is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Grzegorz Kulewski]

Hi,

I am recently considering buying Abit AN7 motherboard with NVIDIA nForce2 
Ultra 400 with MCP-T bridge. But I found some posts on the Internet that 
states there are some problems with nForce2 chipsets under Linux.

So my questions:

1. What is the status of nForce2 support under Linux? What works what not? 

2. Are the drivers binary or source or open source? Are the drivers in 
mainline kernels or do I need a patch?

3. Are there any problems with this chipset? Are the problems hardware 
based or soft based (= will/can be fixed)? Are ACPI, APIC, IRQ and so on 
working OK?

4. Are there any workarounds in the kernel for hardware bugs? Do they 
affect performance/stability?

5. Should I choose other mainboard? Why? Which?

6. Any comments from people which use this mainboard/chipsets under Linux?

I am mainly interested in 2.6 kernels, if it does change anything.


thanks in advance and sorry for my english

Grzegorz Kulewski

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Daniel Drake]

Hi,

I own an Abit NF7-S 2.0. I generally stick to the latest 2.6-mm kernels.

Grzegorz Kulewski wrote:
> 1. What is the status of nForce2 support under Linux? What works what not? 

I haven't tried the SATA or firewire capabilities of my board, but I believe 
both work. Everything else (sound, network, ...) works OK.

> 2. Are the drivers binary or source or open source? Are the drivers in 
> mainline kernels or do I need a patch?

There are binary sound drivers, but you are best off to go with the ALSA 
intel8x0 drivers (open source).
There are binary network drivers, but you are best off to go with the 
forcedeth drivers (open source).
There is nvidia ide support in the kernel.

My only gripe is that, as I understand it, the onboard sound chip is powerful. 
However, neither the ALSA/OSS drivers, or nvidia's own binaries, will take 
advantage of the good features such as hardware mixing. This means that you 
cannot play two sounds at the same time, unless you use software mixing (dmix, 
arts, esd) or go out and buy a cheapy SB Live :)
Apparently, nvidia are working on new (binary) drivers for nforce-audio which 
will do hardware mixing and the likes.

> 3. Are there any problems with this chipset? Are the problems hardware 
> based or soft based (= will/can be fixed)? Are ACPI, APIC, IRQ and so on 
> working OK?

Yes, there is a problem. This is a hardware problem, which can likely be fixed 
in a BIOS update. Those who have tried contacting manufacturers have basically 
failed.
There is a bug relating to the C1 disconnect feature of AMD CPU's. It causes a 
total system freeze. There is some quite detailed info on this in recent 
threads, search the archive if you are interested.

For the majority of people (as I understand it), these lockups can be totally 
avoided by *not* using APIC/IOAPIC. I never met a lockup until I enabled APIC 
for the first time. The older XTPIC paths are generally not fast enough to 
trigger the C1 bug. Ross Dickson has done some great work here, and he has 
produced patches which workaround this particular bug. His last two revisions 
of patches have worked great for me (and others), not a lockup since.

Of course, you might get lucky and not get problems at all. I have heard from 
a couple of people who use nforce2-based systems, with default configs (plus 
APIC) and have never experienced a lockup.

> 4. Are there any workarounds in the kernel for hardware bugs? Do they 
> affect performance/stability?

See above.

> 5. Should I choose other mainboard? Why? Which?

I have been perfectly happy with my NF7-S, except from the one time it failed 
on me (didn't boot up), and I had to get it replaced. I think there is a 
general risk involved in buying nforce2 boards, their rate of failure is 
fairly high. Still, the benefits are nice.

hope this helps

Daniel

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[aviv bergman]

On Friday 13 February 2004 22:32, Daniel Drake wrote:
> I have been perfectly happy with my NF7-S, except from the one time it
> failed on me (didn't boot up), and I had to get it replaced. I think there
> is a general risk involved in buying nforce2 boards, their rate of failure
> is fairly high. Still, the benefits are nice.

the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe - i had very frequent lockups 
after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the latest bios, and the system is rock 
stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)

you better check if the specific board you are going to buy has a fixed bios.

aviv

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Grzegorz Kulewski]

Thanks for response!

> the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe - i had very frequent lockups 
> after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the latest bios, and the system is rock 
> stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
> 
> you better check if the specific board you are going to buy has a fixed bios.

The newest BIOS for AN7 is 1.4. But there is nothing about APIC in 
changelogs.

How old is the update for Your board? (The oldest BIOS for AN7 is from 
2003/11/11, so maybe it has this fix already in?)

Thanks again!


Grzegorz Kulewski

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Jesse Allen]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 11:01:45PM +0200, aviv bergman wrote:
> the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe - i had very frequent lockups 
> after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the latest bios, and the system is rock 
> stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
> 

Wow, another fixed shuttle board?  Looks like shuttle knows what the bug is 
then. 

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Craig Bradney]

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On Fri, 2004-02-13 at 23:17, Jesse Allen wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 11:01:45PM +0200, aviv bergman wrote:
> > the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe - i had very frequent lockups 
> > after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the latest bios, and the system is rock 
> > stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
> > 
> 
> Wow, another fixed shuttle board?  Looks like shuttle knows what the bug is 
> then. 

I just looked on the Shuttle site (shuttle.com), and found no mention of
anything obvious for the XPC minipc series, but for the AN35N
motherboard we have the latest entry as:

AN35S00L
Checksum:   8B00H                         Date Code: 12/05/03
1.Support 0.18 micron AMD Duron (Palomino) CPU.
2.Add C1 disconnect item.

Craig


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Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Sander]

Jesse Allen wrote (ao):
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 11:01:45PM +0200, aviv bergman wrote:
> > the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe 

I too have a shuttle SN41G2 barebone system with the FN41 mainboard. I
added a XP3000+, 2x 512MB Corsair memory and a 200GB Maxtor. It has
always been stable running 2.5/2.6 24/7 at maximum cpu load
(folding@home).

I love the system for it's intelligent cpu cooling system which takes
heat generated by the cpu out immediately. CPU runs between 40 and 50
degrees Celcius (at max cpu load). It is noisy though, and the fan speed
regulator is stupid which makes the noise annoying when the cpu is
alternating between 39 and 40 degrees (at 16 degrees room temperature,
so for example at night when you try to sleep) and the fan changes it's
speed all the time (speed is stable above 40 degrees, and these values
are adjustable in the bios).

The case looks nice too and is conveniently small. I didn't dare to put
more than the 200GB disk in to make sure it can get rid of it's heat
(now running between 25 and 35 degrees C.). The rest is external.

> > i had very frequent lockups after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the
> > latest bios, and the system is rock stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
> 
> Wow, another fixed shuttle board? Looks like shuttle knows what the
> bug is then. 

I've never read the Shuttle boards where unstable. I thought people had
problems with the normal size boards from Asus and others.

Kind regards, Sander

-- 
Humilis IT Services and Solutions
http://www.humilis.net

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[John Dee]

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I have a shuttle FN41G2. It works well for my needs.
have an extra ethernet card handy, though, because without the forcedeth
patch, you won't have ethernet.

aviv bergman wrote:
| On Friday 13 February 2004 22:32, Daniel Drake wrote:
|
|>I have been perfectly happy with my NF7-S, except from the one time it
|>failed on me (didn't boot up), and I had to get it replaced. I think there
|>is a general risk involved in buying nforce2 boards, their rate of failure
|>is fairly high. Still, the benefits are nice.
|
|
| the shuttle FN41 (sn41g2 xpc) is probably safe - i had very frequent
lockups
| after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the latest bios, and the system
is rock
| stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
|
| you better check if the specific board you are going to buy has a
fixed bios.
|
| aviv
| -
| To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
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| More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
| Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/

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Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Grzegorz Kulewski]

Thanks for your fast response!

> I haven't tried the SATA or firewire capabilities of my board, but I believe 
> both work. Everything else (sound, network, ...) works OK.

Is anybody using these features? I am thinking about connecting two 120GB 
WD SATA drives (raid) to improve performance and seek times. But I have to 
know if SATA controller works under Linux... (i think it is Silicon Image 
controller or something like that...) Is TCQ supported on these 
controllers? Or it depends on disks being used?


> Apparently, nvidia are working on new (binary) drivers for nforce-audio which 
> will do hardware mixing and the likes.

Hope it will work with ALSA...


> Yes, there is a problem. This is a hardware problem, which can likely be fixed 
> in a BIOS update. Those who have tried contacting manufacturers have basically 
> failed.
> There is a bug relating to the C1 disconnect feature of AMD CPU's. It causes a 
> total system freeze. There is some quite detailed info on this in recent 
> threads, search the archive if you are interested.
>
> For the majority of people (as I understand it), these lockups can be totally 
> avoided by *not* using APIC/IOAPIC. I never met a lockup until I enabled APIC 
> for the first time. The older XTPIC paths are generally not fast enough to 
> trigger the C1 bug. Ross Dickson has done some great work here, and he has 
> produced patches which workaround this particular bug. His last two revisions 
> of patches have worked great for me (and others), not a lockup since.

You mean that kernel 2.6-mm with this patch with APIC and ACPI enabled 
works OK? Is this patch a complete fix or a workaround?

Btw. Is CPU frequency scaling supported on this board (with ACPI)? What 
about other power saving technologies?


> I have been perfectly happy with my NF7-S, except from the one time it failed 
> on me (didn't boot up), and I had to get it replaced. I think there is a 
> general risk involved in buying nforce2 boards, their rate of failure is 
> fairly high. Still, the benefits are nice.

Wow! This fringtens me! What do you mean? Why are they so failure-able? 
Are they worse than other new boards in it? Are they, at least, easily, 
fast and free replaced (under warranty)?


Thanks again!


Grzegorz Kulewski

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Daniel Drake]

Hi,

Grzegorz Kulewski wrote:
> You mean that kernel 2.6-mm with this patch with APIC and ACPI enabled 
> works OK? Is this patch a complete fix or a workaround?
Yep, it works fine. The patch is a workaround, I think it disables going into 
C1 disconnect state too early, and refuses to go into C1 disconnect state when 
  we know we will reconnect right afterwards. I'm not too sure on the details 
here, check Ross Dicksons previous posts for clarification.

>>I have been perfectly happy with my NF7-S, except from the one time it failed 
>>on me (didn't boot up), and I had to get it replaced. I think there is a 
>>general risk involved in buying nforce2 boards, their rate of failure is 
>>fairly high. Still, the benefits are nice.
> Wow! This fringtens me! What do you mean? Why are they so failure-able? 
> Are they worse than other new boards in it? Are they, at least, easily, 
> fast and free replaced (under warranty)?

Before I bought this board, I was doing some reading up, as you do. I found 
quite a few cases of people having problems (DOA, bootup trouble, bios not 
saving settings on reboots, etc.). The general word going around at the time 
was that the boards were great, but failures and problems were quite common. 
This was quite a while ago (June-July 2003) so you might want to check around 
for newer opinions. You will probably also discover the word going around 
about the very first AN7s, involving gashes in the board to fix late bugs, and 
hand soldered components.

As for getting replacements, yes, I got a replacement with my supplier, even 
though they said they wouldn't guarantee any returns after 3 months. After I 
purchased the board I discovered that the Abit UK offices are very near me, 
and when I approached them to get it repaired, they refused - they will only 
repair boards that came directly from them. So, check with your supplier 
before you buy, because you probably wont have any luck with Abit directly.

Daniel

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Jesse Allen]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 09:10:36PM +0100, Grzegorz Kulewski wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am recently considering buying Abit AN7 motherboard with NVIDIA nForce2 
> Ultra 400 with MCP-T bridge.


Short answer:  don't.  Nvidia sucks -- they don't support open source at all.

Longer answer:  You can probably get away with it if you make a good choice with
a board.  Read up specifically on which boards work.

My suggestion, based on experience:   Get a Shuttle AN35N and flash the bios 
to the latest to fix the lockup bug.  It's a $40 board and comes with 5 PCI
slots and 1 AGP.  No firewire or SATA, but if you want them you could now buy
quality, supported PCI cards instead.  This motherboard can run vanilla 2.6.2, 
with nforce IDE, sound and net.  The sound and net nforce drivers need some work
done, so if you don't like how they run you still have lots of PCI slots.  It
doesn't have built on video so you have an option here too.  And you should get 
a good supported ATI card anyway if you want 3d.

I use this board. It is stable, cheap, fast, and fully functional.  Though if I
had a choice to buy a board again, it will not be nvidia.

Jesse

Re: is nForce2 good choice under Linux?

[Ryan Reich]

Sander wrote:
> Jesse Allen wrote (ao):
> 
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 11:01:45PM +0200, aviv bergman wrote:
>>> i had very frequent lockups after upgrading to 2.6.0, flashed to the
>>>  latest bios, and the system is rock stable since (2.6.1 w/apic)
>> 
>> Wow, another fixed shuttle board? Looks like shuttle knows what the
>> bug is then.
> 
> 
> I've never read the Shuttle boards where unstable. I thought people had
> problems with the normal size boards from Asus and others.

I have a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra with an Athlon 2600+ on it which had the
infamous lockups under 2.4 until I figured out that it was the APIC and
turned that off.  I just flashed the BIOS with the latest on Shuttle's site
and they seem to have gone, at least for now.  Someone claims that he got
one after five days uptime, but I'm a wimp and turn my computer off every
night so I'll never see that.

-- 
Ryan Reich
ryanr@uchicago.edu