Re: [PATCH] Blacklist DMAR on Intel G31/G33 chipsets

From: Ingo Molnar
Date: Sat Sep 06 2008 - 11:50:10 EST



* David Woodhouse <dwmw2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 20:34 +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * David Woodhouse <dwmw2@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > Some BIOSes (the Intel DG33BU, for example) wrongly claim to have DMAR
> > > when they don't. Avoid the resulting crashes when it doesn't work as
> > > expected.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: David Woodhouse <David.Woodhouse@xxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > >
> > > This time, I build-tested it with CONFIG_DMAR actually enabled. Sorry.
> > > I'd still be grateful if someone could test it on a DG33BU with the
> > > old BIOS though, since I've killed mine. I tested the DMI version, but
> > > not this one.
> >
> > ok - fixing this makes sense. I have two worries about this patch.
> >
> > Firstly, the quirk is keyed off an ACPI capability which is quite bad if
> > someone boots with ACPI off. (which is still quite possible) The DMAR is
> > PCI enumerated so there's nothing inherently ACPI about this. A DMI
> > quirk (which will work even if ACPI is disabled) looks more robust.
>
> No, the intel-iommu code is isn't PCI-enumerated -- it all depends on
> that ACPI table, unfortunately. [...]

ah, you are right ... and i thought i could trust grep -i acpi
drivers/pci/intel-iommu.c coming up empty ;-)

Jesse's call obviously, but the DMI thing local to intel-iommu.c still
looks better to me in all regards. I'm no fan of DMI in general - it
just doesnt scale - but here a crappy BIOS gets punished with a DMI
quirk and that's OK.

Ingo
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