[U-Boot-Users] 7xx/74xx cache question

[Richard Danter]

Jerry Van Baren wrote:
> Richard Danter wrote:
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Further progress on my port. I can now write to flash!
>>
>> I noticed in lib_ppc/board.c board_init_r() that on e500 CPU's the 
>> unlock_ram_in_cache() function is called. The 7xx/74xx also locks the 
>> init RAM in the dcache, but nowhere is it unlocked.
>>
>> I tried calling unlock_ram_in_cache() from my board's misc_init_r() 
>> function, but this crashes U-Boot.
>>
>> As an experiment, I left the cache locked, but then ran the "dcache 
>> off" command from the shell. If I do printenv before turning the 
>> dcache off it is all OK, if I do it after then it crashes.
>>
>> With my debugger I can see that the gd data structure is garbage when 
>> env_get_char_memory() is called. But I thought all data was copied to 
>> the main sys RAM.
>>
>> Is there something else I need to do before/after calling 
>> unlock_ram_in_cache() so I can use the D-Cache as normal?
>>
>> Thanks
>> Rich
>>
>> PS Calling icache_enable() from misc_init_r() seems to work fine.
> 
> 
> WRT data cache enabling, in order to enable data cache, you need to 
> first set up BATs and/or the MMU page tables.  You need the MMU 
> configured and enabled so that you can mark I/O space(s) to be 
> uncached... by default every data access is cached which wreaks havoc 
> with I/O (to put it lightly :-).

I have my BAT's set up such that the only area cacheable is the SDRAM. 
Accesses to PCI and Flash are cache inhibited.

> 
> I am not aware of anybody doing this in u-boot because it is a major 
> pain to do and minor benefit for the brief time you should be running in 
> u-boot (but likely someone has).
> 
> When you boot your OS (e.g. linux), the OS should do its own MMU set up 
> and data cache enabling.
> 
> WRT your locking question, I don't know.

No prob.

Thanks for the help.

As you may see by my other e-mail, I no longer think this is a cache 
problem. It seems the data is not being relocated correctly, probably 
because I have missed something somewhere....

Thanks again,
Rich