MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

A forum for AmigaOne XE and MicroA1-C specific issues.
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szaman
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MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by szaman »

What USB2.0 card will work with my MicroA1-C? I test a VIVANCO (NEC chipset) card and i have the same effect as Radeon PCI graphics card - system crash near SetPatch command... Any idea?
sandpiper
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by sandpiper »

I have installed 2 different USB cards in my micro A1. Both have the VIA VT6212L chipset. I tried numerous times to get the micro (with a fresh install of AOS4.1 update 3) to boot but it kept getting stuck right after the kickstart files were loaded. The AOS4.1 boot splash screen appeared, disappeared, then kept reappearing as it went into a continuous warm re-boot cycle. It never did load WorkBench.

Some other users have reported problems with the VIA chipset in this forum with the new EHCI driver, so I commented it out in the kicklayout file. I then re-booted and voila, the micro then booted successfully; albiet with USB1.1 only (unfortunately). With the EHCI driver commented out in the kicklayout file, both cards operated successfully. I only tried a couple of USB sticks, but they were recognized and I could copy files.

The cards that I tried successfully are as follows:

1. Bytecc model BT-U2410V 5 port (4 ext, 1 int), cost $7 CDN
2. StarTech model PCIUSB7 7 Port (4 ext, 3 int), cost $18 CDN

I also reported this on AW.net. See this thread for further discussion on this...http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/vie ... 4&forum=33
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nbache
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by nbache »

You might both want to take a look at this thread.

As you can see, the VIA chipset on the card I have working in one of my AmigaOnes (albeit not Micros), is a different one than yours (sandpiper's). I have also heard others mention the 6212 chipset in cards they expected to work in A1s, but which didn't. Maybe the 6214 chipset is somehow more compatible with our machines?

Best regards,

Niels

(BTW, it would be better to direct the AmigaWorld thread here than the other way around. After all, this is the support forum ;-)).
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by Evillord68 »

I can reproduce the problem. I used my PCI USB 2.0 card from my PEGII to in my µaone, its a card with nec ic, too.
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by ssolie »

Evillord68 wrote:I can reproduce the problem. I used my PCI USB 2.0 card from my PEGII to in my µaone, its a card with nec ic, too.
Please file a bug report when you get a chance. ;)
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sandpiper
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by sandpiper »

Note: This is a word of caution for micro A1 users who install a PCI USB card that has an onboard 9 pin (internal) header for connecting 2 additional USB ports - such as to the front panel of your case. I found that the USB header on the micro A1 motherboard has a different pinout than conventional USB headers. When I installed a PCI USB card with a 9 pin header, I just removed the (motherboard end of the ) internal USB cable going from the front panel connector to the motherboard USB header and plugged it into the USB header of my new PCI card. I then found that the front panel USB ports would not work. Investigation showed the pinout differences. The reseller who put my micro A1 together must have fabricated the cable specifically for the micro A1. Check out the usb header pinout in micro A1 Handbook (8 pins only) and compare it to the following and you'll see what I mean....http://www.allpinouts.org/index.php/USB ... _Connector. I ended up getting out my soldering iron & heat shrink and soon modified my cable. The front panel ports work fine now with my new PCI USB card and I don't need to use any of the onboard USB with the micro.
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Hypex
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by Hypex »

I too found my A1/XE USB header didn't follow the same specifiation as an internal USB card reader I installed. IIRC I had to drill out the key in the plug and connect it in reverse or something. I found out how at the time.
amigaonefan
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by amigaonefan »

I just received a combo IDE/SATA/USB 2.0 x 4 PCI card I ordered from China via Ebay. It features a VIA 6214L USB controller and a VIA 6421 IDE/SATA controller.
When I first plugged the card in, my micro A1 booted just fine into workbench. However, as soon as I tried to disable my internal USB 1.1 ports on the micro A1 motherboard using UBOOT prefs and rebooted, the AmigaOne rebooted to workbench but shortly locked up - perhaps 3 or 5 seconds later.
I commented out the EHCI module in kicklayout and rebooted, and the machine comes up and works fine ... no lockups. When I plug a flash device into the multi cards USB slot, it is recognized and mounts in workbench. HOWEVER, when I try to read data from the flash drive, it starts out fine and then gets garbled. Images load and display but the bottom half is all messed up while the top part looks okay.
I have a lot more experimenting to do, but here is what pciscan shows with this card plugged in - this shows ALL VIA devices, including onboard.

Device #1:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x0686 (VT82C686 [Apollo Super South])
Class code: 0x060100
RevisionID: 0x40
Interrupt: Line 0x00, Pin 0x00
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0000
Subsystem ID: 0x0000

Device #2:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x0571 (VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE)
Class code: 0x01018A
RevisionID: 0x06
Interrupt: Line 0xFF, Pin 0x00
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0000
Subsystem ID: 0x0000
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x0000CC00
Physical address: 0x0000CC00
Size: 0x00000010

Device #3:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3038 (VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller)
Class code: 0x0C0300
RevisionID: 0x1A
Interrupt: Line 0x05, Pin 0x04
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0925
Subsystem ID: 0x1234
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802080
Physical address: 0x00802080
Size: 0x00000020

Device #4:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3038 (VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller)
Class code: 0x0C0300
RevisionID: 0x1A
Interrupt: Line 0x05, Pin 0x04
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0925
Subsystem ID: 0x1234
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x008020A0
Physical address: 0x008020A0
Size: 0x00000020

Device #5:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3057 (VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI])
Class code: 0x000000
RevisionID: 0x40
Interrupt: Line 0x00, Pin 0x00
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0000
Subsystem ID: 0x0000

Device #6:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3058 (VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller)
Class code: 0x040100
RevisionID: 0x50
Interrupt: Line 0x0B, Pin 0x03
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0000
Subsystem ID: 0x0000
Resource range #0 (IO)
Base address: 0x0000DC00
Physical address: 0x0000DC00
Size: 0x00000100
Resource range #1 (IO)
Base address: 0x0000E000
Physical address: 0x0000E000
Size: 0x00000008
Resource range #2 (IO)
Base address: 0x0000E400
Physical address: 0x0000E400
Size: 0x00000008

Device #7:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3068 (AC'97 Modem Controller)
Class code: 0x078000
RevisionID: 0x30
Interrupt: Line 0x0B, Pin 0x03
Subsystem Vendor: 0x0000
Subsystem ID: 0x0000
Resource range #0 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802300
Physical address: 0x00802300
Size: 0x00000100

Device #8:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3038 (VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller)
Class code: 0x0C0300
RevisionID: 0x61
Interrupt: Line 0x09, Pin 0x01
Subsystem Vendor: 0x1106
Subsystem ID: 0x3038
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802400
Physical address: 0x00802400
Size: 0x00000020

Device #9:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3038 (VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller)
Class code: 0x0C0300
RevisionID: 0x61
Interrupt: Line 0x0A, Pin 0x02
Subsystem Vendor: 0x1106
Subsystem ID: 0x3038
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802420
Physical address: 0x00802420
Size: 0x00000020

Device #10:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3104 (USB 2.0)
Class code: 0x0C0320
RevisionID: 0x63
Interrupt: Line 0x0B, Pin 0x03
Subsystem Vendor: 0x1106
Subsystem ID: 0x3104
Resource range #0 (MEMORY)
Base address: 0x88100100
Physical address: 0x88100100
Size: 0x00000100

Device #11:
Vendor: 0x1106 (VIA Technologies, Inc.)
Device: 0x3249 (VT6421 IDE RAID Controller)
Class code: 0x010400
RevisionID: 0x50
Interrupt: Line 0x09, Pin 0x01
Subsystem Vendor: 0x1106
Subsystem ID: 0x3249
Resource range #0 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802440
Physical address: 0x00802440
Size: 0x00000010
Resource range #1 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802450
Physical address: 0x00802450
Size: 0x00000010
Resource range #2 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802460
Physical address: 0x00802460
Size: 0x00000010
Resource range #3 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802470
Physical address: 0x00802470
Size: 0x00000010
Resource range #4 (IO)
Base address: 0x00802480
Physical address: 0x00802480
Size: 0x00000020
amigaonefan
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Re: MicroA1-C and USB2.0 card

Post by amigaonefan »

Okay, it seems that the USB 2.0 card that I got with 4 USB ports, an IDE interface and two SATA ports actually DOES work in my micro A1. However, here is what I must do to get the USB to work:

1) in prefs/uboot turn off the internal USB front and rear ports. Save.
2) In kicklayout, comment out the last line MODULE Kickstart/ehci.usbhcd
3) Reboot

The AmigaOne comes up, network LAN interface and all, and runs with no errors. I can plug any device into one of the 4 multi card USB ports and it is recognized in workbench and its icon or whatever comes up.
However, there are two issues.

1) Because I have to comment out the ehci module, I do not utilize the USB 2 speed on any of the multicard ports. This is obvious of course since ehci is what is responsible for USB 2 protocol.
2) My camera, USB wireless mouse, USB keyboard etc all work fine using the multicard USB ports. But my 2 Gig PNY flash card does not work properly. It is seen and mounted on workbench, but I get corruption when I load or write to the flash drive. Also, when the flash drive is inserted, it does not show the Vendor: in the window that comes up on workbench. Vendor is blank. But for everything else I have that is USB that works, the Vendor is correct in the workbench window.

It seems to me that the ehci module was included with the Micro Amigaone to permit USB 2.0 to be used on a micro. The multi card I have works...in USB 1.1 mode. I downloaded 63 megabytes of data from my camera with no errors. I suspect there is bug in the EHCI module, and I would love to be a guinea pig to test changes to the EHCI module with my card if any of the OS4 developers working on USB are interested.

As for the IDE/SATA. I think it would work fine if I had a device driver for it. It uses the VIA VT6421 chip which is an IDE/SATA combo chip. Ranger shows me that it is using interrupt line 9, pin A Number 25, and memory ranges from 0x00802440 to 0x00802600 for I/O, which does not seem to conflict with anything else, although I may be wrong about that. When I connect an IDE drive to the card it is not seen...obviously because there is no driver or .kmod specific to the VT6421 controller. For fun, I tried adding the Sam460sata.device from OS4.1 to kicklayout and rebooted. The micro runs fine, but alas, no IDE drive is seen. Again, not unexpected. Sadly, I do not have a SATA drive to connect to the card to try it. Again, not likely it would work since there is no VT6421 device available.

This multi card would be the perfect expansion solution for anyone with a micro A1 if only we could get USB 2.0 working and put together a device driver for the IDE/SATA chip.

I am more than willing to take the time to test any updates to the EHCI module with my card for the OS4.1 developers. I am also willing to help in any way to write or test a device driver for the VT6421.
I have been looking at the Poseidon USB code from the AROS project sources and am wondering how hard it would be, now that we have a PPC AROS compile that works on the SAM 460 to wrap in Poseidon to my OS4.1 machine to see what it does. Originally, Poseidon was a separate set of modules, a device for the various USB cards it supported (now available for PCI bus cards in AROS), the poseidon.library, some USB classes, and a Trident prefs program that were all installed on top of OS3.1 to add USB support.

Couldn't a similar thing could be done to add Poseidon to OS4.1?

Personally, I'd rather help debug the existing OS4.1 ehci module.....
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