A computer components & hardware forum. HardwareBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » HardwareBanter forum » Processors » General
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Enabling SMP



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old August 9th 11, 10:39 AM posted to comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 62
Default Enabling SMP

My machine is NOT configured to support ACPI, however, setting my
BIOS to ACPI enabled and using MPS map 1.4 seems to produce an
otherwise pretty darn stable system. [...]


So you have ACPI disabled even though having it enabled is more stable?


The last time around, M. Piatkowski said APIC, not ACPI. I pointed out
then that xe shouldn't be mixing up xyr initialisms. Disabling the
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is a very different kettle of
fish to disabling any use of Advanced Programmable Interrupt
Controllers. It's actually the latter that M. Piatkowski is doing.

In an AMIBIOS machine, the setting that M. Piatkowski was talking about
earlier is named "ACPI APIC Support" and it deals with APICs. In
AWARD-Phoenix firmwares, the equivalent setting is named "APIC Mode".
It almost goes without saying that if one disables the use of APICs
entirely, by setting APIC mode to "disabled", then I/O APICs are as a
consequence unavailable. If all local APICs are switched off during
POST (as essentially all that this setting has to do), then whatever I/O
APICs may do is entirely irrelevant: there is no-one listening to them.
  #2  
Old August 9th 11, 01:08 PM posted to comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Peter Flass
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 51
Default Enabling SMP

On 8/9/2011 5:39 AM, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard wrote:
My machine is NOT configured to support ACPI, however, setting my
BIOS to ACPI enabled and using MPS map 1.4 seems to produce an
otherwise pretty darn stable system. [...]


So you have ACPI disabled even though having it enabled is more stable?


The last time around, M. Piatkowski said APIC, not ACPI. I pointed out
then that xe shouldn't be mixing up xyr initialisms. Disabling the
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is a very different kettle of
fish to disabling any use of Advanced Programmable Interrupt
Controllers. It's actually the latter that M. Piatkowski is doing.

In an AMIBIOS machine, the setting that M. Piatkowski was talking about
earlier is named "ACPI APIC Support" and it deals with APICs. In
AWARD-Phoenix firmwares, the equivalent setting is named "APIC Mode". It
almost goes without saying that if one disables the use of APICs
entirely, by setting APIC mode to "disabled", then I/O APICs are as a
consequence unavailable. If all local APICs are switched off during POST
(as essentially all that this setting has to do), then whatever I/O
APICs may do is entirely irrelevant: there is no-one listening to them.


It's unfortunate that these two acronyms are so easily confused.
  #3  
Old August 9th 11, 10:36 PM posted to comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc
Dariusz Piatkowski
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11
Default Enabling SMP

Jonathan,

On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 09:39:25 UTC, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
wrote:

My machine is NOT configured to support ACPI, however, setting my
BIOS to ACPI enabled and using MPS map 1.4 seems to produce an
otherwise pretty darn stable system. [...]


So you have ACPI disabled even though having it enabled is more stable?


The last time around, M. Piatkowski said APIC, not ACPI. I pointed out
then that xe shouldn't be mixing up xyr initialisms. Disabling the
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is a very different kettle of
fish to disabling any use of Advanced Programmable Interrupt
Controllers. It's actually the latter that M. Piatkowski is doing.

In an AMIBIOS machine, the setting that M. Piatkowski was talking about
earlier is named "ACPI APIC Support" and it deals with APICs. In
AWARD-Phoenix firmwares, the equivalent setting is named "APIC Mode".
It almost goes without saying that if one disables the use of APICs
entirely, by setting APIC mode to "disabled", then I/O APICs are as a
consequence unavailable. If all local APICs are switched off during
POST (as essentially all that this setting has to do), then whatever I/O
APICs may do is entirely irrelevant: there is no-one listening to them.


Well...you did bring up an excellent point. I had read your original response to
my other post and had intended to respond...however I did encounter a
soft-freeze and wasn't able to find the posting anymore in my news reader...???

So here is the response, hopefully if I used the wrong terminology last time I
am getting it correct this time...I am in fact using the correct terms as
applicable to my hardware and in my descriptions I am addressing 2 separate
issues:

1) ACPI - replacing APM for example
2) APIC - dealing with SMP support and things like advanced programmable IO
controllers

In the BIOS of my motherboard, which is the MSI 790X-G45 piece, I do in fact
have 2 such separate settings.

1) Enabling ACPI also appears to enable the IOAPIC (that's correct), disabling
ACPI shuts OFF IOAPIC

2) SMP related stuff, I believe is really just the MPS table selection of 1.1 or
1.4

What I do not know is how enabling ACPI turns on the IOAPIC and how that in turn
relates to supporting SMP in OS2.

Here is a link to a mb review, and while it's not the matching model, it is very
close: MSI 790FX-GD70, the BIOS screenshots are very close (not the same
ofcourse for all settings) to what I see for my 790X-G45,
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/...d_motherboard/

Specifically, this is AMI BIOS and shows the following:

1)
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...Ml80X 2wuZ2lm

....shows the IOAPIC function, it is ONLY present when ACPI has been turned ON

2)
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...Ml84X 2wuZ2lm

....shows the ACPI controls

OK...so now given that information, I stand by my earlier conclusion...how does
ACPI control the IOAPIC??? Unless, the IOAPIC is only used to support the ACPI
functionality and has absolutely nothing to do with SMP.
  #4  
Old August 10th 11, 04:03 AM posted to comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps
Dariusz Piatkowski
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11
Default Enabling SMP

On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 21:36:12 UTC, "Dariusz Piatkowski"
wrote:

Jonathan,

On Tue, 9 Aug 2011 09:39:25 UTC, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
wrote:

My machine is NOT configured to support ACPI, however, setting my
BIOS to ACPI enabled and using MPS map 1.4 seems to produce an
otherwise pretty darn stable system. [...]

So you have ACPI disabled even though having it enabled is more stable?


The last time around, M. Piatkowski said APIC, not ACPI. I pointed out
then that xe shouldn't be mixing up xyr initialisms. Disabling the
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is a very different kettle of
fish to disabling any use of Advanced Programmable Interrupt
Controllers. It's actually the latter that M. Piatkowski is doing.

In an AMIBIOS machine, the setting that M. Piatkowski was talking about
earlier is named "ACPI APIC Support" and it deals with APICs. In
AWARD-Phoenix firmwares, the equivalent setting is named "APIC Mode".
It almost goes without saying that if one disables the use of APICs
entirely, by setting APIC mode to "disabled", then I/O APICs are as a
consequence unavailable. If all local APICs are switched off during
POST (as essentially all that this setting has to do), then whatever I/O
APICs may do is entirely irrelevant: there is no-one listening to them.


Well...you did bring up an excellent point. I had read your original response to
my other post and had intended to respond...however I did encounter a
soft-freeze and wasn't able to find the posting anymore in my news reader...???

So here is the response, hopefully if I used the wrong terminology last time I
am getting it correct this time...I am in fact using the correct terms as
applicable to my hardware and in my descriptions I am addressing 2 separate
issues:

1) ACPI - replacing APM for example
2) APIC - dealing with SMP support and things like advanced programmable IO
controllers

In the BIOS of my motherboard, which is the MSI 790X-G45 piece, I do in fact
have 2 such separate settings.

1) Enabling ACPI also appears to enable the IOAPIC (that's correct), disabling
ACPI shuts OFF IOAPIC

2) SMP related stuff, I believe is really just the MPS table selection of 1.1 or
1.4

What I do not know is how enabling ACPI turns on the IOAPIC and how that in turn
relates to supporting SMP in OS2.

Here is a link to a mb review, and while it's not the matching model, it is very
close: MSI 790FX-GD70, the BIOS screenshots are very close (not the same
ofcourse for all settings) to what I see for my 790X-G45,
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/...d_motherboard/

Specifically, this is AMI BIOS and shows the following:

1)
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...Ml80X 2wuZ2lm

...shows the IOAPIC function, it is ONLY present when ACPI has been turned ON

2)
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?im...Ml84X 2wuZ2lm

...shows the ACPI controls

OK...so now given that information, I stand by my earlier conclusion...how does
ACPI control the IOAPIC??? Unless, the IOAPIC is only used to support the ACPI
functionality and has absolutely nothing to do with SMP.


....something else which I looked up in the BIOS this time, the description for
hte IOAPIC says the following:

'Include ACPI APIC table pointer to RSDT pointer list'

Now...does that make sense, and can you shed some light on this? Google is my
next stop...LOL...

Thanks!
  #5  
Old August 10th 11, 08:20 AM posted to comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 62
Default Enabling SMP

...something else which I looked up in the BIOS this time, the
description for hte IOAPIC says the following:

'Include ACPI APIC table pointer to RSDT pointer list'

Now...does that make sense, and can you shed some light on this?


No, it doesn't make sense. It tells me that your SETUP utility was put
together in a fairly slapdash manner, with the wrong text attached to
the setting. Here is a correctly selected, albeit not quite English,
description, from an MSI manual:

IOAPIC Function

This field is used to enable or disable the APIC (Advanced
Programmable Interrupt Controller). Due to compliance with PC2001
design guide, the system is able to run in APIC mode. Enabling APIC
mode will expand available IRQ resources for the system.

Settings: [Enabled], [Disabled].


It expands it by two (three for some chipsets), and even then only if
the local APICs are enabled.
  #6  
Old August 10th 11, 10:31 AM posted to comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 62
Default Enabling SMP

It's unfortunate that these two acronyms are so easily confused.

Especially when, as it seems here, conversation is about to turn to the
way that Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers are dealt with in
the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. (-:

  #7  
Old August 10th 11, 12:29 PM posted to comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc
Dariusz Piatkowski
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11
Default Enabling SMP

On Wed, 10 Aug 2011 09:31:08 UTC, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
wrote:

It's unfortunate that these two acronyms are so easily confused.


Especially when, as it seems here, conversation is about to turn to the
way that Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers are dealt with in
the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. (-:


Alright now...LOL, my MSI BIOS does what it does...you may have whatever ideas
you have on how things should work...and I don't even necessairly disagree with
you, however, it is what it is.

In my MSI mb BIOS, as I previously described, the IOAPIC option ONLY shows up in
the menu when the ACPI mode is enabled. End of story.

C'mon man...accept that a vendor has chosen to implement something in a
particular way and deal with it...don't make that fact an overarching difficulty
for our conversation here. For the most part anyways you are merely pointing out
how you think BIOS settings should be, but I do not see any real examples you
are using to illustrate to us why and how it impacts OS2...
  #8  
Old August 15th 11, 04:36 PM posted to comp.os.os2.apps,comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc
Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 62
Default Enabling SMP

It's unfortunate that these two acronyms are so easily confused.

Especially when, as it seems here, conversation is about to turn to the
way that Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers are dealt with in
the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. (-:


Alright now...LOL, my MSI BIOS does what it does...you may have whatever ideas
you have on how things should work...and I don't even necessairly disagree with
you, however, it is what it is.

In my MSI mb BIOS, as I previously described, the IOAPIC option ONLY shows up in
the menu when the ACPI mode is enabled. End of story.

C'mon man...accept that a vendor has chosen to implement something in a
particular way and deal with it...don't make that fact an overarching difficulty
for our conversation here. For the most part anyways you are merely pointing out
how you think BIOS settings should be, but I do not see any real examples you
are using to illustrate to us why and how it impacts OS2...


That's a load of old twaddle, ascribing to me things that I never wrote.
  #9  
Old August 15th 11, 10:47 PM posted to comp.os.os2.setup.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips,comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps
Dariusz Piatkowski
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11
Default Enabling SMP

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:36:19 UTC, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard
wrote:

It's unfortunate that these two acronyms are so easily confused.

Especially when, as it seems here, conversation is about to turn to the
way that Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers are dealt with in
the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. (-:


Alright now...LOL, my MSI BIOS does what it does...you may have whatever ideas
you have on how things should work...and I don't even necessairly disagree with
you, however, it is what it is.

In my MSI mb BIOS, as I previously described, the IOAPIC option ONLY shows up in
the menu when the ACPI mode is enabled. End of story.

C'mon man...accept that a vendor has chosen to implement something in a
particular way and deal with it...don't make that fact an overarching difficulty
for our conversation here. For the most part anyways you are merely pointing out
how you think BIOS settings should be, but I do not see any real examples you
are using to illustrate to us why and how it impacts OS2...


That's a load of old twaddle, ascribing to me things that I never wrote.


Look...I have no quarrel with you...honestly, and I already said this, I
seriously appreciate the input folks like yourself can provide to the community.

My response was simply to address something you DID write in one of your posts
stating how things simply didn't work the way I was posting about
them...meanwhile, all I did was to try to re-create as closely as I could the
screens my BIOS showed...heck, I even found the best matching posts of such
screens from another MSI motherboard to illustrate what I was talking about and
included the URLs in my post for reference. Meanwhile your response was to say
how MSI got it wrong and we were therefore all confused...LOL!

YES...I accept the fact that if MSI had the wrong description of a BIOS function
then it certainly made me misunderstand the functionality...to correct this I
ask the OS community...I welcome all such feedback.


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
nforce2 smp flekso General 23 May 21st 04 06:56 AM
Some new SMP benchmarks Yousuf Khan General 0 December 27th 03 05:37 AM
Some new SMP benchmarks Yousuf Khan Intel 0 December 27th 03 05:37 AM
nforce2 smp flekso Overclocking 2 November 26th 03 12:12 PM
SMP request(s) Ian Stirling Intel 0 September 3rd 03 01:11 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 06:43 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 HardwareBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.