Shuttle ST62K Zen Install Howto for Linux

Hardware

The Shuttle STK62K is a small XPC that use:

  • ATI IGP9100 video board
  • ATI IXP150 AC’97 Audio Controller
  • OHCI based USB 2
  • Realtek network card

As i run into different issue with that box, i decided to write a little howto. Look here for more infos

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5833 (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5838
0000:00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4347 (rev 01)
0000:00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4348 (rev 01)
0000:00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4345 (rev 01)
0000:00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc ATI SMBus (rev 17)
0000:00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4349
0000:00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 434c
0000:00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 4342
0000:00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
0000:01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5834
0000:02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:02:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. IEEE 1394 Host Controller (rev 80)

Issues

Caution, i run into weird issues at the first boot.. a lot of segfaults and other weird things. I spend a part of the night to discover that the main trouble isn’t Linux based, but a hardware issue. The ST62K seems to have a lot problems with cheap memory. My current install use two Elixir (CAS=3) 512Mo stick in dual channel. After a little test with memtest+ i discover that the memory should be downsized to 266MHz FSB (instead of the common 400FSB). I found severall other users with the same issue. So don’t expect to use a DDR400 at full speed on this box with cheap memory, or buy Corsair (CAS=2.5 not the CAS=3!).

Linux

I tried several kernels: 2.4.26 and 2.6.7 debian stock kernel, but i run into trouble with this meanly because the APM is set by default in .. so to run it i need to build kernel 2.6.7 from scrash.

Processor

My box run on a Intel 3.0C running at 3.2Ghz as this box support overclocking form +0 to +15 FSB, so (200 + 10) * 15 = 3.2 Ghz, i managed to overclock it to 3.3 without any trouble. In the kernel i set:

[*]   Symmetric multi-processing support
[*]   SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support

SMT is the new scheduler that support the HT processors

ACPI / APM

The main reason why i start with ACPI, is that the box do some really strange things if you have APM set. So you need to disable the APM, and set the ACPI in you kernel.

[*] ACPI Support
[*]   Sleep States (EXPERIMENTAL)
<M>   AC Adapter
<M>   Battery
<M>   Button
<M>   Fan
<M>   Processor
<M>   Thermal Zone

The Thermal Zone is the only import here.

Network

The ST62K use a Realtek nic, so just use the 8139too driver.

Hardrive / DMA

Recent kernel as support for ATI IXP chipset so ..

Device Driver > ATA/ATAPI/MFM/RLL support
<*>       Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support
[*]       Generic PCI bus-master DMA support
[*]         Use PCI DMA by default when available
<*>        ATI IXP chipset IDE support

Video

The embeded video card is IGP 9100. To have support for X you have 3 options:

  • use the ‘ati’ driver wich come with XFree. It’s works fine (without acceleration)
  • use the ‘radeon’ one, but this require a some kernel tweak
  • the ATI made drivers doesn’t seems to support the IGP card right now.

I now run the radeon on. To do this you have 2 options:
- use the stock kernel one
- use the DRI based one

stock kernel

Devices Drivers > Graphics support
<*>   ATI Radeon display support

Don’t use module if you want to have framebuffer support. You need to enable AGPGart too (i’m not really sure)

Section "Device"
#Driver      "ati"
Driver       "radeon"
VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName   "Unknown Board"
BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

DRI

First you need to download the latest XFree86 binary (which is 4.3.99) and put this in the place of XFree binary. Next download the Radeon driver from the DRI website. Simply untar and install it. (You need to set the kernel drivers as module not built-in for that)

Which One ?

Right now, this doesn’t really change anything because the kernel base kernel doesn’t support DRI. And the DRI one, disable the DRI because it doesn’t find it as a AGP card, so disable the direct rendering. So don’t expect good openGL performance :( But the radeon driver is really punchy on X .. so as i don’t play game, this isn’t a issue. I think this gonna change soon anyway.

update: TV Output

For the TVout put, there is currently no options. The only way to have it works, is to configure the X server to use a vesa driver (instead of radeon) and 800×600 screen size. After that, plug the TV set and reboot to enable it. (Done thought the bios post), and enjoy. Thanks Per for the tips.

Sound

Again only recent kernel support this :)

Device Drivers> Sound > Alsa PCI devices
<M> ATI IXP 150/200/250/300

After simply load the ‘snd_atiixp’ module

Sensors

I read a couple of post saying that the sensors doesn’t work, but i managed to use it without any trouble, as it use a it87 isa based sensors.

I2C > Hardware Sensors Chip support
<M> ITE IT87xx and compatibles

Don’t forget to set i2c-dev Results:

it87-isa-0228
Adapter: ISA adapter
VCore 1:   +1.45 V  (min =  +1.42 V, max =  +1.56 V)
VCore 2:   +1.53 V  (min =  +2.40 V, max =  +2.60 V)   ALARM
+3.3V:     +6.40 V  (min =  +3.12 V, max =  +3.44 V)   ALARM
+5V:       +4.97 V  (min =  +4.72 V, max =  +5.24 V)
+12V:     +11.68 V  (min = +11.36 V, max = +12.60 V)
-12V:     -19.77 V  (min = -12.63 V, max = -11.41 V)   ALARM
-5V:       -2.38 V  (min =  -5.28 V, max =  -4.81 V)   ALARM
Stdby:     +5.02 V  (min =  +4.72 V, max =  +5.24 V)
VBat:      +3.16 V
fan1:     1795 RPM  (min =    0 RPM, div = 16)
fan2:        0 RPM  (min =  332 RPM, div = 16)
fan3:        0 RPM  (min =  664 RPM, div = 8)
M/B Temp:    +60°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +40°C)   sensor = diode
CPU Temp:    +44°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +45°C)   sensor = diode
Temp3:       +41°C  (low  =   +15°C, high =   +45°C)   sensor = thermistor

Some voltages seems wrong .. but not important. Yes this box have only one fan and the CPU temp is 44°. The 60° correspond to the RS300 chip but this seems to be broken (the bios show me the same values..). When overclocked and building the kernel, i managed to have 59° and a fan at 2300 RPM. (I tweaked the bios to start the fan at 55° instead of 65° default)

Additionnal

You can download my kernel config. I think this setting can be used on S62G4 too ..



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31 thoughts on “Shuttle ST62K Zen Install Howto for Linux

  1. Nice advice with the sensors. Running sensors-detect, “Probing Super I/O” found the chip.

    The really big annoying problem with ST62K is TV out. So far, I have only managed to use TV out with the vesa driver. But where’s the fun in that, as you don’t get Xv etc. ST62K can be a great, monitorless, TV-connected HTPC, if only someone finds a way to get proper TV-out (with hardware scaling etc working).

    This is a good page too:

        http://www.bluelightning.org/linux/st62k/

  2. I haven’t find the way to have the TV-out yet. Perhaps you can post the way you have it working here ?

  3. This is the config for X on the TV set, but how do you switch to TV ? On other system, i used atitvout but this doesn’t seems to work right now. And it’s un-maintained too ..

  4. Hey, nice config :)

    And thanks for making me notice the new kernel option SMT (Hyperthreading) scheduler support. Kernel’s been recompiled, and consider I owe you a beer ;)

    – Sébastien.

    PS: lspci still gives you "Unknown devices", did you upgrade to the last version?

  5. Hum about the SMT (hyperthreading), i really think this scheduler is a bit buggy right now. I saw some strange slowdown under heavy IO. I guess i should try with another OS like DragonFlyBSD which has a totally different approach.

    For the lspci output, yes i get some ‘Unknow’ this is strange but lspci use official BusID, and this chipsets aren’t register yet on the right database. (i lost the url)

    For the beer, yeah i’m ok too :)

  6. > This is the config for X on the TV set, but how do you switch to TV ?

    Make sure TV pal/ntsc is set correct in your BIOS. I don’t have to do anything to get TV-output, it’s simply there when I switch on the TV.

    I haven’t noticed any problems with the HT.

  7. Hi,

    A new ATI proprietary driver has been released on 8/5/2004. It’s version 3.11.1. No information on the IGP cards in the release notes.

    Stephane

  8. I tried it last night.. and doesn’t work. In fact i get a ‘-1 No such device’ while inserting the kernel module. As this driver is binary only, we are unable to patch it :(

    I sent a ticket to the ATI tech support .. hope to get a answer soon ..

  9. –off the ATI driver subject–

    Has anyone been able to get spdif out working? I am running gentoo 2.6.7 and can only manage static with alsa 1.0.4. In fact, any alsa version after 1.0.4 gives me no output on the optical link at all.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated (my MythTV setup is hurting without it!)

  10. Someone over at rage3d.com got the tv-out working with the 3.11.1 drivers.
    Im not a linux guru but this is how he did it:

    "Test it with ChipId 0×5961 and accel and dri disabled and you can get TVOut working
    but of course without acceleration but better than with vesa driver."

  11. Anyone tested that yet (ChipId 0×5961)? If so, how does it behave, compared to vesa? I can’t test it right now, as I’m waiting for a new fan from Shuttle (the old one just died last week).

  12. New ATI proprietary drivers: 3.12.0

    Maybe this time is the one. In the release notes ATI write :


    The latest version of the ATI proprietary Linux driver introduces support for the following products:

    • RADEON™ 9550
    • RADEON™ 9100 IGP
    • RADEON™ 9200 IGP

    Note: This software driver provides 2D support only for the ATI RADEON™ 9100 IGP and ATI RADEON 9100 PRO IGP.

    Stephane

  13. Keep an eye on your temp-sensors! It seems I’m not the only owner of an ST62k who has suffered from a system fan break down. This is what happens:

      0. Everything is working fine.

      1. You notice that your Zen suddenly becomes completely quiet.

      2. The machine gets really hot and starts to smell funny.

      3. You realise that the system fan has died, and you swith off the system really quickly.

      4. You wait for a new fan from Shuttle, which they offered after contacting them using the tech support questionaire.

    The first thing I’ll do when I can start it again, is to write an init.d script that will shutdown at perhaps 75°C. The bios PC-health stuff didn’t trigger (or perhaps there is nothing that can trig there, I can’t remember).

  14. It was really disappointing to discover that the new fan from Shuttle didn’t solve the problem, it’s still dead. Perhaps something’s broken on the mobo.

  15. About the fan problem : maybe you should try to plug your fan into the other motherboard connector (FAN03 I think). My FAN01 connector stopped working two weeks ago, the box shut down itself at 100°C ! I tried with another fan, but it wasn’t the problem. I finally plugged the old fan on the other connector, and everything is back to normal. Can’t explain what happened.

  16. My fan went out also. I think the fan is what originally goes out, then it takes the mobo down with it. Once "header 1" on the mobo was dead, Shuttle replaced the whole mobo, but it almost took them three weeks. This happened just weeks before my warranty ran out. I’m scared of what will happen next year when the new mobo has the same problem.

  17. garipipok: thanks for the tip about FAN03 connector. After running my Zen for a year the fan broke down and the system crashed at 100°C. By swapping the fan to the other connector the machine is now back to normal.

  18. Hi,

    I will buy a st62k,
    but I would now if there are any news concerning the tv-out problem?
    I would like to use the st62k as tv pc. to run mythtv on it, so,
    can I get the the output of mythtv on tv-out? I do I need the 3d accerleration to look tv, ans watch some movies?

    Thanks

  19. I have a ST62K too and have had a mobo replaced to a fan problem. Now all three fan connectors (probably the fan controller) are dead on the new mobo. It is out of warranty. Anyone had similar problems and know how to fix it? The fan itself works fine if I just hook it to the 12V.

    Thanks, ..Roger

  20. I have the same fan issue, but not the connector one. Check out the website to find the way I fixed the fan issue

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