[SOLVED] Need help installing Delta 1010 (IRQ and I/O-APIC)

[dahnielson]

My Delta 1010 finally arrived yesterday after the post office had been sitting on it over the week-end. I inserted the PCI-card in one of the two empty PCI slots my MoBo is equipped with, plugged in the BoB and booted. To my surprise the Gentoo system found and loaded the snd_ice1712 module, so no more compilation was needed.

Opened QJackCtl and configured the device and hit "start" to enjoy the xrun free run. But it just took a couple of seconds before the complaints started to pour in:

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delay of 20029.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2868.000; restart ...
15:49:18.956 XRUN callback (1).
delay of 19965.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2868.000; restart ...
delay of 19956.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2868.000; restart ...
delay of 19960.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2868.000; restart ...

And so on.

Yikes! I said to my self and then remembered something about shared IRQ and I/O-APIC that I once read (probably last week or so). So I decided to investigate it:

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$ cat /proc/interrupts

           CPU0       CPU1
  0:      31760      31650   IO-APIC-edge      timer
  1:         36         33   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  9:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
 16:       8052       8112   IO-APIC-fasteoi   libata, uhci_hcd:usb3, uhci_hcd:usb8, nvidia
 17:       3530       3468   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ICE1712, eth0
 18:          3          2   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb7, ohci1394
 19:       5871       5904   IO-APIC-fasteoi   libata, libata, uhci_hcd:usb6
 21:       1260       1260   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4
 23:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb5
NMI:          0          0
LOC:      63352      63311
ERR:          0

Ok, so the ICE1712 (the Delta-series chip set) is sharing IRQ 17 with the built-in ethernet NIC.

First, I tried to see if there was any changes in BIOS that I could make, but the only things I found was disabling the parallel port, the com port, HDA-Intel and the floppy controller (the output above is from after this disabling business was done). No way to otherwise alter the IRQs.

Second, I re-opened the case and moved the PCI-card to the other free slot. But this only resulted in the ICE1712 getting IRQ 16 and thus sharing it with pretty much everything else.

Thirdly, I just disabled the IOAPIC option in BIOS to see what happened. All it did was making the system unbootable (timing out when trying to identify devices).

So, where to go from here?

I guess the natural next step would be disabling the built-in NIC, replacing it with a PCI or PCI-E NIC, so that ICE 1712 will have IRQ 17 to it self.

Are there any good current resources on the kernels handling of interrupt vectors on I/O-APIC systems? All information I could find was a couple of years old. But I guess I have to get the device on its own IRQ first no matter what.

[Alex]

Anders,
I'll do a bit of research on this tomorrow, as i'm using a similar driver (the ice1712), and i have other questions too,and will get back to you as soon as possible.

I face a challenge of my own with the routing with the 1712 driver, and Envy24, particularly the stubborn determination of the controller to stick to spdif, when i try to change the clock to a set sample rate (48000). So far, all attempts to change this and keep it changed have proved worthless, but, i've looked for a solution today, and it seems i may not be on my own with this one. Again, if i get any information i'll post it. Then i'm going to build a walk through for installing and configuring this type of card, including both the ice1712 driver, and the 1724. Reports from Alsa indicate there's work being done on both.

I will keep you informed,

Alex.

[dahnielson]

Thanks! That would be appreciated.

[Alex]

Anders, found this after a quick look, but I don't know how helpful it will be to you.

Alex.

http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Serial-HOWTO-9.html


Sorry Anders, i was so involved in reading this, that i forgot to post the link!

Doh.

[dahnielson]

Anders, found this after a quick look, but I don't know how helpful it will be to you.

Alex.

What? Where?

[dahnielson]

No problem.

[dahnielson]

I have at least learned something today: If you got an integrated NIC and a regular NIC, and disable the integrated NIC in BIOS, the regular will NIC then still become eth1 no matter what.

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$ cat /proc/interrupts

           CPU0       CPU1
  0:      71771      71782   IO-APIC-edge      timer
  1:        860        841   IO-APIC-edge      i8042
  9:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   acpi
 16:      17262      17174   IO-APIC-fasteoi   libata, uhci_hcd:usb3, uhci_hcd:usb8, nvidia, eth1
 17:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ICE1712
 18:          2          3   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb7, ohci1394
 19:       4336       4307   IO-APIC-fasteoi   libata, libata, uhci_hcd:usb6
 21:       1144       1179   IO-APIC-fasteoi   uhci_hcd:usb4
 23:          0          0   IO-APIC-fasteoi   ehci_hcd:usb2, uhci_hcd:usb5
NMI:          0          0
LOC:     143509     143449
ERR:          0

Still getting this:

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delay of 19831.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
19:45:25.527 XRUN callback (1).
delay of 19755.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19772.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19765.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19758.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19760.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19766.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19776.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19774.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19770.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19759.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19766.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19758.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19771.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...
delay of 19771.000 usecs exceeds estimated spare time of 2867.000; restart ...

[dahnielson]

Strike the last part about delay messages.

Apparently (said in the tone of Susan in Coupling) it was all me. I had set the Master Clock to "Word Clock"!! Changed it to "Int 44100" and everything worked!

(annoyed grunt)

[dahnielson]

I can only use profanities to describe what a difference it is to listen to my mp3 collection through the Delta compared to the integrated HDA-Intel using the same near field monitors. Didn't know my monitors could sound that good. The music sounds alive and I'm still only listening to songs in 192 kbps quality. (Of course being able to use proper 1/4" jack cabling instead of anemic cables, splits, 1/8" plugs and adapters make some difference.)

[dahnielson]

Even though I've got my audio interface up and running (hence the "[SOLVED]" marking) I would appreciate any insights into I/O-APIC and interrupt vectors in the kernel, that supposedly trumps the IRQ priority, so that I can fine tune my system until I get a new motherboard.