2010-05-19

Microway Screamer problem resolved

I mentioned almost a year ago that my Microway Screamer experienced "Processor detected single bit ECC error in Bcache" error during Debian install. After that I couldn't install or boot any operating system (NetBSD or Linux) on it. This error continuously repeated during install and system was hanging afterwards.  I suspected that it could be RAM or CPU problem. I also had some fear that a motherboard had broken too. As I had spare DEC Alpha CPU in my collection I had tried it first. The system booted but it didn't resolve a problem. I didn't have any spare RAM at that time, so my system was left to collect a dust for some time. I finally found 4x SIMM FPM parity RAM just recently and got them today. And yes, the problem disappeared. After I changed memory modules the system didn't throw the error anymore.  I successfully booted NetBSD once again. Just a pity that seller didn't have 8x modules :).

2010-05-15

Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF P - NetBSD 5.1RC boots, ADPE4S-PB SATA controller problems

Good news for NetBSD users. I downloaded NetBSD 5.1 RC and it successfully booted on my Jetway JNF76-N1G-LF motherboard. It wasn't the case with the earlier NetBSD 5.0.x versions. However, it is still not suitable for RAID (as linux too). Under RAID mode hard drivers aren't detected. You can find in dmesg that device wasn't configured. Still it is a good progress from BSD side as I had a lot of headache to setup the system because of no or limited support from BSD operating systems (I needed to switch to linux).

I probably didn't mention earlier but I bought ADPE4S-PB SATA daughterboard for this motherboard. Unfortunately, I have a problem with it. As I inserted Intel Pro/1000 GT network card into PCI slot, daughterboard can not initialize properly. I am getting a warning that option ROM can not be invoked. Daughterboard works without network card installed. I am trying to resolve this issue through jetway support but it is more than two months without much progress. It might be some BIOS problem but I don't know a technical side of this solution. It seams that jetway connector for daughterboards is just somehow modified PCI slot. Marvel 88SB-LKJ2 PCI-E to PCI bridge on ADPE4S-PB probably proves that too (daughterboard is based on Marvel 88SE6145-TFE1 PCI-E SATA controller). So it can be a technical limitation as well. Right now I think that every board installed on PCI slot which has some additional boot ROM (like network cards with bootable ROM, SCSI controllers and so on) will block ADPE4S-PB. Other ones like NIC without ROM, audio, graphic adapters shouldn't cause this problem (I tested some boards). If you don't plan to use expansion cards with bootable ROM then everything should be ok. It is just interesting how effectively this controller will work with all four hard drives attached as PCI slot doesn't provide enough bandwidth IMHO (in case I am right about that connector). I will announce if something will change in this area.

Update:
What is more, you can't even connect hard drives to ADPE4S-PB and integrated SATA connectors at the same time. You can't enable integrated LAN boot ROM in motherboard's BIOS. So the problem is not even with PCI slots.

Update2:
You can use integrated SATA connectors and ADPE4S-PB at the same time but only in IDE mode (not RAID).