Problem using Sil 3132 Sata2 controller with X5000

@walkero

yes. It is. And it is well known.. Luigi Burdo has explained a lot of times the problems on X5000 and PCI devices

@afxgroup
If that is the case, that means that the X5000 as sold by A-Eon, are broken.
But why this happens only with some cards and not every card?
Did Luigi Burdo shared that information anywhere, where I could have a look at?

@walkero
I think you can find something here on amigans or maybe on amigaworld. But don't ask me how to find it..

@afxgroup
@walkero

https://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/v ... _id=42094&forum=33#802409

@AlfredOne

Thank you. Two very lengthy discussions. Is it the chip, the motherboard design, UBoot, or some combination....?

This is the sort of issue I hope we can avoid with the Mirari boards. And if it ends up being a design issue with NXP chips, I at least expect Harald and Dave to be honest with us.

@AlfredOne
Thank you so much for that link.

@tao

We might need to give such a card a try in the Mirari. I have never tested this.
On the other hand..we have SATA and NVME.

@Skateman
Quote:Even if those are useless on the Mirari:
Testing PCI(e) hardware known to have issues on other Amiga PPC systems, like the Sii3152 on classic Amigas (with FireStorm, Prometheus or Mediator) and on the Sam440 as well as the Sii3132 on the X5000, could help to find hardware and/or software (U-Boot) problems on the Mirari.

@joerg

I agree, and i might order one of these cards to give it a try.
As we use a way newer Uboot version compared to the X5K machines it would still be unclear where the problem lies regarding the X5K`s .. Anwyay i would agree that testing as much hardware as possible will always benefit!

@Skateman

Since you chimed-in, I'll ask this: if Sil3132 problems do carry over to the Mirari, as NXP developers, are you entitled to their tech support? Do you have the ability to open tickets, or is that a different support tier?

Well i do think we can we can create tickets at NXP if needed. On the other hand, asking support for a 21 year old SIL3132 chipset based budget controller might not be something they see as a high priority issue.. but again if needed we can always try.

Good to know, thanks. Yes, it makes sense that they won't get excited over one old, obscure card, but if this problem plagues one card, it probably plagues other, too. Somewhere.

Getting OT, but I wonder how many Amiga users have access to a wide range of PCI/PCie cards (maybe a friend owns a computer repair shop?) and checked them for recognition in UBoot/CFE? When you know there are drivers for only cards X, Y, and Z, I think the natural tendency is to steer away from anything else. Maybe some of the X5000 beta testers had a go?

@tao

The linux nerds have used more cards on the X5000 than anyone else and the Sil 3132 is the only one i ever seen beeing reported as invisible to the system, that one was reported about already in 2016.

@smf

As being one of these linux nerds as well i have used a cheap ASmedia Sata controller (PCIeX1) with linux in my X5000 for a long time as well.

@Skateman

Quote:

You're probably right, and it's not worth it for the X5000 or its Mirari board.

The internal controllers on both boards are fast enough, and very few people are likely to use more than two hard drives with this hardware.

For example, I use a 1 terabyte SSD and a 512 GB NVME, which is more storage than I use on my MacStudio