Re: [Xen-devel] IOMMU and AMD 890fx

Hi all!

I got this answer in a forum about this MSI board:

...

I have this board (MSI 890FXA-GD70), there is no bios support for IOMMU.MSI presales told me that it was supported before I bought it, I amthinking there might have been some miscommunication there. I have beenwaiting about a week for a response as to when/if they plan on addingsupport in the bios.

...


Jens

Am 10.06.2010 09:23, schrieb Sander Eikelenboom:

Hi All,

I have send a mail to a number of motherboard manufacturers about the IOMMU 
support in their bioses.
At the moment MSI has replied (in Dutch) that the MSI 890FXA-GD70 should 
support it. But it would be nice if it has user confirmation.

I'm  thinking about putting a table on the wiki, stating the replies from tech. 
supports, and a column with user experiences.


--

Sander


Thursday, June 10, 2010, 9:12:03 AM, you wrote:

Hi!

I ordered a Asus Crosshair Formula IV for testing. Will report next week
if it works.

And I contacted Asrock support again and told them that Asus supports
it. They will give the informations to their bios-team in Taiwan.

Meanwhile there is a very good and active discussion in the forum
http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ga-890fxa-ud5-iommu-bios-switch-39801/index7.html
about boards with 890fx and iommu.

Jens

Am 09.06.2010 22:26, schrieb Wei Huang:

Hi,

We talked with AMD client managers. They believe all 890FX platforms
should be capable of supporting IOMMU. There must be mis-communication
with motherboard vendors. We are in the process of contacting with them.
Hopefully the vendors will turn on this feature soon. For now, please
just purchase the motherboards with IOMMU enabled (I think Joerg pointed
out ASUS at least. I can't verify it myself though.).

Best,
-Wei

Sander Eikelenboom wrote:

So in principle they would like to support it , but they can't / don't
know how.
Very interested at AMD's answer then, unfortunately Wei Huang seems to
be on vacation until June 7th.

For what i understood in the past was that AMD's solution would not
depend on cpu support (as intel's vt-d does).
And with vga passthrough, iommu on the desktop looks like a good use
of an iommu in my opinion.
--
Sander


Thursday, June 3, 2010, 12:51:23 PM, you wrote:

I got this answer from asrock support:

<answer>

So, I get more/final answer from Taiwan department:

For H/W part:

 From chipset spec, RD890(890FX) did support IOMMU.

But IOMMU also need CPU to support. Till now, AMD has no plan to support

IOMMU on desktop CPU (AM3 socket).

It only support with server CPU.

For BIOS part:

AMD has removed IOMMU related registers.

So there is no chance to let IOMMU work on our 890FX board unless AMD
can

provide such a process, and registers.

Best regards,

ASRock Support

</answer>

So they say it is AMD's fault. :-(

Regards,

Jens

On Thu, 3 Jun 2010 11:23:10 +0200, Sander Eikelenboom

<linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>  wrote:

Thursday, June 3, 2010, 10:53:29 AM, you wrote:

The ASRock 890FX Deluxe3 doesn't support the IOMMU technology too.

http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=383&threadid=134410

I'm very disappointed that main board manufacturers don't enable all

features for the processor and main board.

On Thu, June 3, 2010 10:19 am, Sander Eikelenboom wrote:

Thx for the forum threads, i have changed the wiki about
vt-d/iommu to

reflect these new experiences.

I was hoping AMD would be able to do a better job than Intel, and
have

learned from the BIOS missery Intel has with there VT-d, and

instruct/help

the manafacturers getting their bioses right.

I have a feeling that it's not AMD but the main board manufacturers
who

don't enable IOMMU in the BIOS. (It might be a hidden feature, for

people

who want to hack the BIOS at your own risk).

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Ofcourse you are right, but as chipset manufacturer I would be pretty

pissed and contact them.

Also I don't know how hard AMD and Intel make it to implement the

feature

in the bios. Since most of the time it's or disabled or broken.

On the other hand, they only support "microsoft windows" and that

doesn't

do a lot with an IOMMU. So in essence it's an unsupported feature.

It's too bad though, it seemed to be a very nice virtualization

platform,

6 cores, iommu, affordable ...

Hmm guess i'm going to write every manufacturer if they supported,

and/or

if there are plans to support it.

Hopefully one will do it in the end ...

--

Sander

It's a pity that a nice feature isn't supported. No sense in
upgrading

my

setup then to a six core and mobo with IOMMU. :(

--

Sander

Gigabyte motherboards don't support IOMMU:

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/ga-890fxa-ud5-iommu-bios-switch-39801/

MSI boards have the same problems:

http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.emulators.xen.user/58630

ASUS Crosshair IV Formula has IOMMU, but I cannot find if it works

with

Xen.

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 11:38 PM, Sander Eikelenboom

<linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

Hello Wei,

I hope motherboard manufacturers do a better job with supporting

this

iommu

in the bios than they did with intel's. Especially Asus made a mess

of

it,

and hasn't fixed it in newer bioses for multiple motherboards.

And since all motherboard reviews don't mention nor test the iommu

it's

hard to know upfront if it's supported :-(

--

Sander

Leonardo,

I can confirm that AMD 890FX supports IOMMU v1.22. It was briefly

mentioned by external sites, such as

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18825. It looks like Asus,
Gigabyte

and

MSI will ship motherboards with 890FX chipset. Xen 4.0 fully

supports

AMD

IOMMU v1.2. Note that IOMMU needs support from BIOS (ACPI IVRS

table).

Please pay a bit attention to this area.

-Wei

From: xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:

xen-devel-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Leonardo

Prosperi

Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 1:02 PM

To: xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: [Xen-devel] IOMMU and AMD 890fx

Hi,

All the reviews for the AMD 890fx chipset reported that it

supports

IOMMU

v1.2.

But I cannot find any mention of that on AMD site.

Does 890fx support IOMMU?

Do 890fx motherboards with IOMMU exist?

Does Xen support 890fx?

Regards,

Leonardo

--

Best regards,

Sander mailto:linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

--

Best regards,

Sander mailto:linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Re: [Xen-devel] IOMMU and AMD 890fx