[CentOS] Tyan S2891 and CentOS -- 6, 8, 10+ PCI busses in today's new systems

[rik at harddata.com]

> rik at harddata.com wrote:
>> I am trying to install CentOS to a server that has a Tyan
>> S2891 motherboard, 2 Opteron 875 Dual Cores and 2GB of RAM.
>> I have been able trying to install over a network but the
>> tg3 driver will not load.  I then installed from a DVD and
> on
>> rebooting after the installation I cannot get the network
>> drivers to load and the RAID controller in the PCI slot is
> not
>> available.
>> It seems that when I do an lspci -tv the only a minimal
>> amount of devices are seen.
>
> Yep, this has come up several times now (yet another thing to
> add to the ELManagers FAQ) -- not all PCI busses are getting
> enumerated and recognized for newer PCIe chipsets.
> Especially the up to 8 PCIe masters in nForce Pro 2200+2050,
> especially when there are also 2 more PCI-X channels c/o an
> AMD 8131 as well.
>
> Remember, all AGP, PCI-X and PCIe busses/channels are,
> virtually, enumerated as PCI logic.  Today's new generation
> of PCIe or PCIe+PCI-X have literally 6, 8 or even 10+ virtual
> PCI busses/channels compared to only 2-4 of the legacy
> AGP+PCI with optional PCI-X or two.
>
> First off, get the absolute latest BIOS.  Most issues do get
> resolved by it.

This is something I have done.  I will check again for a newer one.

>
> Secondly, try booting with a combination of ACPI/PCI kernel
> parameters.  Using "pci=bios" might solve the problem,
> especially if you have the latest BIOS.

I was playing with ACPI boot options as in the past they have fixed
various errors but I will try this too.

>
> If you hit the archives regarding the Tyan S2895 (Thunder
> K8WE), you'll find the boot-time option that person used (I
> believe it was "pci=bios")

Thank you for the helpful post.

Rik