[coreboot] GA-6BXE doesn't boot with Intel PRO/1000 GT

[Tomi Leppänen]

Hi,

I have a Gigabyte GA-6BXE (Rev 2.1) motherboard with coreboot (built 
last week, I think). My processor is Intel Pentium III 550 and I have 
786 MiB of RAM (actually 1 GiB but the motherboard can't see a part of 
it). It works just fine when I connect graphics card (ATI Rage II3 or 
Nvidia GeForce 2 MX) and some other network card I have (I've got 3Com 
and some other 100 Mb/s NIC). I can even connect both of them and it 
boots just fine. When I connect Intel PRO/1000 GT Desktop Adapter it 
doesn't boot. Post card gives me code 0x9B. Nothing appears to my screen 
nor it reads CD (System Rescue Disk, that is just some random Linux).

I get the same results if I use ATI Radeon 9200SE as the graphics card 
(last post code is also 0x9B and display is black). Original bios didn't 
like that graphics card but it at least got into console, just had some 
"overlapping memory BAR stuff" I don't know much about and thus I 
couldn't get X working. I haven't tried that Intel NIC with the 
motherboard's original bios (requires flashing it back). I'd like to get 
that Intel's card working because I was about to try making a router out 
of that old hardware.

In addition I noticed that my CD drive didn't work correctly if I 
connected it to first IDE connector on motherboard. It had some trouble 
loading Linux and dmesg output following:
ata1.00: qc_timeout (cmd 0xa0)
ata1.00: TEST_UNIT_READY failed (err_mask=0x4)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/33
which was repeated twice and later it told me that ata1.00: disabled, it 
was soft resetting link (still ata1.00) and last message about that is 
"EH complete". After that I couldn't use the CD drive. I don't know if 
there is something wrong with my hardware, but the other IDE bus works 
just fine, which I okay, as I don't need more than two devices. I've had 
problems with that motherboard's IDE bus before still using original bios.

If you are going to make some patches or anything, I'd just like you to 
know that I don't have any other 'special' equipment than the (cheap) 
post card, but I have another GA-6BXE (though Rev 1.9) motherboard that 
beeps continuosly when I boot it (still has the original bios). I might 
be able to switch the chips, although the chip with coreboot has one leg 
broken and I use a resistor's leg instead, so it's kind of annoing to 
fiddle with.

I also tried the motherboard with IWill Sloket and VIA C3 (1 GHz, 
Nehemiah core), which works nicely with original bios (with 133 
MHz×7,5=~1  GHz clock), but it didn't work and the last post code is 
0x01. The motherboard has DIP switches for selecting FSB speed and I 
tried with 100 and 133 MHz settings, neither worked. But that's not the 
main issue right now, although it would be nice to have that setup 
working too. I could also try one Socket 370 Celeron if you want. :)

Thanks.

Ps. I hope I didn't make too many typos as it's my second (or third, 
whatever) language (Finns are odd people, you know ;)) and I wrote this 
at midnight. Feel free to ask if you don't understand something. I also 
know that my parts are from different ages and that might be the source 
of some compatibility issues.