On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, Marc Aurele La France wrote:
> > > I am using the latest BIOS for my machine, a DELL Dimension XPS R400.
> > > The BIOS version is A13, the newest thing from Dell's website. Albiet,
> > > it was created in 1999, but it's the newest they have.
> > > There is no onboard video on my motherboard - the second video device
> > > the X-server thinks it found is the SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Value card
> > > (CT4830). There are no video ports on the sound card, just 4 audio jacks
> > > and a MIDI/Joystick port. Proof of this list error is found by running
> > > "lspci", which says the SB Live! is a "VGA Compatible Unclassified
> > > Device". Here's the output from that:
> > That sounds like a motherboard BIOS bug then, or a bug with the
> > SB Live card's PCI config space.
> It's "b)". Creator is notorious for producing adapters that mis-advertise
> their PCI type as 00/01 ("prehistoric" VGA) instead of 04/01 (multimedia
> audio).
I, of course, meant "Creative", not "Creator".
> Also, the motherboard BIOS has no way of overriding these types.
> > Adding:
> > BusID "PCI:0:13:0"
> > to the Section "Device" will force the ATI driver to use the
> > correct card. Hopfully XFree86's RAC support isn't confused by
> > the two "VGA compatible" devices.
> That helps, certainly, but by then, this hardware bug has already caused
> us to not mark the Radeon as the primary adapter. This causes an attempt
> to re-initialise the Radeon, which is not a good idea due to a separate
> bug in its BIOS.
> This'll require a code change to fix. But I'm not sure what the
> best way to fix this is. There's a mechanism in the server to override
> advertised PCI types, but it's not pervasive, affecting only certain
> areas. Anyway, I'll look into it.
> In the meantime, I'd suggest ripping out the Creative, perhaps replacing
> with an adapter that doesn't display this problem.
It turns out there's a straightforward workaround for this problem. As
root, do ...
cd /usr/X11R6/lib/modules
cp libpcidata.a libpcidata.backup
cp libscanpci.a libpcidata.a
... and stop and restart the X server. The "BusID" specification should
then be unnecessary (as would removing the Sound Blaster adapter).
Marc.
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| Marc Aurele La France | work: 1-780-492-9310 |
| Computing and Network Services | fax: 1-780-492-1729 |
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| University of Alberta +-----------------------------------+
| Edmonton, Alberta | |
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XFree86 developer and VP. ATI driver and X server internals.
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