Hi all...
I recently put my hands on a system with an ASUS P5N64 WS Pro mobo:
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=653&l4=0&model=2182&modelmenu=1
It has a nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, the part for the SATA controller
is MCP55.
The problem is that linux seems to fail to read the hard drive on boot.
I will explain.
I have tried to install both CentOS 5.2 and Mandriva 2009.0.
For CentOS (has a 2.6.18 kernel), the install seems ok, but when I reboot
into the just intalled system the kernel hangs just after printing
the name of the initrd. Mandriva (2.6.27-rc8) just hungs half the install process.
Live versions of both hang on boot saying they can not find the root
device.
I have found some messages in the net about the MCP55 in that board not
being completeley suppported as AHCI in sata_nv, and that some other
boards work puttin the SATA controller in 'compatible' mode (with
loss of performance).
But I can't find any setting in the P5N64 to put SATA in Compat mode.
Can I do this via some kernel parameters ?
Somabody has this board working ? Do current kernels have better support
for this chipset ?
TIA
--
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon()ono!com> \ Software is like sex:
\ It's better when it's free
Mandriva Linux release 2009.1 (Cooker) for x86_64
Linux 2.6.27.5-desktop-1mnb (gcc 4.3.2 (GCC) #1 Sun Nov
J.A. Magall?n wrote:
> Hi all...
>
> I recently put my hands on a system with an ASUS P5N64 WS Pro mobo:
>
> http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=653&l4=0&model=2182&modelmenu=1
>
> It has a nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, the part for the SATA controller
> is MCP55.
>
> The problem is that linux seems to fail to read the hard drive on boot.
> I will explain.
>
> I have tried to install both CentOS 5.2 and Mandriva 2009.0.
> For CentOS (has a 2.6.18 kernel), the install seems ok, but when I reboot
> into the just intalled system the kernel hangs just after printing
> the name of the initrd. Mandriva (2.6.27-rc8) just hungs half the install process.
> Live versions of both hang on boot saying they can not find the root
> device.
>
> I have found some messages in the net about the MCP55 in that board not
> being completeley suppported as AHCI in sata_nv, and that some other
> boards work puttin the SATA controller in 'compatible' mode (with
> loss of performance).
> But I can't find any setting in the P5N64 to put SATA in Compat mode.
>
> Can I do this via some kernel parameters ?
> Somabody has this board working ? Do current kernels have better support
> for this chipset ?
All three flavors of sata_nv's - generic (yours), nf2/3 and ck804 - had
various detection problems from 2.6.27-rc1. The problem was that their
hardresets all worked differently. 2.6.27-rc1 started to favor
hardresets over softresets and exposed this problem. While trying to
fix the problem, because all three flavors unexpectedly showed different
hardreset behaviors, there were some mistakes. A proper fix is included
in upstream and is queued for -stable. Sorry about the mess.
Thanks.
--
tejun
On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:11:20 +0900, Tejun Heo <[email protected]> wrote:
> J.A. Magallón wrote:
> > Hi all...
> >
> > I recently put my hands on a system with an ASUS P5N64 WS Pro mobo:
> >
> > http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=653&l4=0&model=2182&modelmenu=1
> >
> > It has a nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset, the part for the SATA controller
> > is MCP55.
> >
> > The problem is that linux seems to fail to read the hard drive on boot.
> > I will explain.
> >
> > I have tried to install both CentOS 5.2 and Mandriva 2009.0.
> > For CentOS (has a 2.6.18 kernel), the install seems ok, but when I reboot
> > into the just intalled system the kernel hangs just after printing
> > the name of the initrd. Mandriva (2.6.27-rc8) just hungs half the install process.
> > Live versions of both hang on boot saying they can not find the root
> > device.
> >
> > I have found some messages in the net about the MCP55 in that board not
> > being completeley suppported as AHCI in sata_nv, and that some other
> > boards work puttin the SATA controller in 'compatible' mode (with
> > loss of performance).
> > But I can't find any setting in the P5N64 to put SATA in Compat mode.
> >
> > Can I do this via some kernel parameters ?
> > Somabody has this board working ? Do current kernels have better support
> > for this chipset ?
>
> All three flavors of sata_nv's - generic (yours), nf2/3 and ck804 - had
> various detection problems from 2.6.27-rc1. The problem was that their
> hardresets all worked differently. 2.6.27-rc1 started to favor
> hardresets over softresets and exposed this problem. While trying to
> fix the problem, because all three flavors unexpectedly showed different
> hardreset behaviors, there were some mistakes. A proper fix is included
> in upstream and is queued for -stable. Sorry about the mess.
>
Thanks for the info. Just a couple more questions (I have to say to our
sysdamins if it can be done or not... :) ).
The point on hardresets clarifies the Mandriva case, where I have an 27-rc8
kernel. But what about the CentOS case ? If problems begun with rc1,
what happens with plain 2.6.18 ? It just doesn't have support for that
controller ? But installer works...
Is this the patch in question:
http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=122584322811935&w=2
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-2.6.27.y.git;a=commitdiff;h=814eb57e1799337d9fbb68f5d838afa507dc014e;hp=7bee179aa2a63087ff80bdd7dcb8bd6da209f359
So I suppose that 2.6.27.5 includes this fix.
Can I guess if a kernel would work looking for this code in the source ?
With this info, I can presume that current Mandriva Cooker would work
(it has a .5 kernel), and could check if CentOS people have backported
it in its updates...or do it myself (some CentOS people listening ...? ).
I probably need to install CentOS, its the 'officially supported' distro in
our department.
TIA
--
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon()ono!com> \ Software is like sex:
\ It's better when it's free
Mandriva Linux release 2009.1 (Cooker) for x86_64
Linux 2.6.27.5-desktop-1mnb (gcc 4.3.2 (GCC) #1 Sun Nov