DK8N, 6800GT & 4GB mem

[signals42]

[Hazmat]

Attached is my kernel config. I'm using kernel 2.6.9-rc3-bk6, DK8N, 128 MB 5700 Ultra card, 2GB RAM, 32-bit Ubuntu.

I'm using the vanilla 6111 driver with the __VMALLOC_RESERVE thing added to nv.c

I don't get any mtrr errors or anything like that. Is this the 4GB problem? Does everything work perfectly with only 2GB?

cat /proc/mtrr
reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=2048MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0xf0000000 (3840MB), size= 128MB: write-combining, count=1
reg02: base=0xd0000000 (3328MB), size= 256MB: write-combining, count=1

Edit:
I also boot with "noapic" set. It's not super unstable with apic but it has panicked on me a couple times. WIth noapic it has not crashed once.

I got worried about my purchase too. Still not sure, but things have been getting smoother. I am really worried if 4GB of RAM causes problems though and I wish my f&#*'ing Firewire would work.

[signals42]

Well, I've got it basically working, but you guys will laugh when you hear what I did

I built a new kernel (2.6.8.1) but I used hazmat's config as a base to start from. Then I compiled the NVidia graphics drivers by hand, but I edited one of the .c files.

In os-interface.c there is the following code on line 980:

if (err < 0)
{
    nv_printf(NV_DBG_ERRORS, "NVRM: cannot write-combine 0x%08x, %dM\n",
        start, size / (1024 * 1024));
    return RM_ERROR;
}

I commented it out.

Anyway, /proc/drivers/nvidia/agp/status now says:

Status:          Enabled
Driver:          NVIDIA
AGP Rate:        8x
Fast Writes:     Disabled
SBA:             Enabled

And my screen updates (opaque window moves and such) are much faster. The few OpenGL screensavers I have on the system are much smoother when the settings are cranked up, and everything APPEARS stable. I have no "write-combining" in /proc/mtrr, but I don't know what that's really for. Either way, this is WAY better than PCI mode!

I'm busy installing the copy of Quake 3 Arena I bought a few years ago for $0.99 now. (That was probably the best piece of commecrial software I ever bought for less than a buck...)

Anyway, thanks for all of the help, guys! I'm going to send a summary of what I've tried (and maybe even a link to this thread) to linux-bugs@nvidia.com and see what they have to say about it.

-Kevin

[zander]

The failure abort you commented out is intentional; with your configuration, the inability to mark the AGP and FB aperture write-combined will result in a performance hit (it should work correctly, though). You might want to check if your SBIOS offers options controlling the RAM/MTRR layout.

[signals42]

Originally Posted by zander

The failure abort you commented out is intentional; with your configuration, the inability to mark the AGP and FB aperture write-combined will result in a performance hit (it should work correctly, though). You might want to check if your SBIOS offers options controlling the RAM/MTRR layout.

Yeah, I kind of figured that would be the case. The comment in the os-interface.c file said that if they couldn't set the aperture as write-combined that it probably meant that something else was using the aperture addresses, and they want to play nice, so they abort AGP setup.

I figured the BIOS was probably setting the MTRRs up improperly, and that there would be no problem using it without setting the MTRRs (Still don't fully understand what MTRRs are for, but I can make wild guesses about it )

Unfortunately, there's not much as far as options on this motherboard's BIOS setup. It's supposed to be a "Professional Workstation Mainboard" (according to IWill) and I can only assume that Professionals don't like having the ability to fix problems when they arise.

I suppose I should contact IWill about it, but I've had less than stellar results with their tech support, so far. I think I'll start with NVidia today, maybe they can talk some sense into IWill (since the DK8N is based on an NVidia chipset.)

-Kevin

[rixon]

Bump! :-)

Have you had any luck in your dialog with nVidia or IWill?

-Paul