[U-Boot-Users] Ethernet POST freeze on 440EPx boards (PMC440, sequoia)

[U-Boot-Users] Ethernet POST freeze on 440EPx boards (PMC440, sequoia)

[Matthias Fuchs]

Hi,

I noticed some strange issues with our PMC440 (PPC440PEx based) board and
also with the sequoia eval platform.

In a certain configuration these boards stuck during the Ethernet POST tests.
When they got stuck, it is even not possible to attach with a BDI2000.

On the console you only see this:

U-Boot 1.3.1 (May 30 2008 - 17:01:42)

CPU: ? AMCC PowerPC 440EPx Rev. A at 533.333 MHz (PLB=133, OPB=66, EBC=66 MHz)
? ? ? ?Security/Kasumi support
? ? ? ?Bootstrap Option H - Boot ROM Location I2C (Addr 0x52)
? ? ? ?Internal PCI arbiter enabled, PCI async ext clock used
? ? ? ?32 kB I-Cache 32 kB D-Cache
Board: Sequoia - AMCC PPC440EPx Evaluation Board, Rev. F, PCI=33 MHz
I2C: ? ready
DTT: ? 1 is 38 C
DRAM: ?256 MB
FLASH: 64 MB
NAND: ?32 MiB
PCI: ? Bus Dev VenId DevId Class Int
? ? ? ? 00 ?0c ?168c ?0013 ?0200 ?43
In: ? ?serial
Out: ? serial
Err: ? serial
USB: ? Host(int phy) Device(ext phy)
Net: ? ppc_4xx_eth0, ppc_4xx_eth1


I first noticed this behavior on our PMC440 boards. These boards are similiar to the Sequoia platform
(256MB DDR2 RAM, 2x Gigabit Ethernet, ...). Playing with some printfs I found out that the board got stuck 
in the Ethernet POST. When I disable U-Boot's LOG_BUFFER feature the problem dissapears.
First I never noticed this bahavior on the sequoia platform and I thought about a PMC440 specific issue.
Then I compiled U-Boot 1.3.1 for the sequoia platform (1.3.1 is used on PMC440 until now). Last week
I got the same issue on the sequoia platform. Not that often as on the PMC440, but the same issue.
Because it is easy to reproduce on PMC440 boards, I played a little bit with different configurations:

1) With LOG_BUFFER enabled: often, about every 2nd boot
2) Without LOG_BUFFER (POST messages come out in the console) -> issue never seens
3) Modified 4xx Ether POST with RX Buffers in OCM -> issue never seens
4) DCACHE turned on -> issue never seens

On the sequoia board I've only seens it after a reboot from Linux. But on PMC440 also after poweron.
This must not have any meaning because I do more testing with our board than with the eval board :-)

printf debugging showed up that the boards get stuck in post/cpu/ppc4xx/ether.c in test_ctlr()/ether_post_send().
Some packets are send, recevied and checked correctly. Then suddenly at a random packet size ether_post_send() 
freezes the board.

Did anybody else see this behavior? 
Did we miss any EMAC errata?


Matthias

[U-Boot-Users] Ethernet POST freeze on 440EPx boards (PMC440, sequoia)

[Detlev Zundel]

Hi Matthias,

> I noticed some strange issues with our PMC440 (PPC440PEx based) board and
> also with the sequoia eval platform.
>
> In a certain configuration these boards stuck during the Ethernet POST tests.
> When they got stuck, it is even not possible to attach with a BDI2000.

Oh, this hints to some deeper problems, so maybe one should check all
erratas (again).

> On the console you only see this:
>
> U-Boot 1.3.1 (May 30 2008 - 17:01:42)
>
> CPU: ? AMCC PowerPC 440EPx Rev. A at 533.333 MHz (PLB=133, OPB=66, EBC=66 MHz)
> ? ? ? ?Security/Kasumi support
> ? ? ? ?Bootstrap Option H - Boot ROM Location I2C (Addr 0x52)
> ? ? ? ?Internal PCI arbiter enabled, PCI async ext clock used
> ? ? ? ?32 kB I-Cache 32 kB D-Cache
> Board: Sequoia - AMCC PPC440EPx Evaluation Board, Rev. F, PCI=33 MHz
> I2C: ? ready
> DTT: ? 1 is 38 C
> DRAM: ?256 MB
> FLASH: 64 MB
> NAND: ?32 MiB
> PCI: ? Bus Dev VenId DevId Class Int
> ? ? ? ? 00 ?0c ?168c ?0013 ?0200 ?43
> In: ? ?serial
> Out: ? serial
> Err: ? serial
> USB: ? Host(int phy) Device(ext phy)
> Net: ? ppc_4xx_eth0, ppc_4xx_eth1
>

[...]

> Did anybody else see this behavior? 

The last time I had problems looking similar to what you see, these two
commits from Anatolij solved my problems:

commit 5e3dca577b7c1bf58bd2b48449b18b7e7dcd8e04
Author: Anatolij Gustschin <agust@denx.de>
Date:   Thu Apr 17 18:18:00 2008 +0200

    Fix crash on sequoia in ppc_4xx_eth_init
    
    Currently U-Boot crashes in ppc_4xx_eth_init on sequoia
    with cache enabled (TLB Parity exeption). This patch
    fixes the problem.
    
    Signed-off-by: Anatolij Gustschin <agust@denx.de>

commit accf7355767dc7f6b85d88bb1c75c9d95e84ba5b
Author: Anatolij Gustschin <agust@denx.de>
Date:   Thu Apr 17 18:15:27 2008 +0200

    ppc4xx: Fix crash on sequoia with cache enabled
    
    Currently U-Boot crashes on sequoia board in CPU POST if
    cache is enabled (CONFIG_4xx_DCACHE defined). The cache
    won't be disabled by change_tlb before CPU POST because
    there is an insufficient adress range check since
    CFG_MEM_TOP_HIDE was introduced. This patch tries to fix
    this problem.
    
    Signed-off-by: Anatolij Gustschin <agust@denx.de>

Cheers
  Detlev

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