# PDC20579 on i855GMEm-LFS

## unclefu

Hi, 

i bought the AOPEN i855GMEm-LFS Mainboard for the Pentium-M.

The MB is on its way. I read, the SATA Chip is a PDC20579 by PROMISE.

In the Linux 2.6 Kernel there is no selection for this Chipset.

will it be supported in the near future?

If there is a  driver i can use, please drop a line.

If there is a driver, does it support Native Command Queueing?

thanks in advance.

daniel

PS.:

If the PDC20579 is not supportet, will the ide100 option of it be ready to use?

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## unclefu

Hoi!

is this such a rare Controller, or does nobody own one ?

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## vedw

I am also from Germany and just ordered this motherboard.

I was not intending to use the SATA anyway but the ATA.

According to the manual the Promise has nothing to do with the

IDE/ATA connection served by ICH4-M chip. 

I intend to use this motherboard together with a Silvertone LC11 case,

a GeForce 5200, Audigy 2 ZS, Samsung 160/8/7200 HDD and WinTV PVR-350. 

I ordered after a lot of search a Celeron M 360 Dothan. 

The OS will be Gentoo or SuSE and ... MythTV.

What kind of CPU do you intend to employ? What is your feeling about the 

AOPEN i855GMEm-LFS, are you satisfied?

Ciao,

VEDW

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## unclefu

i use a dothan 1,7 GHz

but the damn aopen guys do not export the speedstep settings .

so no speedsgtep without windows

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## vedw

What do you really mean with "do not export the speedstep settings"???

For now considering that I have a Celeron M 360 without speedstep

is not critical but was acctually my plan that latter to upgrade to a Pentium M when the price will be more reasonable.

Is this bug in BIOS ? Or is it in silicon for eternity?

What is the reaction when you play with the CPU:

(USE IT ON YOUR OWN RISK  :Cool:  )

cd /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/

echo 600000 > scaling_setspeed

VEDW

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## unclefu

The bios does not export the MHz steps to the OS

so it is 1700

and not 

400

...

1600

1700

i opened a call the *** aopen guys told me that they support only M$

cya

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## vedw

The support for the Promise PDC20579 chip is comming at least according to

http://altlinux.org/index.php?module=sisyphus&package=kernel-source-promise-2004.12.26

And about aopen call:  :Confused:  is pretty sad that this is the way how they "think"...

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## unclefu

Fine

when will the path hit the official kernel?

is anything planed?

ill open anonther call with my cs.uni-dortmund.de account

perhaps the take the query a little more seriuos when they take me as an equal

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## vedw

Hi,

There is a thread what could help you regarding the speedstep:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=261076&highlight=dothan

They also refer the folowing patch:

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0408.0/1488.html

It is quite old and I wonder if already made it to the kernel...

---

I don't know anything about the Promise path...

Ciao,

VEDW

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## unclefu

Hm...

the problem is, when the bios sets other speeds / voltage to the cpu the hardware could get damaged.

thats why the patch wont make it to the kernel....

and i'm not the kind of guy who burns a 250  CPU and a 250 Board just for a chance  :Wink: 

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## dsd

support for the new promise storage controllers is included in gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.10-r5. would be good if you could test it  :Smile: 

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## unclefu

my problem is:

i got the aopen board vith the 20579 but because of not sata support at the purchase date i got no sata drive.

but i will test, wether the controller is detected or not.

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## unclefu

I Opened a new topic for the speedstep problem.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=280950

at the moment i have a problem getting the linux-2.6.10 source from my mirror.

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## vedw

I do not have SATA at home so I do not have any opportunity to do such a test.

Actually for me is much worst  :Crying or Very sad: 

Even with a SATA I cannot test because my motherboard refuse to start!!!

I installed a Dothan 715 (1.5 GHz) and 2x512M  Infineon 266MHz ECC Registered

from my Linux Workstation (so it must be OK). At start I hear a looooong beep

short break, long beep and so on... The Boot-LED is RED and not blinking

the other led is off.

Now there are two possibilities: 

1. The memory is incompatible with the board.

2. The board got really seek...

Today I will try it with another memory DDR 400 Infineon. Lets see.

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## unclefu

Try a CMOS reset worked for me

and please specify the beeps a bit more..

The first section of the manual contains a description about the beeps...

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## vedw

>Try a CMOS reset worked for me 

Do you had similar "experiences"???   :Shocked: 

I will do it this evening. I am at work.

Thanks!

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## vedw

The beeps are the folowing:

LOOONG BEEP - short_break - LOOONG BEEP - short_break and so on... endless

Tried on google and says about not present or bad seated memory.

As a real engineer I took out the memories and ... same sound.

No difference if I put in or not the memory modules... 

Thereof because the memory is OK should be a mobo compatibility or error.

I will try of course later on with the CMOS.

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## unclefu

my problem was, that the motherboard did not even beep.

cmos reset fixed it.

page 67 Manual says:

1 ling - 1 short DRAM ERROR

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## vedw

Nope, new memory = new life.

This mobo just doesn't work with Infineon 266 ECC registered memory.

But with another module it is OK.  The memory itself is OK but not for this 

mobo.

Thanks!

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## joeswift

there is a patch for that chipset, check out the following url:

http://www.linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html#promise-20579

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