[U-Boot-Users] MPC8560 DDR controller

Murray.Jensen at csiro.au Murray.Jensen at csiro.au
Fri Sep 9 12:54:01 CEST 2005


On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 11:54:15 +0200, Clemens Koller writes:
>How do you test the DDR memory in your case?
>It would be interesting to do the same over here.
>Is there some code available?

Thanks very much for the quick response... I use the "mtest" command in
U-Boot. There is also a Linux memory tester called "memtester" (URL:
http://pyropus.ca/software/memtester/ - another page that might interest
you resides at: http://linuxquality.sunsite.dk/articles/testsuites/).

But the dead giveaway is while running in linux, getting an Illegal
Instruction exception on a legal instruction in a program that ran fine
a number of times before and after, doing identical tasks (also get
random Segmentation Violations) - plus I get random exceptions in kernel
mode that crashes Linux. I am mounting the root filesystem via NFS.

It appears that I can get the memory stable in the memory testers, but
something to do with the activity that Linux generates seems to trigger
the problem (although the boot code will hang randomly if left long
enough - the processor goes into a checkstop condition - I am guessing
it gets a memory error in the middle of handling an exception - would
this do it?).

I can't really rule out some problem in the Linux virtual memory system
I suppose, but it is too suspicious. I am running with all caches turned
off, and L2 is even disabled in HID1 (along with PCI and RIO which we
dont use - I was hoping that completely disabling these parts of the chip
in DEVDISR might reduce the internal noise).

A relevant point is that our DDR memory bus tracks are relatively short, I
believe - all are the same length @ 54mm (~300ps propagation delay). I base
this on various things I have read e.g. the worked CPO example in AN2583
uses 800-1000ps of propagation delay on the PCB - three times ours (but the
difference isn't enough to make the default CPO value not work). We also
do not use ECC - I was wondering if ECC might protect others in a similar
situation e.g. if they only get single bit errors which are corrected.

I am hoping someone will reply saying "you fool - you forgot xxxxx" :-)

>Over here, I am working on an MPC8540 board from MicroSys which is
>able to do ECC. Currently, I haven't seen any errors looking at the
>ECC status registers after several days uptime and lots of memory io,
>so I think the DDR is okay.
>I turned off ECC for some performance tests (no results yet)...
>never had a problem there, too.
...
>Mine says: PPC8540 PX833LB 2L71V MSIA QEAD0412
>working fine @166MHz

OK thanks for the info - it is much appreciated. Cheers!
								Murray...
--
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