Re: Are we going too fast?

Anthony Barbachan
2001-08-13T21:07:24Z

> > > Welcome to wacky hardware. To get a G400 stable on x86 you need at
least
> > >
> > > XFree86 4.1 if you are running hardware 3D (and DRM 4.1)
> > > 2.4.8 or higher with the VIA fixes
> > > Preferably a very recent BIOS update for the VIA box
> >
> > I'm sorry, but what "VIA fixes" are we referring to?
>
> Certain VIA chipsets had some nasty bugs that caused corruption. The older
> kernels have a workaround that mostly does the job but has a few side
> effects. The 2.4.8 kernel has the official VIA provided workaround, which
> makes sbpci128 cards work again, and sorts out some bus hangs, especially
> with matrox cards

Could these "fixes" resolve any issues with the vt82c686a Southbridge?
For the life of me I have yet to be able to get my FIC VA-503A (that uses a
vt82c686a Southbridge for UDMA66 support) working correctly under Linux
2.4.x (or 2.2.x with the enhanced IDE patch) with DMA enabled by default.
And yes I have already tried switching the 80 pin cables 7 times. Heck, I
even get CRC errors on UDMA33 drives using 40 pin cables; albeit a lesser
amount. I have also noticed a hanging issue on a FIC VA-503+ board in which
the PC speaker can hang, in mid beep, along with the system for a short
while occasionally when the speaker issues a beep. By the way, any ideas on
how I can help debug this particular problem? There is no Ooops so I am not
sure how I can help out. Both systems otherwise work very well and
perfectly on Win9x, Win2k, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. I'm starting to take a
very dim view of Linux on VIA boards.