Merlin U630 problems, HP1448 with pcixx21 (was Re: [Bug 2944] Cardbus cards not seen on ti1620 cardbus controller)

[Bernhard Kaindl]

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006, Alex Kavanagh wrote:

> > > DEBUG(0, "port was found: io.BasePort1(0x%4x), io.IOAddrLines(%d)\n", link->io.BasePort1, link->io.IOAddrLines);
> > 
> > Good, so it at least finds the IO address port of the UART, it
> > seems.
> 
> Well, I think so, but I'm not convinced, because the serial uart
> detection code bails out without finding the 16650 that is supposed to
> be on the card.

At least it printed the port numbers and gave you a device.

Did you check the list on 
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/hp.html
for similar laptops than yours for known issues?

Did you try setserial to set the uart type?

If it works then, it would be a detection issue only, otherwise
something else is broken. That would be valuable to know...

I don't know much abler PCMCIA serial cards, so I think I cannot
give many further tips beyond that.

> I *think* I've found that there is an error on the CIS for the card
> and I've managed to fix it and create an appropriate dummy firmware
> for the card.  Now I'm trying to get the kernel to load it ... and
> running into a wall trying to understand.  I put it in the place where
> it says it should get loaded (/etc/firmware/cis) but the firmware
> loader doesn't:  (e.g. with my added debug:)
> 
> [4632516.877000] ds: pcmcia_devmatch - before firmware (manfid =0x00a4, 0x0276
> [4632516.877000] ds: pcmcia_devmatch - passed PCMCIA_DEV .... FAKE_CIS flag check
> [4632516.877000] ds: trying to load firmware MerlinU630.cis
> [4632516.961000] ds: firmware wasn't loaded, I think!
> 
> i.e. I've added a few debug messages around the firmware loading
> stuff.  As soon as I've eliminated this CIS problem as an issue
> (unless it fixes the issue), I'll be back to trying to work out if it
> is a pcixx21 set up issue, a bug in serial_cs or plain serial or
> something else.
> 
> If I get it fixed I will let people know.

BTW, do you have still access to the other laptop where it works?

What I sometimes do - if I have two setups, one working, one not, is
to compare the debug outputs from the two systems and look for the
place where the differences start to emerge...

It may well be a bug which may have been introduced since 2.6.12
(I guess that was the kernel version on the working setup) or
some problem with setting up the hardware on your system.

You should see the point where the difference starts if you
can compare the debug outputs from the two setups.

But I have no idea how (it seems I missed that somehow) you
came to the conclusion that the card needs a CIS override
on your notebook.

As you said that the card is working with 2.6.12 on a different
Linux laptop, I would not see the card or something which comes
with the card (like it's CIS) at fault.

But if you think that the CIS dump shows an error (I could not
see one, but I m not a CIS expert), why not compare the cis_dump
of the two systems as part of the "compare the debug outputs
of both systems" approach.

Bernhard