tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post2698154615003280894..comments2010-05-30T06:41:39.066+10:00Alan Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897248504675680704noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-22266057726568655502010-05-30T06:41:39.061+10:002010-05-30T06:41:39.061+10:00I have written a Linux PCI quirk which puts my ICH8 box (abit ib9) into AHCI mode. Might be able to test on an Optiplex 745 soon...<br /><br />I aim to get this working on some Dell poweredges (r200 / r300) soon - as these have no bios ahci support either...<br /><br />If anyone would like to be a tester, please let me know - I&#39;d like to get this patch (when it&#39;s finished) into the mainline kernel....<br /><br />Tim.Tim Smallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12930867256791373759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-67618469178646436812009-11-09T15:25:19.004+11:002009-11-09T15:25:19.004+11:00Hi Alexandru,<br />I don&#39;t think my Dell has an option BIOS. I&#39;m guessing you&#39;re referring to the ability to put the controller in RAID mode and then set up RAID? Otherwise I&#39;m not really sure what options you can configure in AHCI mode anyway.<br /><br />If you&#39;re trying to set up pseudo-hardware raid, may I suggest you do some googling and compare pseudo-hardware raid to linux software raid. I&#39;m saying pseudo-hardware raid as these controllers get your CPU to do all the hard work.<br /><br />In my opinion its a loose-loose option to use it (if anything it&#39;s slower than linux software raid and you still get the problem of it being a proprietary lock in option that isn&#39;t easily manageable on a live system).Alan Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897248504675680704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-56319687775375749222009-10-19T23:27:11.165+11:002009-10-19T23:27:11.165+11:00Hi, Alan! Could you, please, tell me if your Dell Poweredge had an AHCI Option BIOS? As far as I could see, one needs an option BIOS in order to manage the AHCI feature of the chipset and to be able to boot from that chpset. This option BIOS is separated from the main setup BIOS. It is loaded only if the AHCI (or RAID) mode has been enabled in the setup BIOS. One may consider this option BIOS like the BIOS stored in the flash memory of an add-on SCSI/SATA card.Alexandruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00714164392557088439noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-45263550112962418742009-10-13T10:01:44.047+11:002009-10-13T10:01:44.047+11:00Hi,<br /><br />The address is actually:<br />0x80000000 | (pci_bus &lt;&lt; 16) | (pci_device &lt;&lt; 11) | (pci_function &lt;&lt; 8) | (offset &amp; 0xfc)<br /><br />And according to the spec, 0x90 is the offset that is used to specify the mode (Legacy IDE, AHCI or RAID), and the controller should be on bus 0, device 0x1f, function 2.<br /><br />Regards,<br />AlexAlexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13923815832843189309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-19052685249193064212009-07-24T19:10:54.294+10:002009-07-24T19:10:54.294+10:00Hello again,<br />I have no more success on Dell Optiplex 745. The ICH8 is 8086:2820 .<br /><br />When using the modified stage1 (my own OR the one found on the Mac forum), the Optiplex boots fine but the ICH8 is still detected as normal, non-ahci controller. <br />At least it doesnt crash the system like it does on the XPS M1210 ... but the patch is useless.<br /><br />Looking into the source code of the grub patch, I understand how it works, but I am wondering where the memory adress 0x8000fa90 comes from.<br /><br />I have done other tests. Under both computers, I manage to switch mode of ICH controller while running Linux (8086:27c4 becomes 8086:27c5, and 8086:2820 becomes 8086:2824), causing a crash soon after (the hard disks becoming inaccessible ...), so it is possible to switch mode.<br />But why doesn&#39;t it work inside Grub ? I suspect the memory address given in the grub patch may differ depending on the PC configuration.Albatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697107942772785055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-22933385579278957422009-07-21T12:41:12.294+10:002009-07-21T12:41:12.294+10:00Hi Albator,<br /><br />I would suspect that your XPS M1210 might not support AHCI mode. Not all ICH7 chipsets support it. Do you know if you can force Windows to load the Intel AHCI driver?<br /><br />You might have better luck with your Optiplex.<br /><br />Good luck.Alan Murrayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10897248504675680704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2764833665376584163.post-69690634936059335772009-07-16T06:16:16.496+10:002009-07-16T06:16:16.496+10:00Excellent trick, I&#39;ve been looking forward this kind of info for a long time.<br /><br />Alas, it does not work on my laptop Dell XPS M1210 with ICH7 (8086:27c4) under Mandriva 2009.1 64 bits. Grub hangs immediatly and it just writes the word &quot;GRUB&quot; on top left of the screen, with a blinking cursor :&#39;-(<br /><br />I have tested the same &quot;stage1&quot; with the same Distro running under Virtualbox (emulating an ICH8M 8086:2829), and it works correctly, meaning my compilation is correct.<br /><br />I will try tommorrow on a desktop Dell Optiplex 745 with a real ICH8 inside.Albatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15697107942772785055noreply@blogger.com