Re: Hardware designt to prevent Damages... [WAS: [patch 23/37] i2c-piix4: Blacklist two mainboards]

From: Michelle Konzack
Date: Fri May 16 2008 - 11:52:56 EST


Hello Jean,

Thank you for explanation.

OK, if I understand I2C right, there are more or less reserved addresses
for each type of chip if I understand it right, but I have only an
incomplete list of it. (gotten from the NXP website where the Tech-
Support is very helpful. Same for Dallas/Maxim)

Do you know, where I can get a full list of it?

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
Michelle Konzack
Tamay Dogan Network
Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


Am 2008-05-15 20:49:55, schrieb Jean Delvare:
> In this particular case, the CPU was apparently damaged as the result
> of accidental memory over-voltage. It is worth noting though that said
> CPU had gone through intensive overclocking session beforehand, and
> this might explain the death. Other CPUs are known to have gone through
> the same experience and are still working.
>
> So, to clear up any misunderstanding: the CPU damage did not occur
> because we used some odd CPU instruction sequence or anything like
> that. The damage came to the CPU from other hardware on the board.
>
> To be a bit more technical, the design mistake (I think) that was made
> by the designers of the motherboard in question, was to use an
> I2C/SMBus chip on a PC motherboard, which uses SMBus receive byte and
> SMBus send byte for control, and which lives at an I2C address which is
> very common amongst hardware monitoring chip. The 4th factor being, of
> course, that improperly programming the chip in question can result in
> hardware damage. If only 3 of these 4 factors had been present, most
> probably there would have been no issue in practice. But with all 4
> factors, bad things just had to happen. And it's not just Linux, users
> had similar problems running hardware monitoring tools under Windows
> too.
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