Re: Sonnet Crescendo/PCI G4 Processor Upgrade Card with Debian Sarge
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debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org
Am 29.10.2006 um 08:40 schrieb Peter Rooney:
Dear Jeffrey,
Sonnet G3 upgrade in my 7600 (extremely similar) worked fine for both
woody and sarge. After I'd been running it for a year, I discovered
that there was a way to get the L2 cache used in Linux. My run book
for that machine is buried, so I can't say for certain what the
process was without digging through boxes of books, but I seem to
recall the MacOS program was called "Grab G3 Cache Settings". Not
sure if it's applicable to your G4. Good luck.
Peter Rooney
Jeffrey Rolland wrote:
> Hello, all!
>
> I have a Power Macintosh 7500/100 running Debian Sarge. I would like
> to upgrade this from the 100MHz processor it has to a Sonnet
> Crescendo/PCI G4 1GHz processor upgrade card, but I am not sure it
> will work with the kernel. I had heard that Yellow Dog Linux won't
> work with an upgrade card, which sparks my concern.
Debian should work out of the box with the upgrades, it was long time a
have to to upgrade the PowerPC 601 cpu card.
A Sonnet G3 450 (L2 512MB) in an PMac 8500 that runs fine with Debian
sarge KDE. It starts right into Linux without BootX (as long as the
NVRAM isn't reeset). This combination doesn't set up the L2 cache at
boot time. But you can set the L2 cache within Linux if the /proc file
system is up.
"cat /proc/sys/kernel/l2cr"
will show you if a L2 cache was set up and how it's tuned. You can
simply echo the right string to this and the l2 is set up and working.
The virgin output on my system/kernel/card was
0x00000016: L2 disabled, no parity, 2MB, clock disabled, flow-through
burst SRAM, copy-back, 0.5ns hold
With the right setting I'm getting (actual settings nulled so nobody
likes to just test my very own settings and burn his cache lines):
0x00000000 L2 enabled, no parity, 512KB, +2 clock, pipelined burst
SRAM, copy-back, 0.5ns hold
ATTENTION!!!
You will seriously harm you computer and cpu card providing an
incorrect string / number / cache setting!!! Use Powerlogix cpudirector
with MacOS(X) to get a useful and secure cache setting.
Some information about it:
http://www.cpu.lu/~mlan/linux/dev/g3upgrade.html
http://www.stunet.tu-freiberg.de/~hypermail/lkml/2002/10/3486.html
http://www.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/bkcvs/linux-2.4/arch/ppc/
kernel/l2cr.S,v
What is the benefit?
Without L2 cache:
Pythagoras:~# /etc/init.d/l2cr off;cat /proc/sys/kernel/l2cr;oggenc
ppcnux.aif; oggenc ppcnux.aif
0x00000016: L2 disabled, no parity, 2MB, clock disabled, flow-through
burst SRAM, copy-back, 0.5ns hold
Opening with aiff module: AIFF/AIFC file reader
Encoding "ppcnux.aif" to
"ppcnux.ogg"
at quality 3.00
[ 99.2%] [ 0m00s remaining] \
Done encoding file "ppcnux.ogg"
File length: 1m 12.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 44.5s
Rate: 1.6173
Average bitrate: 111.9 kb/s
Opening with aiff module: AIFF/AIFC file reader
Encoding "ppcnux.aif" to
"ppcnux.ogg"
at quality 3.00
[ 99.2%] [ 0m00s remaining] \
Done encoding file "ppcnux.ogg"
File length: 1m 12.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 44.5s
Rate: 1.6169
Average bitrate: 111.9 kb/s
With L2 Cache
Pythagoras:~# /etc/init.d/l2cr set;cat /proc/sys/kernel/l2cr;oggenc
ppcnux.aif; oggenc ppcnux.aif
0xa9000044: L2 enabled, no parity, 512KB, +2 clock, pipelined burst
SRAM, copy-back, 0.5ns hold
Opening with aiff module: AIFF/AIFC file reader
Encoding "ppcnux.aif" to
"ppcnux.ogg"
at quality 3.00
[ 99.2%] [ 0m00s remaining] \
Done encoding file "ppcnux.ogg"
File length: 1m 12.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 32.0s
Rate: 2.2511
Average bitrate: 111.9 kb/s
Opening with aiff module: AIFF/AIFC file reader
Encoding "ppcnux.aif" to
"ppcnux.ogg"
at quality 3.00
[ 99.2%] [ 0m00s remaining] \
Done encoding file "ppcnux.ogg"
File length: 1m 12.0s
Elapsed time: 0m 27.6s
Rate: 2.6099
Average bitrate: 111.9 kb/s
But are you quit sure to spend 200 bugs for an outdated upgrade card,
miniMacs G4 are fine too ;-) Perhaps you'll get a OldWorld PowerMac (G3
or G3 upgraded) for much less?
- ---
Ralf Saalmüller
Amonshöhe 26
97437 Hassfurt
Germany
PPCNUX-Team
http://www.ppcnux.org
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