Differences between version 28 and predecessor to the previous major change of NForce2Notes.
Other diffs: Previous Revision, Previous Author, or view the Annotated Edit History
| Newer page: | version 28 | Last edited on Wednesday, March 10, 2004 10:28:01 pm | by WilliamBlew | Revert |
| Older page: | version 2 | Last edited on Sunday, July 6, 2003 11:44:23 pm | by MattBrown | Revert |
@@ -1,17 +1,114 @@
-The three components of the motherboard that you are likely to need special (usually binary) drivers from outside the kernel for are graphics, network and sound. These are described in more detail below. I have
a Gigabyte GA-7N400Pro motherboard and this page is based on my
experiences with that
.
+The three components of the motherboard that you are likely to need special (usually binary) drivers from outside the kernel for are graphics, network and sound. These are described in more detail below. MattBrown has
a Gigabyte GA-7N400Pro motherboard and CraigBox has a Soltek 75-FRN-RL
and this page is based mostly
on experiences with those
.
First of all download the nvidia driver package from the following URL (You may want to check for a more recent version)
http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=linux_nforce_1.0-0261
!! Graphics
-See RadeonOnNforce
for more information
on getting graphics cards
work on a nForce2 based board
.
+
+You need NVIDIA AGPGART support, and you get this by using 2.4.22+ or 2.6.3+ Some people have experienced performance issues with 8x AGP using kernels before 2.6.3.
See RadeonNotes
for more on getting an ATI card to
work.
+
+To get an nvidia card working, see their http://www.nvidia.com/ site for their latest graphics driver (currently [1.-5336|http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.-5336.html] as of March 6, 2004)
.
!! Network
-The network controller on nForce2 based boards only works with a binary driver called nvnet that is supplied by nvidia in the package above. This seems to work fine and give
reasonable performance.
+The network controller on nForce2 based boards only works with a binary driver called nvnet that is supplied by nvidia in the package above. This seems to work fine and gives
reasonable performance.
+
+If you're using kernel 2.6, you will have to [patch the NVidia source|http://penna.dyn.dhs.org/nvnet.2.5-1.diff] to make nvnet run.
+
+See also [ForcedEth|http://www.hailfinger.org/carldani/linux/patches/forcedeth/], a reverse engineered open source ethernet driver for the onboard NVIDIA lan.
+
+!Note with regard to network performance
+
+Sometimes you'll notice, when doing large transfers over your LAN, that your CPU usage goes through the roof and eth0 generates up to 500,000 interrupts a second. The nvnet driver is to blame; you can either load the module with 'optimizations=1' to optimize for CPU usage instead of throughput (interestingly, this doesn't seem to affect throughput at all), or you can load forcedeth, which makes it all go away. forcedeth should be included in 2.4.24+ and is within 2.6.3+
.
!! Sound
-I've heard of people
(CraigBox, PhilMurray
) getting sound working on a nForce2 board using both
the i810_audio module in the kernel
and also
with the nvidia supplied binary module
from the package
above. I've not been able to get this
running successfully yet using either
module. The nVidia binary module locks
the machine solid
, and i810_
audio produces no sound despite everything appearing
to work correctly
.
+Provided you have your motherboard correctly setup
(see below
) you should be able to use
the kernel supplied OSS
i810_audio module to get sound using the nvidia chipset. You can get better facility out of the nvaudio module but it's hard to get going.
+
+If you're using [ALSA], you might want something like this (/etc/modprobe.conf
in [Linux 2.6|LinuxKernel2.6]):
+
+<verbatim>
+# ALSA portion
+alias char-major-116 snd
+alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
+# module options should go here
+# OSS/Free portion
+alias char-major-14 soundcore
+alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-
+alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-
+# card #1
+alias sound-service--0 snd-mixer-oss
+alias sound-service--1 snd-seq-oss
+alias sound-service--3 snd-pcm-oss
+alias sound-service--8 snd-seq-oss
+alias sound-service--12 snd-pcm-oss
+options snd-intel8x0 mpu_port=0x330
+</verbatim>
+
+You can either be using an analog speaker setup, or a digital speaker setup. While
the above configuration is sufficient for analog speakers, the following additional notes are applicable to a digital speaker setup.
+
+The digital setup will be using the motherboard's S/PDIF output. The ALSA card , device 0 (playback) provides the analog outputs. However, the ALSA card , device 2 (playback) provides the S/PDIF (i.e. IEC958) output.
+
+You will want to direct ALSA's OSS emulation device 0 (/dev/dsp0, /dev/adsp0, etal) to ALSA device 2, so that applications using the OSS API will send their sounds to your nifty digital speaker system. To accomplish this mapping of OSS device 0 to ALSA device 2, add the following to your modules.conf file:
+<verbatim>
+options snd-pcm-oss dsp_map=2 adsp_map=2
+</verbatim>
+In addition, you might want to configure alsa-lib to provide software mixing
and rate conversion,
with the following /etc/asound.conf file:
+<verbatim>
+### /etc/asound.conf for nforce2 apu
+pcm.nforce-hw {
+ type hw
+ card
+}
+pcm.!default {
+ type plug
+ slave.pcm "nforce"
+}
+pcm.nforce {
+ type dmix
+ ipc_key 1234
+ slave {
+ pcm "hw:,2"
+ period_time
+ period_size 1024
+ buffer_size 32768
+ rate 44100
+ }
+}
+</verbatim>
+While the above alsa-lib "nforce" device is limited to 2 channels, it does provides software audio mixing. This nicely handles the mixing of audio
from multiple applications.
+
+In addition to
the above configuration notes, here are a few usage notes to keep in mind:
+
+With the above /etc/asound
.conf xmms (1.2.8) will happily use its alsa-xmms (.9.12) output plugin when its configured to use the "nforce" device instead of its default ALSA device. Similarly, by using the alsa9:nforce audio device mplayer (.92) will also happily generate downmixed stereo S/PDIF output.
+
+These nforce2 S/PDIF ALSA usage notes are current as of ALSA 1..2 (circa Feb/2004). The above config was tested with an unpatched linux kernel 2.6.3 (alsa-driver 1..2c) on an ABIT NF7-S rev2 optically S/PDIF connected to a Cambridge Sound Works DTT3500 Digital Home Speaker System.
+
+
I found these invaluable files within ALSA
's [Documentation|http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/alsa/alsa-kernel/Documentation/#dirlist] directory: [ALSA-Configuration.txt|http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/alsa/alsa-kernel/Documentation/ALSA-Configuration.txt?view=markup] and [OSS-Emulation.txt|http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/alsa/alsa-kernel/Documentation/OSS-Emulation.txt?view=markup].
+
+!!USB
+
+If you're
running Linux 2.6, you will want to use the ohci-hcd [USB]
module, in a stanza in modprobe
.conf like so:
+
+<verbatim>
+alias usb-controller ohci-hcd
+alias usb-controller1 ehci-hcd
+</verbatim>
+
+!! IDE Controller
+
The ATA100 support for nforce2 boards is mature in kernel versions 2.4.24 and 2.6.3. Just be sure to enable
the kernel's nforce2 IDE driver.
+
+!! ACPI
+The 2.4.25 and 2.6.3 kernels support nforce2 boards' [ACPI|http://www.acpi.info/] (Advanced Configuration & Power Interface) implementation. With ACPI and its thermal zone support enabled
, userspace programs (e.g. gkrellm) can display the temperature of the CPU die.
+
+!! APIC
+The 2.4.25
and 2.6.3 kernels support nforce2 boards' [APIC|http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/datashts/290566.htm]. However, due to a confusing hardware? bug (the C1 disconnect bug) most nforce2 boards frequently freeze when the kernel's APIC/APIC-IO support is enabled. Here is a website that provides some more details: http://atlas.et.tudelft.nl/verwei90/nforce2/index.html
+
+The word on the linux kernel mailing list is that shuttle's nforce2 boards have a recent BIOS update that addresses their APIC freeze issue. While recent progress seems to be happening, my ABIT NF7-S (rev2) board still freezes with kernel 2.6.3
+
+!!GA-7N400
+
+The GA-7N400 is a Gigabyte Socket A motherboard based on the nForce2 chipset. I had a few things catch me out as I got it working with linux.
+
+* If you do not have the "front
audio" expansion connected ensure that pins 5-6 and 9-10 (either side of the single pin) are jumpered or you will not be able
to get *any* sound out of the line out port.
+* Kernel 2.4.21 does not support the IDE controller on the nVidia chipset (well it does, but only in 16-bit PIO mode), 2.4.20 supports the controller properly in 32-bit DMA mode
.
-!!
Other Notes
-! IDE Controller
-I had some fun getting my hard disk running in
a decent mode with my
motherboard. It seems that the IDE "fixes" applied between 2.4.20 and 2.4.21 have broken compatibility for the nForce2 IDE
chipset and you can only get 16-
bit PIO mode.
I've
not yet investigated exactly what changed between the two kernels
to break this
.
+Other than that it seems to be
a fairly good
motherboard. The nForce
chipset was a little
bit more work to get going under linux that
I would have liked, but it was
not hassle free
to set it up under windows either. I guess you get what you pay for
.
