Re: Problem with DMA on x86_64 with 3 GB RAM

From: Larry Finger
Date: Tue Nov 21 2006 - 11:37:40 EST


Andi Kleen wrote:
Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

I am trying to debug a bcm43xx DMA problem on an x86_64 system with 3
GB RAM. Depending on the particular chip and its implementation, dma
transfers may use 64-, 32-, or 30-bit addressing, with the problem
interface using 30-bit addressing. From test prints, the correct mask
(0x3FFFFFFF) is supplied to pci_set_dma_mask and
pci_set_consistent_dma_mask. Neither call returns an error. In
addition, several x86_64 systems with more than 1 GB RAM have worked
with the current code.

30bit DMA has be bounced through GFP_DMA. The driver needs special
code for this. You can look at the b44 driver for a working reference.

The pci_dma_* interfaces on x86-64 only support masks >= 0xffffffff,
anything smaller has to be handled manually.

Thanks for the info. I obviously get to devote some effort to seeing how the b44 code handles the same problem.

Shouldn't this problem be mentioned somewhere in the documentation, or did I miss something?

Larry
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