Re: Looking for suggestions for small, low power machine

[Jonathan Gabris <jonathan.gabris%gmail.com@localhost>]

I have a similar problem on something totaly unrelated to NetBSD.
(a pic32 based datalogger, writing messages to a CF card)

Haven't had time to check it out in depth, but it seems that in my case:
-plain CF cards will work (eg:kinston 4GB)
-anything else (CF+/ultra/..) will not (eg: Trancend 1GB / lexar 4GB)

I think it might be to do with the use of DMA, as the cards work fine
from a card reader, but only the plain CF with the hardware I
designed...

If anyone has some more insight to add I would be interested.

Jonathan



On Fri, Jun 03, 2011 at 11:14:52AM +0200, Marc Balmer wrote:
> Am 03.06.2011 11:07, schrieb Stefano Marinelli:
> >>I still don't know why net5501 doesn't boot from the 2 GB CF card I was 
> >>trying
> >>to use, but I got it working with a 512 MB Sandisk card.  If I put the 
> >>same
> >
> >Don't ask me why, but I have an Alix board and it doesn't boot from a 
> >Transcend 4GB CF card. I've tried everything, but it just doesn't boot any 
> >OS I've tried on it (NetBSD, FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD, GNU/Linux).
> >It works if I try to USB boot using a PC and with an external card reader, 
> >but no luck with the Alix.
> >No problems with more than one Sandisk 4GB CF.
> >Maybe some producers use some "tricks" on geometry of the cards and it 
> >seems that the Alix (and the net5501, as far as I can see) doesn't like it.
> 
> It is a known problem that Alix boards can not boot from some CF cards. 
>  It has even been analyzed by the BIOS manufacturor, but no solution 
> was found.