EPIA-M AC97 link problem, 20% of boxes

[Dave Ashley]

We're into production, and we've found 20% of our boxes based on the
epia-m 6000 + linuxbios have a problem with the AC97 codec, the codec
reports busy all the time, or never reports a ready status. If I switch
back to award bios the codec works fine. This is related to device
11.5 of the VT8235. It seems as though 80% of the boxes have no problem,
but 20% always have the problem under linuxbios.

I'll need to dig into this and work out a solution, which of course I'll
share. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to what to try.

Thanks--
Dave