[syslinux] isolinux 2.01 bug with Compaq and Promise BIOS

Rob McGee rob at room101.us.eu.org
Sun Apr 13 14:04:14 PDT 2003


I have a Compaq something with a PII-400 and an Intel 440BX/ZX/DX
chipset. I put in a Maxtor Ultra133 PCI controller (which is a Promise
PDC20269, same as their TX2) and connected the hard drive thereto.

Before we go on, I should say that I **hate** both Promise and Compaq. I
wouldn't actually BUY this junk. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,
as they say. :) (An old idiom I grew up hearing.)

A Slackware beta-9 CD, which I think was isolinux 2.01 and kernel
2.4.20, failed to boot. Isolinux's "Ready." message was the last thing
shown, and at that point it hung. A Slackware 8.1 CD (isolinux 1.67 and
kernel 2.4.18) booted fine (but it couldn't do anything with the drive
because the 2.4.18 kernel didn't quite support Promise junk yet.)

I made some custom CD-RW's with my own custom 2.4.20 kernel, using
isolinux 2.01, and I kept getting the same hang at "Ready." When I made
one with isolinux 1.67, it worked. The isolinux 2.01 CD's boot when the
hard drive is on the motherboard controller, with or without the Promise
controller installed; with no drives connected the Promise BIOS does not
install itself. The problem appears to be between 2.01 and the Promise
BIOS.

If you'd like me to try some things, like perhaps the isolinux-debug.bin
loader, I will be glad to do it as I find the time over the next week.
Don't expect fast action, because I have a very busy week ahead. As
noted, the Compaq came to me secondhand and without their "docs" (which
probably were useless anyway.) If you want to try your luck at Compaq's
Web site, it's specifically a Presario 4880, a desktop machine.
A816BYL4F817 -- the bar code. Full lspci -v and dmesg output is below.
The Promise BIOS version is 2.20.0050.10.

If OTOH you don't want to mess with supporting trash hardware, I fully
understand. But perhaps you'll want to note this as a "known issue".
-- 
    Rob - /dev/rob0

-- 
Attachments:
1. "lspci -v" Why is everything on IRQ 11? Is that normal? Naturally
   the Compaq BIOS provides no means to set PCI resources.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 02)
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        Memory at 50000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
        Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 1.0

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
        Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 64
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=64
        I/O behind bridge: 00001000-00001fff
        Memory behind bridge: 40000000-410fffff

00:03.0 Multimedia audio controller: Aureal Semiconductor AU8810 Vortex Digital Audio Processor (rev 02)
        Subsystem: Aureal Semiconductor AU8810 Vortex Digital Audio Processor
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at 41300000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
        I/O ports at 2058 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 2060 [size=8]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

00:04.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20269 (rev 02) (prog-if 85)
        Subsystem: Promise Technology, Inc.: Unknown device 4d68
        Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at 2040 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 2050 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 2048 [size=8]
        I/O ports at 2054 [size=4]
        I/O ports at 2030 [size=16]
        Memory at 41200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1

00:05.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 74)
        Subsystem: 3Com Corporation 3C905C-TX Fast Etherlink for PC Management NIC
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at 2080 [size=128]
        Memory at 41100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

00:14.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:14.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01) (prog-if 80 [Master])
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64
        I/O ports at 2020 [size=16]

00:14.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=32]

00:14.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 9

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X (rev 5c) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Compaq Computer Corporation: Unknown device 0000
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
        Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        I/O ports at 1000 [size=256]
        Memory at 41000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [50] AGP version 1.0

1a. /proc/interrupts - plenty of *available* IRQ's ...
           CPU0
  0:    2489731          XT-PIC  timer
  1:      23390          XT-PIC  keyboard
  2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
  4:      57206          XT-PIC  serial
  8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
 11:      82701          XT-PIC  ide0, usb-uhci, eth0
 15:          3          XT-PIC  ide1
NMI:          0
LOC:    2489746
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

2. dmesg
Linux version 2.4.20 (ws at obrien) (gcc version 3.2.2) #1 Sat Apr 12 02:39:11 CDT 2003
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000012000000 (usable)
288MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 73728
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 69632 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=obrien ide=reverse video=atyfb:1024x768-16 at 70
ide_setup: ide=reverse : Enabled support for IDE inverse scan order.
Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 399.067 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 796.26 BogoMIPS
Memory: 289236k/294912k available (1289k kernel code, 5288k reserved, 442k data, 112k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Buffer-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU:     After generic, caps: 0183fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU:             Common caps: 0183fbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 01
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 399.0605 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 99.7649 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 997649, slice: 498824
CPU0<T0:997648,T1:498816,D:8,S:498824,C:997649>
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch at atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfa104, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX [8086/7110] at 00:14.0
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_6.4.0 initialized
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
atyfb: using auxiliary register aperture
atyfb: 3D RAGE PRO (BGA, AGP) [0x4742 rev 0x7c] 4M SGRAM, 14.31818 MHz XTAL, 230 MHz PLL, 100 Mhz MCLK
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
fb0: ATY Mach64 frame buffer device on PCI
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 512 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev a1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x2028-0x202f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
PDC20269: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 20
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:04.0
PDC20269: chipset revision 2
PDC20269: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
PDC20269: (U)DMA Burst Bit DISABLED Primary PCI Mode Secondary PCI Mode.
PDC20269: FORCING BURST BIT 0x30 -> 0x31 ACTIVE
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x2030-0x2037, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
    ide2: BM-DMA at 0x2038-0x203f, BIOS settings: hde:pio, hdf:pio
hda: Maxtor 6Y120P0, ATA DISK drive
hdc: COMPAQ DVD-ROM GD-2000, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x2040-0x2047,0x2052 on irq 11
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
blk: queue c02fe9a4, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hda: 240121728 sectors (122942 MB) w/7936KiB Cache, CHS=238216/16/63, UDMA(133)
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 hda6 hda7 >
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 2048 buckets, 16Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
reiserfs: checking transaction log (device 03:02) ...
Using r5 hash to sort names
ReiserFS version 3.6.25
VFS: Mounted root (reiserfs filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 112k freed
Adding Swap: 249472k swap-space (priority -1)
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,7), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,6), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,5), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:05.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:14.2
3c59x: Donald Becker and others. www.scyld.com/network/vortex.html
00:05.0: 3Com PCI 3c905C Tornado at 0x2080. Vers LK1.1.16
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
  Vendor: COMPAQ    Model: DVD-ROM GD-2000   Rev: 0056
  Type:   CD-ROM                             ANSI SCSI revision: 02
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
uhci.c: USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v1.1
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:14.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:05.0
uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x2000, IRQ 11
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 03:47:53 Apr 12 2003Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir at monad.swb.de).
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
Universal TUN/TAP device driver 1.5 (C)1999-2002 Maxim Krasnyansky
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2002 Netfilter core team
ip_conntrack version 2.1 (2304 buckets, 18432 max) - 292 bytes per conntrack



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