New mobo

philo wrote:
On 03/28/2017 10:17 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

My new mobo arrived and I put in some DDR-3 I already had but the
machine would not boot.

So what did you buy ? What motherboard and CPU ?

It's a hardware group. Is the new system drool-worthy ? :-)

Paul


No, it's a cheap mobo /cpu combo

AsRock 53455M

Plus 16G RAM

I bought it because I just felt like building a new machine, but my old
one is still OK

For those playing along at home, the motherboard manual.

http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/J3455M.pdf

The processor is soldered to the motherboard, and hides underneath a heatsink.

TDP is 10W.

The CPU is a SOC (no Northbridge or Southbridge).

It would be at home in a tablet, ITX mobo, or a NUC.

Should make a nice player for driving a TV set for example (multimedia decoder).

By getting it in a motherboard form factor, the mobo maker
may be less likely to gouge on price (compared to a NUC).
The CPU costs $107.

*******

Page 64. You'll need your secret decoder ring to figure it out.
The reasoning behind the RAM choices is here. It *does* support
DDR4 technology, but only when the RAM is soldered to the
motherboard, and the RAM needs to fit the orientation they
have in mind. So of the three arrangements for memory, only
one arrangement is intended for desktops.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www...heet-vol-1.pdf

I hope you were very careful when buying RAM for this. Double
or triple check that table to make sure you got the right
config. The IMC apparently doesn't support a lot of modes.

For the desktop config, they say the DIMMs should really be
matched. So don't jam a 4GB module on one channel and an
8GB module on the other channel. However, the block diagram
for the CPU (page 14) does not betray why this matters.
The memory controller is characterized in the block diagram,
like it was an "ordinary" dual channel setup, but the other
information shows it has some interesting alternative setups.

That's a pretty unique piece of kit.

It looks like two separate dual core processors. There should
be cache coherency traffic between the pairs of CPUs when
working with all four cores. This means a Windows OS at least,
will need to understand the orientation of the cores. In a
sense, it's like a Q6600 quad core. On those, cache coherency
traffic traveled on the quad pumped FSB, and a good OS should
recognize the architecture, and not migrate tasks from one
side of the processor to the other.

Have fun discovering,

Paul

On 3/29/2017 6:55 PM, Paul wrote:
For those playing along at home, the motherboard manual.

http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/J3455M.pdf

The processor is soldered to the motherboard, and hides underneath a heatsink.

TDP is 10W.

The CPU is a SOC (no Northbridge or Southbridge).

It would be at home in a tablet, ITX mobo, or a NUC.

Should make a nice player for driving a TV set for example (multimedia
decoder).

You are right -- that is an very odd setup for a 'standard' MB. I can't
recall the last time I had a CPU without a fan. Pentium Pro? Somewhere back
in that time period at least. Then it was a case where the processor didn't
dissipate a huge amount of heat because it wasn't capable of doing much.
Now it is the case where it can do a lot but do it very efficiently.

On 03/29/2017 05:55 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:
On 03/28/2017 10:17 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:

My new mobo arrived and I put in some DDR-3 I already had but the
machine would not boot.

So what did you buy ? What motherboard and CPU ?

It's a hardware group. Is the new system drool-worthy ? :-)

Paul


No, it's a cheap mobo /cpu combo

AsRock 53455M

Plus 16G RAM

I bought it because I just felt like building a new machine, but my
old one is still OK

For those playing along at home, the motherboard manual.

http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/J3455M.pdf

The processor is soldered to the motherboard, and hides underneath a
heatsink.

TDP is 10W.

The CPU is a SOC (no Northbridge or Southbridge).

It would be at home in a tablet, ITX mobo, or a NUC.

Should make a nice player for driving a TV set for example (multimedia
decoder).

By getting it in a motherboard form factor, the mobo maker
may be less likely to gouge on price (compared to a NUC).
The CPU costs $107.

*******

Page 64. You'll need your secret decoder ring to figure it out.
The reasoning behind the RAM choices is here. It *does* support
DDR4 technology, but only when the RAM is soldered to the
motherboard, and the RAM needs to fit the orientation they
have in mind. So of the three arrangements for memory, only
one arrangement is intended for desktops.

http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www...heet-vol-1.pdf


I hope you were very careful when buying RAM for this. Double
or triple check that table to make sure you got the right
config. The IMC apparently doesn't support a lot of modes.

For the desktop config, they say the DIMMs should really be
matched. So don't jam a 4GB module on one channel and an
8GB module on the other channel. However, the block diagram
for the CPU (page 14) does not betray why this matters.
The memory controller is characterized in the block diagram,
like it was an "ordinary" dual channel setup, but the other
information shows it has some interesting alternative setups.

That's a pretty unique piece of kit.

It looks like two separate dual core processors. There should
be cache coherency traffic between the pairs of CPUs when
working with all four cores. This means a Windows OS at least,
will need to understand the orientation of the cores. In a
sense, it's like a Q6600 quad core. On those, cache coherency
traffic traveled on the quad pumped FSB, and a good OS should
recognize the architecture, and not migrate tasks from one
side of the processor to the other.

Have fun discovering,

Paul



RAM should be here today so I will soon find out.

As far as driving a TV , that is not going to happen, I threw my TV out
25 years ago but have been known to watch a bit of Youtube.


Since most people now have smartphones, I hardly get computer repair
jobs any more, so am just doing this because I need some kind of project
and besides I am down to only 4 or five spare machines

On 03/29/2017 06:23 PM, John McGaw wrote:
On 3/29/2017 6:55 PM, Paul wrote:
For those playing along at home, the motherboard manual.

http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/Manual/J3455M.pdf

The processor is soldered to the motherboard, and hides underneath a
heatsink.

TDP is 10W.

The CPU is a SOC (no Northbridge or Southbridge).

It would be at home in a tablet, ITX mobo, or a NUC.

Should make a nice player for driving a TV set for example (multimedia
decoder).

You are right -- that is an very odd setup for a 'standard' MB. I can't
recall the last time I had a CPU without a fan. Pentium Pro? Somewhere
back in that time period at least. Then it was a case where the
processor didn't dissipate a huge amount of heat because it wasn't
capable of doing much. Now it is the case where it can do a lot but do
it very efficiently.



Well the thing was only $65 or so , what the heck, might as well see
what it does. Also, I can use up a 300 watt PSU that would not be of
much use in any higher end machine.

On 03/28/2017 02:38 PM, John McGaw wrote:
On 3/28/2017 1:31 PM, philo wrote:
My main machine is quite ancient and I've decided up finally break
down and
upgrade. My present mobo has a dual core CPU and 6gigs of RAM.
In theory the board supports 8gigs of RAM but in actuality I cannot
get it
to work reliably with more than 6gigs. It was so old it did not even have
USB-3 so the mobo must be ten years old or more.


My new mobo arrived and I put in some DDR-3 I already had but the machine
would not boot. Reading the manual I see that my two, 2 gig RAM sticks
are
not supported. (it requires more than that) Decided to order two 8Ggig
RAM
sticks and max it out a


RAM came today and I am doing a test install of Win7

all looks well, not sure if I can get 100% of the drivers though...

Looks more like it was made for Win10 support.

Does not look promising for Linux either


Just a few things missing but mostly there.


Had to disable UEFI

Ubuntu 16.04 all OK


Win7 cannot find drivers for USB

philo wrote:
Ubuntu 16.04 all OK


Win7 cannot find drivers for USB


Win7 does not have native XHCI (USB3) support,
but there should be a class driver for EHCI (USB2).

Your machine claims to have both port types. So it
doesn't seem to be a repeat of the stupid "USB3 only Southbridge"
problem. If you have both port types, you should have
working EHCI USB2 ports as a workaround.

It is up to Intel to decide whether they want to do a chipset
driver for Goldmont/Apollo for Win7. And I think you can kinda
guess where that is going to go.

There should be an "Intel chipset driver" on your motherboard
CD. This is the thing in the past called INFINST. A lot of the
drivers are just stubs, used to put a label in Device Manager
and then call for the installation of the default Microsoft
class driver. But for USB3 on Windows 7, you would be relying
on Intel to craft a driver. And "good luck with that".

You can always slap a USB3 dual port card into an available
PCI Express x1 slot. Then, use the miniCD that comes in the
box the card ships in, to get Windows 7 support. The add-in cards
typically have a Win7 driver.

HTH,
Paul

On 03/30/2017 09:34 PM, Paul wrote:
philo wrote:
Ubuntu 16.04 all OK


Win7 cannot find drivers for USB


Win7 does not have native XHCI (USB3) support,
but there should be a class driver for EHCI (USB2).

Your machine claims to have both port types. So it
doesn't seem to be a repeat of the stupid "USB3 only Southbridge"
problem. If you have both port types, you should have
working EHCI USB2 ports as a workaround.

It is up to Intel to decide whether they want to do a chipset
driver for Goldmont/Apollo for Win7. And I think you can kinda
guess where that is going to go.

There should be an "Intel chipset driver" on your motherboard
CD. This is the thing in the past called INFINST. A lot of the
drivers are just stubs, used to put a label in Device Manager
and then call for the installation of the default Microsoft
class driver. But for USB3 on Windows 7, you would be relying
on Intel to craft a driver. And "good luck with that".

You can always slap a USB3 dual port card into an available
PCI Express x1 slot. Then, use the miniCD that comes in the
box the card ships in, to get Windows 7 support. The add-in cards
typically have a Win7 driver.

HTH,
Paul



I Googled and it looks like there is no USB-2 or USB-3 support as the
mfg has caved in to MS

If I can get a friend to buy the machine from me I might spend a few $$$
for a USB-3 card...I just picked up a few @ $10 each but used them up on
win7 machine...they work fine.


Will see the guy tomorrow.

Win7 is now all up and running fine and I've given the machine a good
test...works great.

Could not get USB working so just spent $15 for a USB-3 card


Final cost was about $200, half of which was for the 16gigs of RAM





Back in the old days I could "steal" drivers for Win2k from an XP
machine but I could not use the win10 drivers for USB in the win7 machine.

philo wrote:
Win7 is now all up and running fine and I've given the machine a good
test...works great.

Could not get USB working so just spent $15 for a USB-3 card

Final cost was about $200, half of which was for the 16gigs of RAM

Back in the old days I could "steal" drivers for Win2k from an XP
machine but I could not use the win10 drivers for USB in the win7 machine.

You could go over to the Community forum at Intel and
whine about it. But I don't think anyone there cares
about your predicament. The Executives-With-The-Starched-Shirt-Collars
don't care.

*******

I'm really surprised you couldn't get a USB2 EHCI driver
working. The Microsoft one should work. Normally the
Intel USB2 INF would "INCLUDE" the Microsoft driver INF.
Since EHCI is designed to standards, that should have worked.
The tool for the job there would be Notepad :-)

You would find a sample INF inside a INFINST download from
downloadcenter.intel.com .

Another possibility, would be to see if an Intel NUC has
been built with your processor. Then scope out the download
page for the NUC and see what they've got. If Intel builds
a NUC, probably only the USB3 connectors are on the outside.

A NUC based on J3455.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/sea...yword=NUC6CAYH

INFINST for the NUC in question. 3MB.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...-for-Intel-NUC

Now, don't get too excited. The driver isn't here.

1) Extract mup.xml and setupchipset.exe from the ZIP.
2) In a command prompt window

cd /d F:\path\to\two\files

md F:\temp # make a dump for the files

setupchipset.exe -extract F:\temp # Extract them. Requires Win7+

There are six INF files with USB in the contents.
They have VID and PID values which would need to
match in order to trigger. It looks like, basically,
no newer processors got drivers. You would need the
VID and PID from your J3455, to check through the
files and see what is possible.

Since these things are designed to standards, I don't
see why the driver for the C216 wouldn't work.

In one of the files, I find this VID PID. I did a search
on these and the word driver.

8086 9CB1

That got me here.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/dow...Chipset-Family

The difference in this case, is the INF matches on "class"
and not VID PID. (This link probably won't work without
clicking on the Accept License link.)

https://downloadmirror.intel.com/228... _4.0.6.60.zip

iusb3hub.inf

%IUsb3HubDeviceDesc01% = IUsb3HubModel, IUSB3\CLASS_09&SUBCLASS_00&PROT_01

So the hub part is generic.
The XHCI logic block looks like it might be more trouble.
As it triggers off VEN/DEV. And you'd need to check the
VEN/DEV on your Apollo Lake/Goldmont. I just remembered
I got that 9CB1 thing above, and Bingo!

iusb3xhc.inf

%IUsb3XhcDeviceDesc01% = IUsb3XhcModel, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9CB1&REV_00
%IUsb3XhcDeviceDesc01% = IUsb3XhcModel, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9CB1&REV_01
%IUsb3XhcDeviceDesc01% = IUsb3XhcModel, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9CB1&REV_02
%IUsb3XhcDeviceDesc01% = IUsb3XhcModel, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9CB1&REV_03

Anyway, I cannot predict the outcome, but this is what scrounging
for Win7 drivers looks like.

Paul