HDAMA-G v2.18 and HDAMA-I v1.23 & v1.26 already contain the ACPI FACP fix for Windows Vista/7/2008[R2]. Yes please do the Linux LiveCD and see if the PowerNow table gets generated in dmesg.
Beyond BIOS issues I suspect the video card is the Achilles-heel of the HDAMA MB’s. I have installed several different PCI video cards after upgrading to Win7 64bit OS at best Win7 plays them as standard vga. This presents a major issue for both gaming and video editing f.e.g. I can no longer burn DVD’s from my master copies. The only way I could even access my video content was to copy them onto USB drivers from a completely differ PC and then load them into my HDAMA where they could be burned to DVD but even that has many issues… Installed a second HDD w/WinXP 32bit on it now my old 256MB video card and burners work fine again while running WinXP 32bit OS Change is costly and is often not for the best… Robert A. Patterson Implosive Dynamic youtube
TQ, Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this. Here are the DMESG results: user@linux:~> dmesg | grep -i powernow [ 33.361802] powernow-k8: Found 1 Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 285 (4 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00) [ 33.361825] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: No compatible ACPI _PSS objects found. [ 33.361825] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Try again with latest BIOS. user@linux:~> dmesg | grep -i powernow [ 34.911113] powernow-k8: Found 1 Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 885 (4 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00) [ 34.911144] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: No compatible ACPI _PSS objects found. [ 34.911144] [Firmware Bug]: powernow-k8: Try again with latest BIOS. So it looks like the stock BIOS doesn't have any PowerNow capability. Do you need to build special ones for these CPUs?
Yes probably since the voltages are different. Are both of these the OST variants of the Opteron 285 and 885? Any chance you can get some CPU-Z output with the voltage(s)?
Hey Kris, Right now the BIOS is using the max VID (1.4V) and the max FID (2600MHz). Have you tried using the HDAMA-I v1.26 for the OSA285 Opterons? Unfortunately, there's not much specs out there in terms of the OST Opterons...I believe these were only used in HP servers. If this is one of your finicky HDAMA-I's that only work with the v1.22 BIOS, then I can make an OSA285 mod for you sometime today. TQ
I am currently running the stock v1.26 BIOS on them. So really all I am missing is the PowerNow functionality which means the CPUs run full power the entire time correct? Don't make anything just yet...I have a couple of HDAMA-I mobos coming in that I plan to swap in to at least the 885 machine....I will try the OSA285 v1.26 BIOS on it when I do. May be a couple weeks before I get to it though. Will post once I do.
arima hdama 280 i am trying to load drivers for the silicon image satalink driver to load widows 7 and can't find the drivers and have bios 1.23 re2 with sataraid 5.50 but i can load vista Help
Hi! First a big thank flies to tqhoang for his great (!) work. Now i get one of this impressive mobos, too. Found only 2 lame points until now: Only usb 1.1 onboard. No support to boot from usb 2.0 pci cards. Maybe i am wrong... As i noticed i had to flash the latest bios (2.18) to get my 1tb sata drive working. Is a 2tb sata hdd possible? The mobo has 2x OST280 opterons. Is there a bios that supports these cpus with a fixed acpi/dsdt? I used the search function, but don't got an answer... Have a nice day!
@fresh.jay Sorry, there are no CPU specs on the OST280 of the Opterons in the AMD docs. I believe these were specifically for OEM servers (like HP) and the only way is to get the ACPI tables (RW-Everything or some other ASL tool). You could try running the BIOS for the OSA280's though. If that doesn't work, then you can always flash back to the stock v2.18. I believe 2TB SATA is probably supported, but it would be great if you could let us know.
Ahoy! That was fast! Thanks for your reply. So, what has to be done? Here i read some people made cpu-z dumps. Would this be enough? Is there a linux way to get these important infos? Maybe via a live cd/dvd? For me it makes a big difference to use a ~60 or a ~90 watt cpu. Are there other OST dumps? Are there and if yes what differences are between OSA and OST? The voltages? Ahh, i see. This is all a big try. I hoped anyone has tried this before. Okay, if i have the time to take the 2tb hdd from the one and to put it into the other machine, i post the result here. Btw. a quick satalink bios (no raid) benchmark test under a installed linux system gives a result of 125MB/s. That's great. Cool hardware. Rgds, fresh.
Feedback Hi! I had strange results here: 1. I flashed the original 2.18 bios. Then the satalink OSA270 bios for testing. With OSA270 CPUs --> perfect powernow/acpi. 2. Put in the OST280s. A test with the osa270 bios showed a working powernow, but only with the 270s frequencies. 3. Flashed the original 2.18 and after that the OSA280 bios. The result was a non working mainboard. No bios screen, no video, really nothing. Made different tests. All with the same result. That's really strange. Any idea? Rgds.
Try removing the power cord, then remove the CMOS battery on the motherboard for about 10 seconds. That should be enough to discharge the CMOS. Then put back the battery and the power cord and see if it boots up. BTW, you don't need to go back to a the stock 2.18 BIOS between flashing different mods. Doing it once from anything before 2.18 (ex: 2.17) is the only thing that is recommended. Good luck!
Hi, tqhoang! It took a while to get a power supply... I made some tests with the 280 OST processors and the HDAMAG 2.18B SATALINK5500 (no DSDT included). I tried to get the DSDT for this CPUs via rw-everything and noticed the processors were massively hotter than the 270 OSA CPUs. So i think the voltages are wrong or better the 280 OST seems to run with lower voltages... I only have one idea to get the correct DSDT datas for the 280 ost: The HP DL385 G1 uses these CPUs. Maybe we could take the datas from the bios of the DL385? But it's a compaq bios. I've no idea how to get the DSDT out of this firmware... Rgds.
Hi! Thanks for your reply. As i wrote before "I tried to get the DSDT for this CPUs via rw-everything...". As i know it only runs on windows... And, nop, i could not get any datas for the 280 OST CPUs. Rgds. Short update: 2TB HDDs are working with SATALINK5500...