Re: Problems with TOD clock data on i386?

[buhrow%lothlorien.nfbcal.org@localhost (Brian Buhrow)]

        hello John.  I'm sorry, I forget these details and I don't see your
original message, but here are more questions.

1.  What version of NetBSD are you running?

2.  What architecture are you running?

        I'm guessing the problem is somewhere in
/usr/src/sys/arch/x86/isa/rtc.c
probably in rtcinit()

How old is your machine?  Can you boot NetBSD-4 or NetBSD-3 on it?  What do
they do in terms of initializing the tod clock?
        I'm thinking that your machine has some sort of emulated mc146818
software in it and there's an incompatibility between the NetBSD mc146818
driver and your emulated chip.  I would have never even thought of this
except for a recent discussion on some list about emulated 16550A serial
chips on modern motherboards.
        I take it you have updated the BIOS on this machine to the latest
available?  Does google have anything to say about the tod clock in this
machine model?  The manual?

        I realize I'm more questions than answers, but given the interesting
fact that you can set the time but can't read it means there's something
different about your motherboard to me, and my question is, what is that
difference?

-thanks
-Brian

On Jul 16,  9:47am, "John D. Baker" wrote:
} Subject: Re: Problems with TOD clock data on i386?
} On Mon, 16 Jul 2012, Brian Buhrow wrote:
} 
} >     Hello.  Probably a silly question, but is it safe to assume that the
} > kernel doesn't update the TOD clock since it can't read it?  The only way I
} > can think to truly test this is to set the time in the BIOS  to some time 
last
} > week, reboot, let ntpdate set the time, and then drop into BIOS again and
} > see if the clock is correct.
} > I'm guessing the BIOS will still show you the time you set the clock to
} > originally, plus the amount of time that passed between both BIOS sessions.
} > If it shows the current time, and you didn't boot into another OS between
} > BIOS sessions, then you're able to set the clock somehow, but can't read
} > it, which would be even stranger but which might be useful information to
} > have.
} 
} It it definitely strange.  I did this.  Set the TOD clock to about a
} month ago, rebooted single-user then back to BIOS a couple of times to
} make sure it stayed set that way, then rebooted multiuser so ntpd would
} start up.
} 
} I used it for about an hour or so, checking the ntp peers to make sure
} it had syncronized with and selected my time local time server, then
} rebooted.
} 
} When I dropped into the BIOS setup, the TOD clock reflected current
} UTC time.  So, it can set the time in the TOD clock, but seems unable
} to initialize itself from it.  Is there debugging to see what it
} thinks it read (and rejects as preposterous)?
} 
} -- 
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