SiS 740 PCI problems

pgray · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 51

Okay, I have been over and over these forums trying to resolve this problem, and I have only turned up 1 thread (here) with the same problem as me. No one replied to it, so I am going to ask the same question again in hopes that someone will be able to answer this question.

I recently built a new computer that has the SiS 740 Northbridge chipset. It is a Athlon 1700+ XP. After probing the internet I discovered that SiS chipsets are not all that well supported on Linux, but that they would work. The gentoo install CDs (both 1.2 and 1.3a) will boot fine, but neither will do PCI autodetection correctly. The output is this:

pcilib: cannot open /proc/bus/pci
lspci: cannot find any working access method

This is all well and good, because I know which devices are on the PCI bus and what modules need to be loaded (sis900.o), but something is preventing me from loading it. When I try to modprobe sis900, it just spews about no device is present for the module.

I ran across a patch that said it would provide support to the kernel for SiS 740 chipsets, and I doublechecked the gentoo-sources-2.4.19-r7 (which the install CD is based around), and the comments in the ebuild file claim to include the same patch I found. Can anyone help me here, I would really like to run linux on this box?

pgray
_________________
life is just a dream, you know? it's neverending.

pgray · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 51

Call off the dogs, after rigorously searching through the lkml I found a post that related to a motherboard using the same chips as mine having the same problem. The solution was to add pci=bios to the kernel command line. I patched the ISO install image for ix86-1.3a and would be happy to send it to anyone who might be experiencing the same thing.

pgray
_________________
life is just a dream, you know? it's neverending.

AlterEgo · Veteran Joined: 25 Apr 2002 Posts: 1619

Pgray,
I am considering the ECS K7SOM SiS740 board for a second PC.

Im very interested in your experiences using linux on it; especially performance, stability and useability.
I did some web-checking myself, and I also found out the the SiS740 is not at all well supported: no accelerated screens/AGP; internal modem= doubtful; harddisk data loss issues when enabling DMA ?

Please tell us your experiences, because it's a great motherboerd for it's price! Thanks!

pgray · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2002 Posts: 51

I'm still in the middle of the install process, but things seem to be running smoothly. I think the biggest things I am worried about at the moment are getting the OHCI-1394 controller to work, and the EHCI-2.0 (USB 2.0) controller to work. I hadn't heard that disk corruption was a possibility, but I will certainly be wary of it in the future if things start to get borked up. Also, the SiS900 onboard ethernet works like a charm. So, I guess so far so good, I'll definately post here again when I've gotten EVERYTHING installed and working.

pgray
_________________
life is just a dream, you know? it's neverending.

jconover · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 1:25 pm Post subject:

I've been running a Gentoo box with:
ECS KS75A motherboard (SiS 735 chipset)
And it works good except I haven't been able to get APM or ACPI to work for it yet.
Any suggestions? Maybe I should install :evil:

rEdHaT

and look at the kernel :idea:

I hate to trash my box like that.

Does anyone know when Gentoo 1.4 or 2.0 which ever it will be, will be released?

Nico · Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2002 9:21 pm Post subject:

I have strange problem with ECS K7S5A mobo, kernel is trying to give IRQ 22 to onboard lan. Install process went fine, but this came up when I booted first time.
_________________
Linux is user friendly, it's just picky about its friends.

RockHound · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 12:11 pm Post subject:

AlterEgo · Veteran Joined: 25 Apr 2002 Posts: 1619

klimg · n00b Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 55

I've been fighting my way around a sis 730 for a while now.Don't know how far those are identical.The sis900 didn't give me any trouble at all.IDE with scsi emulation crapped out on me once with the cdburner.Don't know if it is was the burner or the controller.For 3d acceleration and the latest drivers go to http://www.winischhofer.net - if that doesn't get it going nothing will.No wonders there though - I get framerates around 35-40 fps with tuxracer wit 800x600 16 bit and 900 mhz duron.

RockHound · Posted: Thu Nov 14, 2002 12:31 pm Post subject:

klimg · n00b Joined: 21 Sep 2002 Posts: 55

I just post this in case nobody comes up with some other idea.
You could try http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/altinstall.xml I used it to install from an existing linux partition with out any trouble.