What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans-Jürgen Koch]

I'm playing around with a vanilla 2.6.25-rc1, adding patches to make it
work on an Asus EeePC. That one has the problem that its Mini PCIe WLAN
module doesn't show up in lspci. That brought up a few questions that I
couldn't answer yet:

How can they "hide" a PCIe card?
What could be their motive to do that?
How can I make it appear?

I found some solutions googling around, but they all seem to be funny
workarounds, like unloading pciehp and then loading it again with
pciehp_force=1, then switching WLAN off and on again
(through /proc/acpi/asus/wlan, I've got that one meanwhile)... This
doesn't look like a clean solution to me, but I must admit that I don't
know enough about PCIe hotplug to understand what's going on. I'd
appreciate it if someone could give me a few hints or point me to good
documentation.

Output of lspci:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 04)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 04)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L2 100 Mbit Ethernet Adapter (rev a0)

(The WLAN card should show up at 01:00.0, according to info found on
the web).

Thanks,
Hans

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:59:32 +0100
Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:

> I'm playing around with a vanilla 2.6.25-rc1, adding patches to make
> it work on an Asus EeePC. That one has the problem that its Mini PCIe
> WLAN module doesn't show up in lspci. That brought up a few questions
> that I couldn't answer yet:
> 
> How can they "hide" a PCIe card?
> What could be their motive to do that?
> How can I make it appear?


go to the bios, enable the wireless card. 

that did it for me ;)


-- 
If you want to reach me at my work email, use arjan@linux.intel.com
For development, discussion and tips for power savings, 
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans-Jürgen Koch]

Am Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:39:46 -0800
schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:

> On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:59:32 +0100
> Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> 
> > I'm playing around with a vanilla 2.6.25-rc1, adding patches to make
> > it work on an Asus EeePC. That one has the problem that its Mini
> > PCIe WLAN module doesn't show up in lspci. That brought up a few
> > questions that I couldn't answer yet:
> > 
> > How can they "hide" a PCIe card?
> > What could be their motive to do that?
> > How can I make it appear?
> 
> 
> go to the bios, enable the wireless card. 
> 
> that did it for me ;)

It didn't for me. I tried all combinations (booting with/without WLAN
enabled, enabling WLAN through /proc with/without pciehp loaded and so
on). What kernel did you use, and which patches did you apply?

Yes, I want to make it work, but I'd really like to understand what's
going on there and what's behind it.

Thanks,
Hans

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:54:53 +0100
Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:

> Am Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:39:46 -0800
> schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:
> 
> > On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:59:32 +0100
> > Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> > 
> > > I'm playing around with a vanilla 2.6.25-rc1, adding patches to
> > > make it work on an Asus EeePC. That one has the problem that its
> > > Mini PCIe WLAN module doesn't show up in lspci. That brought up a
> > > few questions that I couldn't answer yet:
> > > 
> > > How can they "hide" a PCIe card?
> > > What could be their motive to do that?
> > > How can I make it appear?
> > 
> > 
> > go to the bios, enable the wireless card. 
> > 
> > that did it for me ;)
> 
> It didn't for me. I tried all combinations (booting with/without WLAN
> enabled, enabling WLAN through /proc with/without pciehp loaded and so
> on). What kernel did you use, and which patches did you apply?
> 

I used a pretty much stock Fedora 8 kernel.. no magic patches at all.
Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different story ;)

-- 
If you want to reach me at my work email, use arjan@linux.intel.com
For development, discussion and tips for power savings, 
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans J. Koch]

Am Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:29:39 -0800
schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:

> On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 01:54:53 +0100
> Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> 
> > Am Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:39:46 -0800
> > schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:
> > 
> > > On Sat, 16 Feb 2008 22:59:32 +0100
> > > Hans-Jürgen Koch <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I'm playing around with a vanilla 2.6.25-rc1, adding patches to
> > > > make it work on an Asus EeePC. That one has the problem that its
> > > > Mini PCIe WLAN module doesn't show up in lspci. That brought up
> > > > a few questions that I couldn't answer yet:
> > > > 
> > > > How can they "hide" a PCIe card?
> > > > What could be their motive to do that?
> > > > How can I make it appear?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > go to the bios, enable the wireless card. 
> > > 
> > > that did it for me ;)
> > 
> > It didn't for me. I tried all combinations (booting with/without
> > WLAN enabled, enabling WLAN through /proc with/without pciehp
> > loaded and so on). What kernel did you use, and which patches did
> > you apply?
> > 
> 
> I used a pretty much stock Fedora 8 kernel..

Hm, interesting. My guess was that enabling the card in BIOS simply
switches the power of the WLAN card on. But I really don't understand
why it's not detected then with my vanilla kernel. My naive thought was
that the kernel scans all possible PCI[e] slots a chipset offers and
finds all cards there. Seems to be a bit more subtle...

> no magic patches at all.

Well, they've at least added atl2 support, otherwise you had no
wired LAN either.

> Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different
> story ;)

I replaced that unsupported Atheros 5007 card with an ipw3945, so I
haven't got that problem.

Thanks,
Hans

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:37:53 +0100
"Hans J. Koch" <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> > Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different
> > story ;)
> 
> I replaced that unsupported Atheros 5007 card with an ipw3945, so I
> haven't got that problem.

oh but then you have a MUCH bigger problem ;(
The bios of that animal is hardcoded to the 5007 (or at least Atheros).
If you stick your own card in, for FCC reasons, the bios refuses the card.
(this is not unique to Asus; all notebooks do this for cards they're
not certified with. This apparently  has to do with the antenna being
part of the laptop, and thus part of the radio in FCC speak)


-- 
If you want to reach me at my work email, use arjan@linux.intel.com
For development, discussion and tips for power savings, 
visit http://www.lesswatts.org

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans J. Koch]

Am Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:29:27 -0800
schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:

> On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:37:53 +0100
> "Hans J. Koch" <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> > > Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different
> > > story ;)
> > 
> > I replaced that unsupported Atheros 5007 card with an ipw3945, so I
> > haven't got that problem.
> 
> oh but then you have a MUCH bigger problem ;(
> The bios of that animal is hardcoded to the 5007 (or at least
> Atheros). If you stick your own card in, for FCC reasons, the bios
> refuses the card.

Really? Unbelievable what these guys do to make my live harder...
So, they might use some undocumented GPIO to turn the power on, and
refuse that if they don't find the original card? Looks like I can't
have WLAN on an EeePC (I won't run a tainted kernel). Stupid thing to
sell a PC with Linux preinstalled but with hardware not supported in
mainline.

Thanks,
Hans


 

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Mark Lord]

Hans J. Koch wrote:
> Am Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:29:27 -0800
> schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:
> 
>> On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:37:53 +0100
>> "Hans J. Koch" <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
>>>> Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different
>>>> story ;)
>>> I replaced that unsupported Atheros 5007 card with an ipw3945, so I
>>> haven't got that problem.
>> oh but then you have a MUCH bigger problem ;(
>> The bios of that animal is hardcoded to the 5007 (or at least
>> Atheros). If you stick your own card in, for FCC reasons, the bios
>> refuses the card.
..

s/FCC/brand protection by Atheros/

> Really? Unbelievable what these guys do to make my live harder...
> So, they might use some undocumented GPIO to turn the power on, and
> refuse that if they don't find the original card? Looks like I can't
> have WLAN on an EeePC (I won't run a tainted kernel). Stupid thing to
> sell a PC with Linux preinstalled but with hardware not supported in
> mainline.
..

Try it again with 2.6.25-rc2 and this module option:

    options pciehp pciehp_force=1

Just a thin hope, really, but it might work.

Cheers

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Mark Lord]

Mark Lord wrote:
> Hans J. Koch wrote:
..
>> Really? Unbelievable what these guys do to make my live harder...
>> So, they might use some undocumented GPIO to turn the power on, and
...

GPIO lines are not usually very difficult to trace,
and programming them is pretty easy, too ...

If I had an EeePC here, I'd do that for you (and everyone else),
but I'm waiting for a lower-power (fanless) unit to be introduced first.

>> refuse that if they don't find the original card? Looks like I can't
>> have WLAN on an EeePC (I won't run a tainted kernel). Stupid thing to
>> sell a PC with Linux preinstalled but with hardware not supported in
>> mainline.
> ..
> 
> Try it again with 2.6.25-rc2 and this module option:
> 
>    options pciehp pciehp_force=1
> 
> Just a thin hope, really, but it might work.

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans-Jürgen Koch]

Am Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:09:39 -0500
schrieb Mark Lord <lkml@rtr.ca>:

> Mark Lord wrote:
> > Hans J. Koch wrote:
> ..
> >> Really? Unbelievable what these guys do to make my live harder...
> >> So, they might use some undocumented GPIO to turn the power on, and
> ...
> 
> GPIO lines are not usually very difficult to trace,
> and programming them is pretty easy, too ...

I know :-) I'll do that as soon as I've got some spare time (very rare
ATM).

> 
> If I had an EeePC here, I'd do that for you (and everyone else),
> but I'm waiting for a lower-power (fanless) unit to be introduced
> first.

Admirable. I didn't have that patience ;-)

> 
> >> refuse that if they don't find the original card? Looks like I
> >> can't have WLAN on an EeePC (I won't run a tainted kernel). Stupid
> >> thing to sell a PC with Linux preinstalled but with hardware not
> >> supported in mainline.
> > ..
> > 
> > Try it again with 2.6.25-rc2 and this module option:
> > 
> >    options pciehp pciehp_force=1
> > 
> > Just a thin hope, really, but it might work.

I'll give it a try.

Thanks for your hints,
Hans

Re: What's needed for a PCIe card to be recognized?

[Hans J. Koch]

Am Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:29:27 -0800
schrieb Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>:

> On Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:37:53 +0100
> "Hans J. Koch" <hjk@linutronix.de> wrote:
> > > Of course there's no driver for the wlan, but that's a different
> > > story ;)
> > 
> > I replaced that unsupported Atheros 5007 card with an ipw3945, so I
> > haven't got that problem.
> 
> oh but then you have a MUCH bigger problem ;(
> The bios of that animal is hardcoded to the 5007 (or at least
> Atheros). If you stick your own card in, for FCC reasons, the bios
> refuses the card. (this is not unique to Asus; all notebooks do this
> for cards they're not certified with. This apparently  has to do with
> the antenna being part of the laptop, and thus part of the radio in
> FCC speak)

Someone claims he's done it:

http://beta.ivancover.com/wiki/index.php/Eee_PC_Internal_Upgrades#Wifi

Hans