Haiku R1/Alpha1

The first alpha version of Haiku (R1/Alpha 1) is released today. It took about 8 years to reach with point. Give it a try. I will try it this evening and see what happens and what it can do. Special thanks for all developers who made this possible. It is only alpha but still the project will not stop at this I hope.

PQI doesn't work once again...

I installed a new F8c beta BIOS version on Gigabyte GA-EX58-DS4 motherboard yesterday. It appeared that this bios had broken memory compatibility once again. My PQI DDR3-1066U memory is not supported by this version (they worked ok with F6c, F6, F7 BIOS versions). So I needed to downgrade to F7. If you have this motherboard, be careful with upgrading to F8c and be sure that your memory is supported.

Core i7 920 to Xeon E5540 ES

I have changed a processor on my main computer to Xeon E5540 ES (2.53 GHz). I have received it from USA for a quite low price (I sold my Core i7 920 for the same price). The main purpose to change it was some curiosity to have an engineering sample and a lower TDP (which is 80W instead of 130W on XEON). What is more Xeon is workstation/server CPU which suits me more. I has a little lower clock rate (2.53 instead of 2.66) but faster QPI than (5.86 GT/s instead of 4.8 GT/s). You can find two scans of it in my cpu collection.

Update (2012-05-08):
I removed images from cpu collection album in webpicasa as I don't have this CPU anymore.

VT-310DP (VT8237R) and SATA II hard drive support mystery

As I wrote earlier I was planning to use my VT-310DP board for NAS server. It has an old VT8237R southbridge and support only SATA I mode and it can't recognize hard drive in SATA II mode automatically. In theory almost every SATA II hard drive in the market has an option to set 1.5Gbit/s performance (SATA I). Some of them use pins (WD, Seagate, Maxtor), other ones needs software solution (Samsung, Hitachi). However, this motherboard can't recognize many of them even if this mode is set. I have bought three Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5TB hard drives (SD1B and CC1G firmware). These drives used pins to set it to SATA I mode, however, VT-310DP didn't see them. The same problem I had with one Samsung 750GB hard drive (I used software solution to slow it down). However, this board recognized all WD drives with pin in it I had (current WD15EADS 1.5TB drive and older WD7500AACS 750GB GP). It also recognized an old Samsung HD160JJ with pin too. However, it didn't see newer 160 GB Samsung which hadn't pin and needed a software solution to slow down it (all current Samsung hard drives doesn't have a pin anymore). I have never tried Hitachi hard drives which uses software tool like Samsung too. I didn't find any clue about why some hard drives worked and other not too. Firstly I thought that a reason is software slow down and motherboard would recognize only hard drives with pins, however, seagate had denied this. I though that it might need spread spectrum enabled (some forum stated this), but WD hard drives worked with spread spectrum disabled. One thing is certain: hard drive has to work in SATA I mode but it is not enough...

So, if you have a motherboard with VT8237R southbridge and have problems with current hard drives I can only recommend Western Digital hard drives. They were only ones those worked as soon as I attached them (with pin, of course).

Another alpha: XP1000

I still couldn't identify what happened with my Microway Screamer. I changed a CPU but problem remained the same. Memory testing with memtest on Socket 7 motherboard didn't show any errors too (however, it doesn't have ECC support).

I have never mentioned before but I had another Alpha system. It is XP1000 motherboard with 667 MHz 21264 Alpha CPU. I have it for more than a year. However, I didn't know how to boot it, so I have never used it until now. It has three connectors from power supply (one of them is a standard ATX or at least looks like it). I don't know about others, maybe, they have some standards too. But it would be difficult to find new power supply for it. CPU with RAM are located on daughterboard. Unfortunately, I don't have case for it. What is more, I accidently damaged it a little some time ago.

So I tried to boot it once again. Firstly I used the same method as in microway screamer (read about engineering fix). It reacted and PSU started to work. However, the system showed no signs of life. CPU heatsink was cold all the time, no video appeared. So I tried to find how to boot it using "front panel" pins. It wasn't an easy task because I even didn't know in which direction (horizontally or vertically) I should experiment. However, I finally found two pins which booted the system. This time motherboard booted differently. LEDs on the motherboard lighted up. However even after this system shut down automatically in less than 15 seconds. So I connected computer to another one by COM ports. I got only versions of palcode in hyper terminal. Despite this I suspected that it can be due to CPU fan which wasn't attached. I tried attach a standard fan and fan from microway screamer, they both didn't spin. It appeared that it has yet another wire sequence (screamer is not the same as PC too). After I changed wires and booted with CPU fan, system shut down almost immediately again. I tried to look at hyper terminal and this time got an error message that case fan was not working. At that time I was very happy because I was almost sure that after I would attach system fan, motherboard will boot successfully. And it did! Though, I didn't try to add a video card. I only played a little bit with srm console through hyper terminal.

Two biggest problems with this motherboard are its size and heating. Motherboard is much larger than standard ATX and CPU daugtherboard is quite big too. You can't use standard case without modifications. What is more, cpu heatsink became very hot in a very short time. I don’t know if it is ok or I need a bigger cooler. We will see.

Microway Screamer problems

Several days ago I booted my Microway Screamer after long period of time. I tried to install Debian Linux. However, I got some virtual memory error during installation. After that I couldn't install anything. I was always getting "Proccessor detected single bit ECC error in Bcache" error.

I think it might be memory or processor problem. I'll try to test memory on my old Socket 7 motherboard (if it will boot with them). It will be difficult to get replacement for them because I need 4 sticks of SIMM 70 ns ECC parity memory modules. If it is CPU than it won't be easy too. However I have one CPU (however, it can be in not working condition). It is a pity because I didn't use this computer as much as I wanted.

Intel i860 in my collection

I was looking for a one Intel i860 CPU for a quite long time. Everytime I was unlucky to get it :D. Finally I got one recently but its surface was covered by an old glue. I removed it somehow with a knife :) and cpu looks quite normal now (there are some small scratches but it was inevitable probably). As always you can find photos in my CPU collection. I also added some new PA-RISC CPUs (two 8700 and one 8200) earlier.