Arch Linux

palmaway

Member

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 63

PCMCIA Memory Card Adapter v.s. ACPI?? [SOLVED!?!]

Hi everybody!

I'm new to this board, but I'm happy to say that Arch Linux rocks in Italy too!

But I'm writing here for a weird problem I've got. I bought a Buffalo PCMCIA 5 in 1 Memory Card Adapter MCR-5A (http://buffalo.jp/products/catalog/item/m/mcr-5a/), and I obviously want it to work under linux. And it seems to be supported, too. But...

If I just put the PCMCIA card in the card reader, everything seems ok. If I put a SD card inside, the right modules are loaded (like ide_sd), but no way i can see it.
If I reboot with the SD card inside, at the UDev step the booting process stops, and prints a "Disabling IRQ #3". Hitting Ctrl-C I can get a single-mode console.

Following a tip I read somewhere on the internet, I tried to append "acpi=off" at boot time, and... It worked! Well, kind of. I got to see the SD card (on /dev/hde1) but I lost my integrated wireless card (Atheros), which probably doesn't work without ACPI.

Any suggestion? This is really troubling me, I need to read SD cards!

Thanks for any help!
Paolo

Last edited by palmaway (2007-03-12 00:04:34)

palmaway

Member

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 63

Re: PCMCIA Memory Card Adapter v.s. ACPI?? [SOLVED!?!]

I tried to find out something more, and I found this in the dmesg output:

ALI15X3: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:0f.0
ACPI: Unable to derive IRQ for device 0000:00:0f.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.0[A]: no GSI
ALI15X3: chipset revision 196
ALI15X3: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0x8080-0x8087, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0x8088-0x808f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
[...]
AC'97 1 does not respond - RESET
AC'97 1 access is not valid [0xffffffff], removing mixer.
ali mixer 1 creating error.
ali15x3_smbus 0000:00:06.0: ALI15X3_smb region uninitialized - upgrade BIOS or use force_addr=0xaddr
ali15x3_smbus 0000:00:06.0: ALI15X3 not detected, module not inserted.

I belive these are the critical lines.

Why is that module "permanent"??
This is the relative lsmode (lsmod | grep ali)

i2c_ali1535             6276  0
i2c_ali15x3             6916  0
i2c_core               17792  2 i2c_ali1535,i2c_ali15x3
snd_ali5451            19212  0
snd_ac97_codec         91940  1 snd_ali5451
snd_pcm                68484  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec
snd                    43492  9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ali5451,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
alim15x3               10764  0 [permanent]
ide_core              108616  5 ide_cs,ide_cd,ide_disk,generic,alim15x3

This is my lspci output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS200/RS200M AGP Bridge [IGP 340M] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc PCI Bridge [IGP 340M]
00:03.0 Modem: ALi Corporation M5457 AC'97 Modem Controller
00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: ALi Corporation M5451 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device (rev 02)
00:06.0 Bridge: ALi Corporation M7101 Power Management Controller [PMU]
00:07.0 ISA bridge: ALi Corporation M1533/M1535 PCI to ISA Bridge [Aladdin IV/V/V+]
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
00:0a.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller
00:0a.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCI7420/7620 Combo CardBus, 1394a-2000 OHCI and SD/MS-Pro Controller
00:0c.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0c.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
00:0c.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: ALi Corporation M5229 IDE (rev c4)
00:12.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M9+ 5C61 [Radeon Mobility 9200 (AGP)] (rev 01)

and this is the result of "cat /proc/ioports":

0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-0077 : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : 0000:00:0f.0
  0170-0177 : ide1
01f0-01f7 : 0000:00:0f.0
  01f0-01f7 : ide0
0376-0376 : 0000:00:0f.0
  0376-0376 : ide1
0378-037a : parport0
03c0-03df : vesafb
03f6-03f6 : 0000:00:0f.0
  03f6-03f6 : ide0
040b-040b : pnp 00:05
0480-048f : pnp 00:05
04d0-04d1 : pnp 00:05
04d6-04d6 : pnp 00:05
0778-077a : parport0
0cf8-0cff : PCI conf1
1000-10ff : 0000:00:03.0
  1028-102f : serial
  1040-1047 : serial
  1050-1057 : serial
  1060-1067 : serial
1400-14ff : PCI CardBus #02
1800-18ff : PCI CardBus #02
8000-803f : 0000:00:06.0
  8000-8003 : ACPI PM1a_EVT_BLK
  8004-8005 : ACPI PM1a_CNT_BLK
  8008-800b : ACPI PM_TMR
  8010-8015 : ACPI CPU throttle
  8018-8027 : ACPI GPE0_BLK
  8030-8030 : ACPI PM2_CNT_BLK
8040-805f : 0000:00:06.0
  8040-805f : ali1535_smbus
8080-808f : 0000:00:0f.0
  8080-8087 : ide0
  8088-808f : ide1
8400-84ff : 0000:00:04.0
  8400-84ff : ALI 5451
9000-90ff : 0000:00:12.0
  9000-90ff : 8139too
a000-afff : PCI Bus #01
  a000-a0ff : 0000:01:05.0
fe00-fe01 : motherboard
fe10-fe11 : motherboard

I already tried every possible combination of "pci= routeirq" "irqpoll" "irqfixup" "acpi=noirq" etc... Countless reboots, but no result at all...

If anyone has even the slightest clue of what's happening here, please tell me. Any help is highly appreciated. I really need to use the PCMCIA Card Adapter.

Thanks,
Paolo

palmaway

Member

Registered: 2007-03-01

Posts: 63

Re: PCMCIA Memory Card Adapter v.s. ACPI?? [SOLVED!?!]

Yay! After many days of intensive research, i found a solution.

Somehow, and i really can't explain why, the Memory Card Adapter conflicted with my Ethernet controller. I disabled the 8139too module in rc.conf and everything works!
This way, I can use this configuration (no 8139too module and ACPI on) when I need the wireless card, and re-enable the 8139too disabling ACPI (acpi=noirq) when i need an ethernet connection.

It's weird, I know, but it works....

Bye!
Paolo