# Which Kernel Sources Support the VIA KT400 Chipset?

## swingarm

Looking for a Kernel that will support the AMD KT400 chipset.  This is what I've found so far:

a. gentoo-sources: does have support but get lots of "lost interupt" errors on boot up on the 2 hard drives in my Promise RAID 0 setup

b. ck-sources: boots fine but doesn't support KT400

c. vanilla-sources: boots fine but doesn't support KT400

d. lolo-sources: what I'm working on now, initialally it won't boot

Do any of the other Kernel sources support the KT400 chipset?  What started all of this is that I was noticing that agpgart wasn't getting loaded on bootup, getting an "unknown" error.

MOD EDIT: Replaced AMD by VIA in the title of this thread. --plate

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## swingarm

The correct kernel to use in this case was the ac-sources kernel.  Viva La Alan Cox!!  Still can't figure out why I'm getting really bad FPS with 'glxgears'(~180FPS).

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## jufoa

it should be supported in any 2.4.20-> version of the kernel. 

and did you mean via kt400 chipset.. neverhead of amd kt400

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## swingarm

Well my main problem was having AGPGART detected correctely at boot up.  With the ck-sources and vanilla-sources kernels it technically booted up OK but AGPGART couldn't detect my chipset and thus my AGP.  The gentoo-sources kernel found the AGPGART but had big problems with my built-in Promise RAID controller on boot-up, every few seconds it would complain(the error read in part 'interupt lost') on one or the other hard drives in my RAID setup and totally brought it to a snail-like crawl.  I used the exact same kernel setup from gentoo-sources to the ac-sources kernel and it booted up just fine.  From a RAID/Promise Controller point of view the gentoo-sources kernel is BROKEN, thats the conclusion I came to when I can get one version of the kernel to work but not the other even with the exact same config settings.  With these kernels I used the latest available, masked or not, version which was 2.4.20.  For the record my Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra.

As far as the identity of the chipset, you're right.  It's the VIA KT400 not AMD KT400.

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## dol-sen

I have the GA7VAX board.   I was told the vanilla sources was suppose to support up to 4X, and that I would have to set the bios agp to 4X for it to work.    I am running the vanilla kernel-2.4.20 now without AGP as it says it did not support my chipset.    The main reason I found out was my system came to a snail's crawl one morning.   It turns out the system was trying to run from swap.   It was suggested AGP might be at fault.   I still have not completely satisfied myself that it is working properly, but it does seem better so far.   My board does not have the raid controller,   open up the system monitor and watch your memory stats, the memory used seems to keep creeping up with almost any process that becomes busy but hardly ever dops when a process stops.

What did you do to get it to work, settings, selected options, nvidia driver versions etc.

Brian

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## Malakin

 *Quote:*   

> I have the GA7VAX board. I was told the vanilla sources was suppose to support up to 4X, and that I would have to set the bios agp to 4X for it to work.

 

This is correct.

I've setup 2.4.20 linus kernel (vanilla sources) on several kt400's, both agpgart and nvagp work fine at agp4x. The only time you'll have a problem is if you're using an agp8x video card, then you'll have to force the agp speed to 4x in the bios. For gigabytes in the bios you hit ctrl-f1 and a new option pops up allowing you to change it.

"uname -a" will show you what kernel you're running, in case there's any doubt the new kernel was copied over correctly.

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## dol-sen

Thanks, you told me that on the thread I started, but checking dmesg shows that agpgart does not start properly -- I don't recall the details at the moment & I don't have it enabled at the moment.   I did set the AGP in the bios to 4X, <cntrl-F1> did not do anything, if you check the Advanced bios settings it lets you select {Auto, 8X, 4X}.    What kernel options were you selecting?  Etc.?

Brian

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## swingarm

Actually while I was debugging my kernel problem yesterday I did come across a different post you(Malakin) made with the Gigabyte Bios Tip which I tried with all 4 kernel sources.  I changed the AGP speed from Auto to 4X but in my case it didn't make a difference.  Right now  this is what I'm getting:

```

836 frames in 5.0 seconds = 167.200 FPS

889 frames in 5.0 seconds = 177.800 FPS

890 frames in 5.0 seconds = 178.000 FPS

885 frames in 5.0 seconds = 177.000 FPS

886 frames in 5.0 seconds = 177.200 FPS

```

That is with my AGP set to 4X, running on a 2.4.21_pre4-r5 ac-sources kernel with KDE 3.1 and 3123 drivers.  I think the Nvidia card is the problem, it is a real cheap OEM GeForce2 MX 64MB card(doesn't even have a TV Out).

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## Malakin

 *Quote:*   

> I changed the AGP speed from Auto to 4X but in my case it didn't make a difference.

 

This is only necessary if you have an agp8x card.

agp probably makes a very small difference on glxgears scores.

Your scores are pretty low though, I was getting 785fps/16bit with a tnt 1 and I think a geforce 2mx should get around 1400fps in 16bit.

I doubt the make of your video card is making any difference as they're all (well almost all) based on a single reference design.

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## dol-sen

I have emerged xfree-4.3.0 ok, but So far I haven't been able to get the nvidia drivers working with the new 2.4.21_pre5-gss kernel.    I did see that it correctly identifies the VIA Apollo KT400 chipset.   So far it crashes when trying to start gdm.   I even tried changing to nvidia-4191-r1 drivers with the same result.   Swithcing back to the vanilla-2.4.20 kernel without agp it all seems to work.  Now to remove agp & see if it will start. 

Brian

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## dol-sen

Well,   :Smile:  , I'm posting this with the gs-sources-2.4.21_pre5 kernel, with agp enabled & correctly detected, the bios agp set to [auto], xfree-4.3.0, nvidia 4191 drivers.    Checking dmesg output it even correctly identifies the onboard via 6 channel sound and says it is ready.

The problem I had with the nvidia drivers crashing when starting gdm turned out to be due to acpi taking over the IRQ.   The dmesg output suggested if there were problems to pas pci=noacpi or acpi=off.

Now to find out how to test out the agp,  How to do sound in gnome, etc

 :Very Happy: 

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