[gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Colleen Josephson]

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I had a question related to the amd64 minimal livecd.

What exactly is happening at the "Unpacking firmware" stage of the boot
process?
Is there a way to find out exactly what firmware is being loaded? Or a way
to boot without loading the firmware?

Why? It is a somewhat strange reason. I am having issues with a high-pitched
hum coming from the audio jacks (occurs on both MB sound and a creative
sound card)
I have a very nice sound system (a sound board, studio monitors...I am an
audio hobbyist), and no other system has these problems, so I am relatively
sure that it is not the speakers/cables.

I have been booting from the liveCD, and I have pinpointed the point at
which the hum starts to something near the *Unpacking firmware stage.
I realize this is somewhat esoteric, but it renders my system almost
useless, and would greatly appreciate any input.

I did interactive mode. The interactive mode only prompts for some of the
items. Among the items it does not prompt for is the firmware unpacking. It
just goes and does it.

-- 
Colleen Josephson
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 2013

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[gentoo-catalyst] Re: LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Colleen Josephson]

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Update: it seems hotplug/coldplug is the culprit.

If I disable everything, there is no hum. If I re-enable coldplug
(COLDPLUG="yes"), then the hum re-appear.

What about coldplug could be causing problems? Where should I go from here
to solve this problem?

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Colleen Josephson <cjoseph@mit.edu> wrote:

> I had a question related to the amd64 minimal livecd.
>
> What exactly is happening at the "Unpacking firmware" stage of the boot
> process?
> Is there a way to find out exactly what firmware is being loaded? Or a way
> to boot without loading the firmware?
>
> Why? It is a somewhat strange reason. I am having issues with a
> high-pitched hum coming from the audio jacks (occurs on both MB sound and a
> creative sound card)
> I have a very nice sound system (a sound board, studio monitors...I am an
> audio hobbyist), and no other system has these problems, so I am relatively
> sure that it is not the speakers/cables.
>
> I have been booting from the liveCD, and I have pinpointed the point at
> which the hum starts to something near the *Unpacking firmware stage.
> I realize this is somewhat esoteric, but it renders my system almost
> useless, and would greatly appreciate any input.
>
> I did interactive mode. The interactive mode only prompts for some of the
> items. Among the items it does not prompt for is the firmware unpacking. It
> just goes and does it.
>
> --
> Colleen Josephson
> Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
> Class of 2013
>



-- 
Colleen Josephson
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 2013

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Re: [gentoo-catalyst] Re: LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Mike Frysinger]

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Colleen Josephson wrote:
> Update: it seems hotplug/coldplug is the culprit.
>
> If I disable everything, there is no hum. If I re-enable coldplug
> (COLDPLUG="yes"), then the hum re-appear.
>
> What about coldplug could be causing problems? Where should I go from here
> to solve this problem?

look at the drivers loaded between the two runs.  that's really all
coldplug does ... look at devices the kernel discovered while booting,
and load appropriate drivers for them.
-mike

Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Peter Stuge]

Colleen Josephson wrote:
> high-pitched hum coming from the audio jacks
> (occurs on both MB sound and a creative sound card)

What are some of the main system components? Which type CPU and
chipset?

My guess would be that this is related to the power supply, and that
power management of some hardware couples over to the audio codec.


//Peter

Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Colleen Josephson]

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I have a ASUS M4A89TB MB which is AMD's 890FX/SB850 chipset I believe, a
quad-core AMD Phenom II, and an ATI FirePro V3700.

Related to the power supply as in this is a hardware issue? Because the hum
doesn't start until almost the end of the boot process on the liveCD, and if
it were the power supply's fault, wouldn't it start as soon as I booted up
the system?

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 9:40 AM, Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se> wrote:

> Colleen Josephson wrote:
> > high-pitched hum coming from the audio jacks
> > (occurs on both MB sound and a creative sound card)
>
> What are some of the main system components? Which type CPU and
> chipset?
>
> My guess would be that this is related to the power supply, and that
> power management of some hardware couples over to the audio codec.
>
>
> //Peter
>
>


-- 
Colleen Josephson
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 2013

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Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Mike Frysinger]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 12:17 PM, Colleen Josephson wrote:

please dont top post

> Related to the power supply as in this is a hardware issue? Because the hum
> doesn't start until almost the end of the boot process on the liveCD, and if
> it were the power supply's fault, wouldn't it start as soon as I booted up
> the system?

possibly not if the codec starts off powered off / bypassed.  which
many do.  but loading the driver causes it to be powered up /
unbypassed.
-mike

Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Peter Stuge]

Colleen Josephson wrote:
> I have a ASUS M4A89TB MB which is AMD's 890FX/SB850 chipset I believe,
> a quad-core AMD Phenom II, and an ATI FirePro V3700.

Ok. You could maybe try to experiment with the graphics drivers as
well.


> Related to the power supply as in this is a hardware issue?

Basically yes, because the hardware should never behave like it does.

But it can certainly be software induced, so that a changed setting
can make the problem go away - although probably at the cost of
sacrificing something else, e.g. maybe getting higher power
consumption.


> Because the hum doesn't start until almost the end of the boot
> process on the liveCD, and if it were the power supply's fault,
> wouldn't it start as soon as I booted up the system?

When drivers load in the system (I guess you have hardware drivers
built as modules, as opposed to built-in to the kernel?) they will
start exercising their respective hardware devices. Some device, CPU,
chipset, or another, is possibly switching constantly between power
states, which the power supply in the PC might not be able to handle
completely.

It could be something simpler as well, some signals that are simply
being coupled onto analog output.

To say any more you need to find which driver is causing this. Mike's
advice is the start; find out which drivers coldplugging loads, then
e.g. load one at a time manually. At some point you should get the
noise. Then dive deeper into that particular driver case.


//Peter

Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Colleen Josephson]

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   When drivers load in the system (I guess you have hardware drivers

> built as modules, as opposed to built-in to the kernel?) they will
> start exercising their respective hardware devices.
>

Actually, I've been troubleshooting from the livecd. I guess one of the
modules it loads causes this.


> It could be something simpler as well, some signals that are simply
> being coupled onto analog output.
>
> To say any more you need to find which driver is causing this. Mike's
> advice is the start; find out which drivers coldplugging loads, then
> e.g. load one at a time manually. At some point you should get the
> noise. Then dive deeper into that particular driver case.
>
OK, how do I find out which drivers coldplugging loads?

-- 
Colleen Josephson
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Class of 2013

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Re: [gentoo-catalyst] LiveCD: Unpacking Firmware

[Mike Frysinger]

On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 1:25 PM, Colleen Josephson wrote:
>> It could be something simpler as well, some signals that are simply
>> being coupled onto analog output.
>>
>> To say any more you need to find which driver is causing this. Mike's
>> advice is the start; find out which drivers coldplugging loads, then
>> e.g. load one at a time manually. At some point you should get the
>> noise. Then dive deeper into that particular driver case.
>
> OK, how do I find out which drivers coldplugging loads?

run `lsmod` to see what has been loaded.  compare between the
coldplugged boot and the non coldplugged boot.  then load each one by
one.
-mike

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[Guy Harrison]