Re: i2c_adapter i2c-0: Bus collision!

From: Jean Delvare (khali_at_linux-fr.org)
Date: 01/17/04

  • Next message: George Anzinger: "Re: KGDB documentation [Re: [discuss] KGDB 2.0.3 with fixes and development in ethernet interface]"
    Date:	Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:48:56 +0100
    To: Stian Jordet <liste@jordet.nu>
    
    

    > sorry to bother you again, but this didn't tell you anything about
    > what's going on?

    Sorry for the delay. Too much work, not enough time. You know the story
    I guess.

    > > I forgot to mention it in my last mail, but I sometime has to
    > > reload the modules before "sensors" finds any sensor.

    As we load sensor chip drivers, we make sure that the chip we want to
    handle is what we think it is. Technically, this means reading from a
    few registers and compare the values with what we would expect for this
    chip. So the same read errors that make your hardware monitoring values
    jump make the chip identification fail sometimes.

    > > Attached three runs. Seems to be some read errors :( On these three
    > > runs I got first three bus-collisions, then one, and last two.

    Not all read errors are detected as bus collisions. Anyway, you got
    loads of 'XX' as I expected, "moving" from run to run, which means that
    your i2c bus is unreliable.

    My conclusion would be: bad hardware design generates noise on the i2c
    bus, resulting in read errors.

    > > > Did you have to enable any particular option in MBM?
    > >
    > > Nah, it just worked :)

    I asked Alex van Kaam (MBM's brilliant author) about his strategy with
    bus collisions. To make it short, he explained he resets the bus on
    problems. If you confirm that the smbus MBM detected was Via, Alex will
    send me his code so that I can compare with ours, just in case. But I
    doubt it'll change anything (our driver is working, it's just a matter
    of how errors are - or aren't - handled).

    Basically we don't handle read errors at all (because it is so rare).
    Handling them correctly would make all chip drivers (and possibly i2c
    core and bus drivers as well) more complex. I'm not sure it's worth it.

    That said, a similar problem was reported with W83L785TS-S chips (A7N8X
    motherboards). I think that the cause is different (BIOS trying to
    access the bus at the same time we do) but the consequences are the
    same. I plan to add basic error handling to this specific chip driver
    (don't know when I'll find the time to do so though). If it works and
    could be extended to other drivers as well, we'll consider it.

    > > I guess this is unsolvable, but I just wanted to hear what you say.
    > > Kinda weird it works so well with MBM, but that's ok. It's just for
    > > fun I want it to work.

    I think it is work-around-able, but doubt it's worth it. Anyway, thanks
    for reporting, as it increased our knowledge of the topic.

    > > Thanks for your reply :)

    You're welcome. Sorry for the delay again.

    -- 
    Jean Delvare
    http://www.ensicaen.ismra.fr/~delvare/
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