GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

[kuzew]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

...
I'd like to add what little I can here, which is to say that I can verify that the BioStar 890FX board does NOT support IOMMU (suspected before due to BIOS Manual), but I can verify that now. Throwing up the lspci and the dmesg.
...

It looks like you are running Xen, could we also see `xm dmesg` for the dmesg of the hypervisor? I what you showed us is the dmesg of what Xen calls dom0.

Thanks for posting, the more the merrier! Like you said, the more people who post about this sort of thing, the more (hopefully) manufactures realize that we want this option enabled and working correctly.

Cheers!

[Coaxmetal]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Just thought it might be useful to confirm that, at least in bios 0801, the Asus Crosshair IV Formula has an option in the bios to enable IOMMU.

I don't have a board myself otherwise I would be digging through Xen. I asked a forum member on another board to confirm if theirs has it. I *really* hope other manufacturers enable this feature. Essentially little to no work on their part and it is one of the big differences between the FX and GX chipset.

I am honestly surprised to see no Xen oriented reviews on this mobo. It is all 'Crysis' and 'Sandra' benchmarks.

[michich]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Just thought it might be useful to confirm that, at least in bios 0801, the Asus Crosshair IV Formula has an option in the bios to enable IOMMU.

I don't have a board myself otherwise I would be digging through Xen. I asked a forum member on another board to confirm if theirs has it.

That's good to know. But there's still a possibility that it might not really work as expected. Any chance you could convince the person to test it (with PCI passthrough in KVM or Xen)? Or to get the output of

dmesg | grep -i -e IOMMU -e AMD-Vi -e IVRS

on a non-Xen kernel with the IOMMU enabled?

[falcon9xr]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

It looks like you are running Xen, could we also see `xm dmesg` for the dmesg of the hypervisor? I what you showed us is the dmesg of what Xen calls dom0.

My apologies, I was switching between Live Debian and Live Xen discs. And truth be told, I didn't realize that there was a difference (lol, can you tell I'm a Xen n00b?) Luckily I haven't sent the board back yet, so I'll hook it up again and get the `xm dmesg`. I should have the results up by tonight.

[kuzew]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

My apologies, I was switching between Live Debian and Live Xen discs. And truth be told, I didn't realize that there was a difference (lol, can you tell I'm a Xen n00b?) Luckily I haven't sent the board back yet, so I'll hook it up again and get the `xm dmesg`. I should have the results up by tonight.

Heh, by no means am I a Xen expert. I've only played with it. Thanks again.

[lt.cmdr.data]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hi!

I am in the same situation. Thought of 890fx supports IOMMU and bought a Asrock 890FX Deluxe3 board. And just the same thing, no support option in the bios. :-(

Hoping to find a working solution.

Jens

[lt.cmdr.data]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hi again!

I forgot to mention that the answer from asrock support was this:

Hello,<?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
So, I get more/final answer from <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Taiwan</st1:place></st1:country-region> department:<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
For H/W part:<o:p></o:p>
From chipset spec, RD890(890FX) did support IOMMU.<o:p></o:p>
But IOMMU also need CPU to support. Till now, AMD has no plan to support IOMMU on desktop CPU (AM3 socket).<o:p></o:p>
It only support with server CPU.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
For BIOS part:<o:p></o:p>
AMD has removed IOMMU related registers.<o:p></o:p>
So there is no chance to let IOMMU work on our 890FX board unless AMD can provide such a process, and registers.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Best regards,<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
ASRock Support

So in my opinion this is wrong. IOMMU is a chipset feature and not a CPU feature. Is this right?

Jens

[kuzew]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hi again!

I forgot to mention that the answer from asrock support was this:

So in my opinion this is wrong. IOMMU is a chipset feature and not a CPU feature. Is this right?

Jens

The only thing processor related is this HyperTransport, which AFAIK all AM3 processors have, in fact I think this was to replace the Front Side Bus on all AMD processors. If I may quote the IOMMU Specifications Manual from AMD:

When the IOMMU is disabled it simply passes all bus traffic through without alteration.
When the IOMMU is enabled, it intercepts requests arriving from downstream devices (which may be HyperTransport™ link or PCI based), performs permission checks and address translation on the requests, and sends translated versions upstream via the HyperTransport™ link to system memory space. Other requests are passed through unaltered (details in Section 3.1.1 [Normal Operation]). All PCI devices serviced by a single IOMMU must be on the same PCI segment or PCI segment group (including any secondary or subordinate bus).

It's all done in the chipset. In fact on the next page:

Once configured, the IOMMU logically resides on the HyperTransport™ bus between the devices it translates for and the upstream interface. As a result of this logical topology the transactions seen by the IOMMU are HyperTransport™ transactions. Accesses to the HyperTransport™ address range FD_0000_0000h - FF_FFFF_FFFFh have special meaning. The meaning is encoded into various portions of the address as shown in Table 2 and Table 9; complete details are in the HyperTransport™ I/O Link Specification. Upstream transactions to these address ranges are controlled by device table control bits, page tables or the interrupt
remapping tables.

It's just HyperTransport packets... so no special processor features are needed. AFAIK IOMMU has nothing to do with SVM (AMD's Virtualization) on the processor.
So I think ASRock are wrong and have misinformation.

[Nizze]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hi again!

I forgot to mention that the answer from asrock support was this:
So in my opinion this is wrong. IOMMU is a chipset feature and not a CPU feature. Is this right?

Jens

Jens, could you please, please contact Asrock once more and mention that the Asus Crosshair IV 890FX board DO support IOMMU with a BIOS enable/disable setting. Ask your Asrock support person to take contact with Asrock's Engineering or BIOS team and then come back with an offcial stance on whether Asrock in the future intend to support IOMMU or not with a new BIOS release. (They already support Intel's vt-d that serve the same purpose as AMD's IOMMU!)

[lt.cmdr.data]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

I did already with exact these questions. Waiting for answer...

[kuzew]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hmm, I should also re-submit a ticket saying that ASUS has a board that has IOMMU... why aren't you guys (Gigabyte) doing it?

[Nizze]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

Hmm, I should also re-submit a ticket saying that ASUS has a board that has IOMMU... why aren't you guys (Gigabyte) doing it?

Maybe we (=kuzew ;-) could also ask if their other two 890FX boards, M4A89TD PRO and M4A89TD PRO/USB3 also have IOMMU BIOS settings like their big brother Crosshair has ?!

Hmmm, my bad Gigabyte-kuzew !!! Time to hit the sack as soon midnight over here. Tomorrow I'll try to question Asus myself !

[falcon9xr]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

It looks like you are running Xen, could we also see `xm dmesg` for the dmesg of the hypervisor? I what you showed us is the dmesg of what Xen calls dom0.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYjthxvMgkGrZGQ5N2Z4ejhfMTVkMzZ2enFkNA&hl=en

I think the key line is "(XEN) AMD IOMMU: Disabled"

:-(

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

I got some news back from Taiwan on this tonight.

The news for now is that they are looking into this, and it may be some time before they can get it implemented, if they decide to. The more users you can get to chime in the better, so they know many people would like to use this feature and not just a few.

It is a hard thing to setup so it will take them a while to get it going, again if they do decide to add it.

I just wanted to let you all know that they are indeed now looking into this, I will keep you updated of any news I hear back.

[Nizze]

Re: GA-890FXA-UD5 IOMMU BIOS Switch?

I have now put forward a question on whether there's also IOMMU support on Asus M4A89TD PRO/USB3 board -> ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- IOMMU support in BIOS (like for Crosshair IV) ?

However there seems to be some bewilderment on what IOMMU really is and how it's going to be supported on the software side ->
ASUSTeK Computer Inc.-Forum- AMD-Vi (IOMMU)