Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

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phx

Posted on: 2012/9/16 17:50 #1

Just popping in

This weekend I installed my new 440ep-flex board into a Micro-ATX case with 400W PSU. It has a SATA hard disk and DVD drive attached and the board is equipped with 1GB RAM. The graphics card is still missing. I need to find a suitable one next week.

I would have expected that the blue LED besides J21 should be lit as soon as I give AC power to the PSU. But nothing happens.

It was suspected by other users that the board is not drawing sufficient power to activate a modern PSU, so I tried a Pico-PSU instead, and the blue LED went on.

But there is still something which troubles me. When I use the board's power switch the blue LED goes dark, but there is no other reaction: the DVD drive still has no power and there is no output at the serial port (I connected a terminal at 115200bps 8N1).

Is that to be expected?

Rigo

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/16 20:28 #2

Supreme Council

The blue LED is acting correctly. For some reason it is on when the board is switched off, and goes out when the power button is pressed.

I'm not sure why the terminal output is not working, but the machine won't boot without a graphics card, so see if you can get a Radeon 9250, and hopefully it should fire right up.

Simon

Comments made in any post are personal opinion, and are in no-way representative of any commercial entity unless specifically stated as such.
----
http://codebench.co.uk

phx

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/16 22:06 #3

Just popping in

Quote:

I'm not sure why the terminal output is not working, but the machine won't boot without a graphics card,

Hmm. I would have expected that U-Boot uses the serial port for output when there is no graphics card.
Can anybody confirm it doesn't work?

Ok. I will wait for the Radeon 9250 before doing further experiments.

corto

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/16 22:57 #4

Not too shy to talk

phx : Hum, I think even without a real graphics card, u-boot tries to read/write there, until we redirect to the real serial port. I don't know if that helps but this is what Max Tretene answered to me when I asked about using the real UART.

Quote:

To disable the output to video and to enable input/output from the serial port, you need to set, form the u-boot prompt:

setenv stdout serial
setenv stdin serial

Then both input and output are redirected on the UART.
Defaut parameters for the UART are: baudrate 115200, 8N1

phx

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/17 11:35 #5

Just popping in

But how would you type those setenv commands without a graphics card? ;)

It should be easy for UBoot to find out whether a graphics card is connected or not. So it can automatically default to serial when missing.
The Pegasos OpenFirmware, for example, will switch to serial when you disconnect the keyboard.

corto

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/17 21:47 #6

Not too shy to talk

Right, the situation is not very logic :)
Maybe uboot could be updated? I'm not sure there are plans about that.

And writing "setenv stdout serial", I failed to get a connection over the serial link (no characters printed at the other side, in the remote terminal).

Starting with "setenv stdin serial", just like you, I had no chance to type "setenv stdout serial" !

m3x

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/18 8:17 #7

Just popping in

Yes, U-Boot output on the serial port even without a gfx card installed, be sure to set the PC terminal program to 115200 8N1 (if the default baudrate settings has not been changed)

Max Tretene, ACube Systems Srl, Soft3

phx

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/18 18:45 #8

Just popping in

Then the board is defect. There is no output.
For another test I used a GeForce 6200LE and connected an USB keyboard. But again no reaction.

Pressing the power button only switches the blue LED off. But the pico-PSU doesn't seem to switch on. The connected drives get no power either.

phx

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/18 21:17 #9

Just popping in

Update: Luckily I was wrong. The board is ok. But my Pico-PSU is defect. I don't seem to have much luck with my PSUs these days... :P

I found an old 200W ATX PSU, which works.

m3x is right, U-Boot 1.3.1 behaves nicely and defaults to serial.

Although it doesn't like my GeForce 6200LE, and hangs after VESA is detected as being ok:


U-Boot 1.3.1e (Jul  5 2012 - 19:02:53)



CPU:   AMCC PowerPC 440EP Rev. C at 666.666 MHz (PLB=133, OPB=66, EBC=66 MHz)

       I2C boot EEPROM enabled

       Bootstrap Option H - Boot ROM Location I2C (Addr 0x52)

       Internal PCI arbiter enabled, PCI async ext clock used

       32 kB I-Cache 32 kB D-Cache

Board: Sam440ep-flex

I2C:   ready

DRAM:  1024 MB

PCI:   Bus Dev VenId DevId Class Int

        01  04  1013  6005  0401  00

        01  05  1033  0035  0c03  00

        01  05  1033  0035  0c03  00

        01  05  1033  00e0  0c03  00

        00  0a  12d8  8150  0604  00

        00  0c  10de  0221  0300  00

        00  0e  1095  3114  0180  00

In:    serial

Out:   serial

Err:   serial

Net:   ppc_4xx_eth0, ppc_4xx_eth1

SM502: not found

VGA:   1 

VESA:  OK

Doesn't u-boot support all graphics cards in VESA-mode? Is there a list of working cards somewhere?

Without graphics card I can use u-boot:


U-Boot 1.3.1e (Jul  5 2012 - 19:02:53)



CPU:   AMCC PowerPC 440EP Rev. C at 666.666 MHz (PLB=133, OPB=66, EBC=66 MHz)

       I2C boot EEPROM enabled

       Bootstrap Option H - Boot ROM Location I2C (Addr 0x52)

       Internal PCI arbiter enabled, PCI async ext clock used

       32 kB I-Cache 32 kB D-Cache

Board: Sam440ep-flex

I2C:   ready

DRAM:  1024 MB

PCI:   Bus Dev VenId DevId Class Int

        01  04  1013  6005  0401  00

        01  05  1033  0035  0c03  00

        01  05  1033  0035  0c03  00

        01  05  1033  00e0  0c03  00

        00  0a  12d8  8150  0604  00

        00  0e  1095  3114  0180  00

In:    serial

Out:   serial

Err:   serial

Net:   ppc_4xx_eth0, ppc_4xx_eth1

SM502: not found

VGA:   NO CARDS

USB:   OHCI pci controller (1033, 0035) found @(1:5:0)

scanning bus for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found



Last Switch off: m41st84 RTC Clock stopped!!!

Date: 2265-25-45 (unknown day)    Time: 45:85:85



IDE Device 0: not available 

AOS4 FLB

FLB: no SLB found in any of the designated boot sources; returning to u-boot.

Press any key to continue

Now I need to find a PSU which can replace the 400W model in my new micro-ATX tower...

Elwood

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/19 11:09 #10

Just can't stay away

Quote:

Doesn't u-boot support all graphics cards in VESA-mode?

AFAIK, "all" graphic cards work correctly only in a PC as they have a ROM with x86 code.

In our PPC cards, there is an x86 emulator to execute this x86 code. Like all emulators, some code may not be emulated correctly.

Philippe 'Elwood' FERRUCCI
Sam460ex 1.10 Ghz
http://elwoodb.free.fr

phx

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/20 12:31 #11

Just popping in

Quote:

In our PPC cards, there is an x86 emulator to execute this x86 code. Like all emulators, some code may not be emulated correctly.

Makes sense.
But is there a list of cards which haven proven to work with the emulator?
I have heard that Radeon9200 and 9250 may be ok. Any other?

Elwood

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/25 10:20 #12

Just can't stay away

The best list is this one

Philippe 'Elwood' FERRUCCI
Sam460ex 1.10 Ghz
http://elwoodb.free.fr

corto

Re: Sam 440ep flex and PSUs

Posted on: 2012/9/25 12:32 #13

Not too shy to talk

I checked and on the Sam440 with u-boot 1.3.1a (Nov 27 09), I still can't get the serial output.

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