MorphZone

PegasosII firmware update, and ram limit

Fogg_80

# 28
Cocoon

Posts: 45 from 2007/11/12

From: Foggia, south ...

Pegasos II manual say: DDR PC2100 or PC2700, in my 2B5 I have simple DDR 400 and all ok, in 2B1 I have registered ecc DDR ram for total of 2gb with Infineon chip.
Stile Ubuntu
Sorry for my bad english.
»09.04.20 - 15:23

Cego

# 29
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 733 from 2006/5/28

From: Germany

hows the mechanism when you have two different dimms installed?
Is the dimms clock speed gonna drop to the level of the other one? How about timing?

I have now installed my usual Crucial 1GB Dimm and additionally a Kingston 1GB from a previous order and it seems to work fine.

The Crucial Dimm is 333MHz PC2700 and the Kingston is a 266MHz PC2100E dimm.

An extensive memtest was without any errors.

[ Edited by Cego 09.04.2020 - 16:48 ]
Pegasos II G4 @1.0GHz, 1GB DDR Ram, Radeon 9200Pro, 240GB SSD+160GB HD, MorphOS 3.18, AmigaOS4.1 FE, Debian 8
»09.04.20 - 15:47

Andreas_Wolf

# 30
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> in 2B1 I have [...] 2gb

Oh, another non-2B5 with 2 GiB RAM. Nice.
»09.04.20 - 16:11

Fogg_80

# 31
Cocoon

Posts: 45 from 2007/11/12

From: Foggia, south ...

Unfortunately I don't have the technical knowledge to answer your questions.
I simply reported my ten-year experience on Pegasos II.
Unfortunately bPlan has never given exhaustive answers also regarding SmartFirmware.
Stile Ubuntu
Sorry for my bad english.
»09.04.20 - 16:12

Andreas_Wolf

# 32
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> hows the mechanism when you have two different dimms installed?
> Is the dimms clock speed gonna drop to the level of the other one?

The Marvell northbridge always runs the entire RAM at PC2100 speed (133 MHz clock rate, 266 MHz data rate). Faster modules are thus underclocked. According to its datasheet, the MV64361 itself could run up to 183 MHz clock rate (366 MHz data rate), but bplan/Genesi configured it to 27% lower speed.

> How about timing?

I guess that the board will use the timing settings for the module with the highest latency for all modules.

> An extensive memtest was without any errors.

I recommend running an old Linux LiveCD for testing. Experience shows that even if the extensive memtest on MorphOS shows no error, there can occur "random" errors in more stressful situations like simply booting up an ancient Linux distribution.
»09.04.20 - 16:41

OffseT

# 33
Caterpillar

Posts: 23 from 2019/8/23

Quote:

Flash a écrit :
As far I know Crucial DDR are most compatible, I you don't resolve you can try with these.

Crucial DDR

Be aware of, as I told, these are not fully compatible.

Used as single 1GB, I noticed no issue.
Used as a pair 2x1GB inside 2B5 Peg2, they *seem* to work with no error on memory check at all, but eventually cause rare random issues (easily noticeable with extensive gcc usage).

You should avoid theses for 2GB systems.

[ Edité par OffseT 09.04.2020 - 18:36 ]
»09.04.20 - 17:33

kas1e

# 34
Butterfly

Posts: 97 from 2005/10/31

@All

Did anyone know if there a doc where noted the differences between different pegasos2 board revissions ? All what i find is that 2B5 boards cope with 2GB ram, and that all ? Wasn't there some list of what was changed/fixed for each board revission starting from the first ones ?
»30.11.22 - 06:55

Amigaharry2

# 35
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1280 from 2010/1/6

From: EU-Austria (Wien)

Afaik there was no, in detail communicated hardware-update for PEG2-boards, despite different board-revision-numbers.
Only a firmwareupdate for boards, delivered in April 2004 (and some SW-updates for Linux, etc..).
On circuit shematics 2B5 (latest) are no different versions specified.

[ Editiert durch Amigaharry2 30.11.2022 - 08:35 ]
Peg2, 3xPowerMac G5, 2xPowerbookG4, 2x MacMiniG4, Efika (again), A3000T and life is never boring.....
»30.11.22 - 07:34

Andreas_Wolf

# 36
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> Only a firmwareupdate for boards, delivered in April 2004

I remember 3 official firmware updates which got delivered as update files:

- 20031229, provided by bplan
- 20040405, provided by bplan
- 20040810, provided by GGS-Data in January 2005

There is an old thread where existing version/revision numbers and time stamps were aggregated (incl. pre-installed ones and beta versions):
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=11&topic_id=4453&start=9
(some detailed information on the 20051216 one)

Some more time stamps not mentioned in that thread:
20050612, 20050821, 20061023
»30.11.22 - 08:49

Andreas_Wolf

# 37
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> Did anyone know if there a doc where noted the differences between
> different pegasos2 board revissions ?

One of the changes of 2B4 to 2B5 was the use of a different clock chip (ICS instead of Winbond), as noted by Neko.

> Wasn't there some list of what was changed/fixed for each board revission
> starting from the first ones ?

I've never seen such thing.
»30.11.22 - 10:31

KennyR

# 38
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 878 from 2003/3/4

From: #AmigaZeux, Gu...

I seem to remember either Ralph or Gerald saying that SmartFirmware used "conservative settings" (possibly on Ann.lu). Andreas has already made that point here well too: stability is preferable to speed.

Made perfect sense back then. Less annoyed users, fewer boards being RMA'd because of RAM incompatibilities, and it was not like a G3/G4 was going to be running high end RAM-intensive stuff even in early 00s, not that the Marvell bridge chips could handle it very well in any case.

Unfortunately the inability to play around with timings and looser tolerance on voltages than present day means you're probably going to have to try a lot of DIMMs blind. That sucks, but then the hardware is two decades old. Imagine trying to find working cards and RAM for a 286 PC around the year the Peg-2 came out.
»30.11.22 - 14:51

kas1e

# 39
Butterfly

Posts: 97 from 2005/10/31

@All
Is anyone ever trying to play dirty games with firmware of pegasos2 ? What i mean is to extract rom (that easy), and unpack it then, and be able to pack it all back so it still will be in working shape ?

I just have needs to understand, what kind of stuff pegasos2 firmware send to usb-bus when power on. Because KVMs can't detect by usb cable that usb port is working, and it only detected when actually any OS starts. While when i connect USB keyboard directly to pegasos2, it detected fine. So will be intersting to understand what pegasos2 do or not to do, that KVM checking his USB port can't detect that machine online.

Maybe pegasos2 firmware have some functionality which mean "ask the usb device", so to see if i can at all from firmware make usb be alive just like it alive after OS starts on this peg2.

[ Edited by kas1e 01.12.2022 - 19:37 ]
»01.12.22 - 19:36

polluks

# 40
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 803 from 2007/10/23

From: Gelsenkirchen,...

@kas1e
Good luck!
Pegasos II G4: MorphOS 3.9, Zalman M220W · ~~iMac G5 12,1 17", MorphOS 3.18~~
Power Mac G3: OSX 10.3 · PowerBook 5,8: OSX 10.5, MorphOS 3.18
»01.12.22 - 20:37

Amigaharry2

# 41
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1280 from 2010/1/6

From: EU-Austria (Wien)

Peg2 Firmware activates internal and external (HUB) USB-ports and assign them hardwareadresses. You can see them typing (in OF-console):

>dev /pci
>ls

You can see now assignment of all USB-ports (exact HW-Adressses see next)

BUT: Pegasos OF is only capable to handle HID-Interface on USB-ports - nothing else!
Reading massstore-device or anything else, on USB is not implemented (against EFIKAs V1.3 firmware, and even there a KVM won't work, I suppose). It seems that it was planned to do this, because deblocker-device, which is one of mandatory needed codeparts to read masstore-devices, can be found in OF.

>dev /
>dump-all

(lot of output will follow: the whole devices and hardware-adresses, software-packages, etc......)

Btw:
Long time ago I spoke about that to MOS-Developer (F. Mariak) and BPlan (N.Det), but unfortunately there is no chance to do that, even as 3rd party (no dump of FirmWare available).

[ Editiert durch Amigaharry2 01.12.2022 - 23:27 ]
Peg2, 3xPowerMac G5, 2xPowerbookG4, 2x MacMiniG4, Efika (again), A3000T and life is never boring.....
»01.12.22 - 20:42

kas1e

# 42
Butterfly

Posts: 97 from 2005/10/31

> Pegasos OF is only capable to handle HID-Interface on USB-ports - nothing else!

My KVM on one of their USB ports pretend to be this "hid-interface", but then OF didn't see
keyboard attached through that KVM. Only when attached directly, or when attached directly via usb-hub.

Btw, i do wrote to Thomas Knäbel from bplan, he said that they didn't provide anymore email update support (but still i find all the latest firmwares on webarchive), and what most important he say they not plan to sold sources of pegs2's firmware.

> Even as 3rd party (no dump of FirmWare available).

Making a dump of firmware is not hard, and even without actual dumping of firmware you can extract rom from updater and unpack rom as well. For example this up050404 nothing more than elf file which contain inside a gziped .rom, so theoreticaly 3d party version can be done. The problem probably can be to understand whole format, find out on disassembled parts where are USB routines, and there maybe add some jump to new code, but that all of course will take time. I was hope someone already go to this already ..
»02.12.22 - 06:26

Andreas_Wolf

# 43
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> Thomas Knäbel [...] said that they didn't provide anymore email update
> support (but still i find all the latest firmwares on webarchive)

How can firmware versions that were only supplied by email be found on "webarchive"? Do you have a link?
»02.12.22 - 07:12

kas1e

# 44
Butterfly

Posts: 97 from 2005/10/31

@Andreas_Wolf
As i understand him the versions from email was the same as the last one publicaly available. Were there other versions which only some set of ppls have ?
»02.12.22 - 08:44

Andreas_Wolf

# 45
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

> As i understand him the versions from email was the same as the last one
> publicaly available. Were there other versions which only some set of ppls have ?

Of the 11 versions directly or indirectly mentioned in comment #36, only 2 (20031229 and 20040405) were publically available via the bplan website. The others were either only provided by email to users, or were beta/test versions only available to developers or beta testers, or came pre-installed on boards built into the ODW for business customers.
»02.12.22 - 10:24

kas1e

# 46
Butterfly

Posts: 97 from 2005/10/31

> Of the 11 versions directly or indirectly mentioned in comment #36,
> only 2 (20031229 and 20040405) were publically available via the bplan website.

Right,i have those 2 and also one from morphos-storage https://www.morphos-storage.net/?page=System/Firmware/Pegasos2 - this one 20040810 (the one i have by default in my 2B3 board).
»02.12.22 - 10:39

Andreas_Wolf

# 47
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 12150 from 2003/5/22

From: Germany

>> only 2 (20031229 and 20040405) were publically available via the bplan website.

> i have [...] also one from morphos-storage [...] - this one 20040810

Yes, that's the one that for whatever reason bplan didn't put on their website but let GGS-Data handle the distribution by email. There were several newer versions that bplan later sent by email to users reporting problems with their installed firmware version. If you search MorphZone for the first 8 digits of the time stamps, you can find many such reports.
»02.12.22 - 11:04

Cego

# 48
Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 733 from 2006/5/28

From: Germany

I just did a memtest on my Pegasos2 with a 1GB PC2700 2.5cl 333MHz Crucial DIMM.

The writing speed seems a bit low. Only 425MB/s compared to 484MB/s (here: Click

Am I missing something or do I have a bad DIMM?

[ Edited by Cego 16.07.2023 - 21:22 ]
Pegasos II G4 @1.0GHz, 1GB DDR Ram, Radeon 9200Pro, 240GB SSD+160GB HD, MorphOS 3.18, AmigaOS4.1 FE, Debian 8
»16.07.23 - 20:21

Cego

# 49

Priest of the Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 733 from 2006/5/28

From: Germany

Code:

Allocated memory at 0x19C1DE00 -> 0x50B83AFF, 922115328 bytes
Writing and Verifying 0x00000000...
Write 422 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xFFFFFFFF... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xFFFF0000... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x0000FFFF... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xFF00FF00... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x00FF00FF... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xF0F0F0F0... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x0F0F0F0F... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x55555555... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xAAAAAAAA... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xAAAA5555... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x5555AAAA... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xAA55AA55... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x55AA55AA... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0xA5A5A5A5... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Writing and Verifying 0x5A5A5A5A... Write 425 MB/sec. Verify 212 MB/sec.
Memory is ok!

Pegasos II G4 @1.0GHz, 1GB DDR Ram, Radeon 9200Pro, 240GB SSD+160GB HD, MorphOS 3.18, AmigaOS4.1 FE, Debian 8

»16.07.23 - 20:23