IntroductionThis page is a little collection of notes I’ve taken while getting my A7M266-D motherboard to work under Linux.
Working setup
The case: Chieftec Dragon full tower.
The processors: Athlon MP 1800+.
The first thing I had to do, in order to make the second processor usable, and indeed the machine bootable without using the nosmp LILO flag, was to use the noapic LILO flag. I don’t know why the kernel didn’t know that it should do this itself.
The PCI cards installed in the box are an Intel NIC and a SoundBlaster PCI 128 (Ensoniq 1371). To make the soundcard work, I had to tell the BIOS that I do not have a Plug ‘n’ Play OS installed. Must be something to do with interrupts. I’m no hardware guru.
There is only one hard disk in the system - a Western Digital 120G. WD are not known for the reliability of their disks, but all my important stuff is mirrored elsewhere in the world (CVS) so I don’t care too much. I just make sure I have a spare disk lying around just in case. I like the quiet running (much quieter than the current Maxtor drives) and the excellent speed thanks to the 8M cache.
I use the following in my boot scripts to set up the disk:
hdparm -c 1 -d 1 -k 1 -u 1 /dev/hda
I can get some sensor information, using a CVS build of lm_sensors. The loading stuff looks like this:
modprobe i2c-amd756
modprobe w83781d
sensors -s
Cooling
I bought 2 Arctic Cooling ‘Super Silent’ to cool my CPUs. They’re not silent. They don’t cool very well. At full load, ambient temperature 22 celsius, the chips ran at 65 celsius.
To replace them, I bought 2x Noise Control Silverado . These are about 30% quieter than the above, and they brought the top chip temperature down to 60 celsius, using the black 10V cables. The difference in noise between the 6V and 10V cables isn’t really noticeable.
The Chieftec 340W PSU seemed to be overheating (it came with the case - don’t blame me) - it was too hot to touch, and 2/3 times the machine wouldn’t switch on via ‘soft power’ and required the PSU switch to be turned off and on again.
To get the chip temperatures down, I bought 4x Enermax 80mm case fans. They’re very quiet at the lowest fan speed. My top CPU temperature is now 52 celsius - much more sensible. The PSU now seems to be happier too. It’s cool running - just a hint of warmth from its exhaust fan - but it still has trouble starting up. Perhaps time for a beefier one.
Boot problem
When I first bought this board, it kept failing to boot when the soft-power switch was pressed. I found I could work around the problem by turning the power supply off for a few seconds before booting.
One day, however, the machine just started booting normally. I have no idea what fixed it - but I don't think it was a BIOS update or a setting in the BIOS. It hasn't had any problems since.
/proc/cpuinfo
Note that the processors are labelled MP - the kernel is just having trouble recognising them.
See the next section for a better scan.
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 6
model name : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1533.441
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 3060.53
processor : 1
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 6
model name : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1533.441
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 3060.53
x86info
x86info v1.7. Dave Jones 2001
Feedback to .
Found 2 CPUs
CPU #1
Family: 6 Model: 6 Stepping: 2 [Athlon MP]
Processor name string: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+
PowerNOW! Technology information
Available features:
Temperature sensing diode present.
CPU #2
Family: 6 Model: 6 Stepping: 2 [Athlon MP]
Processor name string: AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+
PowerNOW! Technology information
Available features:
Temperature sensing diode present.
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 700c (rev 11)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 700d
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 7440 (rev 04)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 7441 (rev 04)
00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 7443 (rev 03)
00:10.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]: Unknown device 7448 (rev 04)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 514c
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
02:06.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 0c)
02:08.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 08)
/proc/pci
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Host bridge: PCI device 1022:700c (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 17).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xfc000000 [0xfdffffff].
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xfb800000 [0xfb800fff].
I/O at 0xe800 [0xe803].
Bus 0, device 1, function 0:
PCI bridge: PCI device 1022:700d (Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]) (rev 0).
Master Capable. No bursts. Min Gnt=8.
Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ISA (rev 4).
Bus 0, device 7, function 1:
IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] IDE (rev 4).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
I/O at 0xb800 [0xb80f].
Bus 0, device 7, function 3:
Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] ACPI (rev 3).
Master Capable. Latency=32.
Bus 0, device 16, function 0:
PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-768 [??] PCI (rev 4).
Master Capable. No bursts. Min Gnt=4.
Bus 1, device 5, function 0:
VGA compatible controller: PCI device 1002:514c (ATI Technologies Inc) (rev 0).
IRQ 11.
Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=8.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0000000 [0xf7ffffff].
I/O at 0xd800 [0xd8ff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xef000000 [0xef00ffff].
Bus 2, device 5, function 0:
Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS) (rev 0).
IRQ 4.
I/O at 0xa800 [0xa81f].
Bus 2, device 6, function 0:
Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 12).
IRQ 10.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=8.Max Lat=56.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xee000000 [0xee000fff].
I/O at 0xa400 [0xa43f].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xed800000 [0xed81ffff].
Bus 2, device 8, function 0:
Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 8).
IRQ 3.
Master Capable. Latency=32. Min Gnt=12.Max Lat=128.
I/O at 0xa000 [0xa03f].
