Soyo Dragon KT400 - Not Recommended

I was going to use this VIA KT400 chipset motherboard for eCS 1.1, but
have abandoned that idea. It has IRQ issues when trying to fill the PCI
slots. Every device has to share an IRQ with one of the USB devices on
the board. This means OS/2 won't boot unless in the BIOS assigning IRQs
to USB is turned off, or certain devices are removed from the PCI slots.
Anyone who wants details on this can find it on the Scitech news server
in scitech.snap.graphics.os2 in the thread "SDD Pro 7.1 & LSI SCSI
Together Won't Boot".
--
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/

 

I imagine this would be fixed by applying the os2ldr from one of the more
recent (say 12/2003) "testcase kernels".

 

The one failing was from 27 Oct. The last I downloaded was 13 Nov. The
newest on eCS FTP is dated 26 Nov but contains 13 Nov. There are none on
testcase now, and I don't know anyplace that captures and saves them for
those of us who don't visit testcase often. :-(
--
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/

 

Put XP on this board, it ROCKS!!

Dave

 

Put XP on this board, it ROCKS !!

Dave

 

Sir:

About as helpful comment as saying eat bog poop.

 

Sir:

<http://www.os2site.com/sw/upgrades/kernel/w420031113.zip>

 

Looks like "recent" means sometime in December, as opposed to

November. I had since found that. 20031113 is 14.096e, which works no
differently than what I had. :-(
--
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/

 

Sir:

That site would have any more recent testcase kernel, if they exist. I
was busy in December and may have missed one being posted.

 

This is true for all VIA chipsets. The culprit is the int line to IRQ
mapping. There exists online 4 interrupt lines in the VIA chipsets.
Check PCI programm with parameter -p from Craig Hart ported from Veit
Kannegieser.

The solution is to use SiS chipsets. These have 8 interrupt lines. All
USB controllers have completely different int lines. Now there are only
not enough IRQs, and the INT-IRQ mapping from the Bios is not so good.
But SPCIIRQ driver helps. I've tested this on an Asrock K7S8E 3.0 mainboard.

cu
Daniel

 

Sorry!

 

SiS is NO solution at all. Ever tried to use sis900 and USB in
parallel? USB won't work, NIC can't hold a connection. CRAP.

Yes, I've here some mainboards with SiS chipset running. They are all
problematic even when USB is NOT decativated in BIOS when you have to
run the on board NIC.

Sure, there is a BETA NIC that knows to handle that problem - but it
is BETA and nobody (including the developer) knows when it gets GA. As
the developer gets NOT payed he can use only his spare free time to
work on - so it would be a long time until the driver gets finished.

 

Not so. I have two Asus A7V333 boards (with VIA KT333), but they are a
bit different beasts, since one features AC'97 soundcard and LAN NIC,
the other AC'97 soundcard and Promise RAID. One of them puts USB
device on all except one PCI slot, the other hooks all USB devices
onto one IRQ. Both have the same KT333 chipset, but they behave
differently. Perhaps BIOS revision issue?

Cheers,
Martin

 

I didn't use the onboard NIC, because we're using old BNC cable.

It's beta, but if it works it's OK. Though I must say I didn't test
neither the onboard NIC as I mentioned above nor the beta driver.

cu
Daniel

 

Maybe my statement was too strict. I read this on a mainboard page. And
saw it on an Asrock K7VT2 board with VIA KT266.

The problem is, that there is no internet site where you can see the PCI
routing table in advance before buying the board. And the mainboard
manufacturer doesn't write such things in their manuals.

cu
Daniel

 

Does not help in most cases, but you can view the routing table by
downloading a 'bios update' and unpacking it.
most easy for Award BIOS:

awardeco 4saw53.bin - or LH(a)/ModBin
show_pir original.tmp

Veit Kannegieser

 

Well, it's more of a chipset issue...given chipsets work pretty much
the same in this regard, no matter what they are soldered into.

So it would likely be useful for groups who support various OSes
to figure out which chipsets are likely to work, and stick with
those. Even if the mainboard isn't known to work, if its chipset
works elsewhere it's likely a good bet.

Greg

 

so how can I find out which chip set is ok for OS/2 so I can
buy may new MB

 

IBM seems to focus its development efforts on (surprise surprise) Intel,
so if you have to gamble on something unknown, Intel is probably your
best bet. OTOH, virtually every install tip for VIA recommends the first
thing to do after installing windoze is to install the VIA 4-in-1
drivers, which seems to say something VIA should be providing in
hardware is instead found only in driver software, which for OS/2 is
liable to be delayed, if it ever happens at all.
--
"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of
governmental power." General Douglas MacArthur

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/

 

It's simple. When you likes to have the on board sound working avoid a
board with SiS chipset, prefere any with VIA chipset - else does'nt
matter, get what you like.