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

Thu Dec 1 20:40:53 UTC 2005
Bryan J. Smith <thebs413 at earthlink.net>

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.

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.

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"?).


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
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