driver and its
> >vt82cxxx.c chipset driver.

-- 
Vojtech Pavlik
SuSE Labs, SuSE CR