ASI MB-5BLMP Motherboard not detecting PCI wireless card

[asymingt]

I have a number of thin clients that I wish to turn into a wireless test bed. For the specifications of the motherboard used in the thin clients, please see http://linuxbios.org/ASI_MB-5BLMP_Build_Tutorial. The board comes with a single ISA and PCI port, which are raised off the main board. I have managed to boot successfully into the latest minimal install cd (the clients only have 64mb RAM). However, lspci does not detect the presence of the SMC 802.11 Wireless LAN card (SMCWPCIT-G). I have verified that both the SMC card and the PCI slot work with other hardware. At first, I thought it might be a PCI 2.1/2.2 voltage issue but, according to the SMC datasheet, the wireless card supports both 3.3V and 5V. I really have no idea what to do now to get the hardware to work - can anybody help me please?

[didymos]

I'd try re-seating the card, maybe a couple times. While you don't want to "put your back into it", you can apply a fair amount of force without damaging anything. Sometimes, tightening the case screws can nudge a card just enough to make it unusable, or the motherboard is a fraction too close to the back of the case, in which, um, case, you can loosen it's screws a bit and get it to slide toward the front just a bit.
Usually, what'd you do with these minor geometry mismatches is just switch the card to various PCI slots until it works, but here that's not an option.
_________________
Thomas S. Howard

[asymingt]

Thank you for the suggestion - I have tried a number of times to reseat the card. There is a snug fit between the card and the slot and I have checked both terminal sets for any corrosion. In fact, I have a number of thin clients and cards, all of which yield the same problem. Are there any methods of probing PCI slots for information in Gentoo? I took a look at the dmesg output and I got a lot of the following errors:

pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty

Is this something to worry about?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linux version 2.6.19-gentoo-r5 (root@kagome) (gcc version 4.1.1 (Gentoo 4.1.1-r3)) #1 SMP Tue Apr 3 01:19:22 UTC 2007
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000003c00000 (usable)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
60MB LOWMEM available.
Entering add_active_range(0, 0, 15360) 0 entries of 256 used
Zone PFN ranges:
DMA 0 -> 4096
Normal 4096 -> 15360
HighMem 15360 -> 15360
early_node_map[1] active PFN ranges
0: 0 -> 15360
On node 0 totalpages: 15360
DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
DMA zone: 4064 pages, LIFO batch:0
Normal zone: 88 pages used for memmap
Normal zone: 11176 pages, LIFO batch:1
HighMem zone: 0 pages used for memmap
DMI 2.2 present.
ACPI: Unable to locate RSDP
Allocating PCI resources starting at 10000000 (gap: 03c00000:fc400000)
Detected 233.868 MHz processor.
Built 1 zonelists. Total pages: 15240
Kernel command line: root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc dokeymap looptype=squashfs loop=/image.squashfs cdroot initrd=gentoo.igz vga=791 splash=silent,theme:livecd-2007.0 CONSOLE=/dev/tty1 quiet BOOT_IMAGE=gentoo
No local APIC present or hardware disabled
mapped APIC to ffffd000 (01081000)
Initializing CPU#0
PID hash table entries: 256 (order: 8, 1024 bytes)
Speakup v-2.00 CVS: Sat Oct 7 10:52:29 EDT 2006 : initialized
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Memory: 51948k/61440k available (2604k kernel code, 9084k reserved, 605k data, 248k init, 0k highmem)
virtual kernel memory layout:
fixmap : 0xfff4e000 - 0xfffff000 ( 708 kB)
pkmap : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000 (4096 kB)
vmalloc : 0xc4800000 - 0xff7fe000 ( 943 MB)
lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xc3c00000 ( 60 MB)
.init : 0xc042a000 - 0xc0468000 ( 248 kB)
.data : 0xc038b370 - 0xc0422b14 ( 605 kB)
.text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc038b370 (2604 kB)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
Calibrating delay using timer specific routine.. 469.41 BogoMIPS (lpj=2347050)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
CPU: After generic identify, caps: 00808131 01818131 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: After vendor identify, caps: 00808131 01818131 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
Working around Cyrix MediaGX virtual DMA bugs.
Enable Memory-Write-back mode on Cyrix/NSC processor.
Enable Memory access reorder on Cyrix/NSC processor.
Enable Incrementor on Cyrix/NSC processor.
CPU: After all inits, caps: 00808131 00818131 00000000 00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000
Compat vDSO mapped to ffffe000.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
SMP alternatives: switching to UP code
Freeing SMP alternatives: 16k freed
CPU0: Cyrix MediaGXtm MMXtm Enhanced stepping 04
SMP motherboard not detected.
Local APIC not detected. Using dummy APIC emulation.
Brought up 1 CPUs
checking if image is initramfs... it is
Freeing initrd memory: 4711k freed
NET: Registered protocol family 16
EISA bus registered
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfb1e0, last bus=0
PCI: Using configuration type 1
Setting up standard PCI resources
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
pci_get_subsys() called while pci_devices is still empty
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
pnp: PnP ACPI: disabled
SCSI subsystem initialized
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Boot video device is 0000:00:12.4
PCI: Using IRQ router NatSemi [1078/0100] at 0000:00:12.0
PCI: Ignore bogus resource 6 [0:0] of 0000:00:12.4
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 1024)
TCP reno registered
squashfs: version 3.1 (2006/08/19) Phillip Lougher
SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block numbers, no debug enabled
SGI XFS Quota Management subsystem
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler deadline registered (default)
initialized device: /dev/synth, node ( MAJOR 10, MINOR 25 )
vesafb: framebuffer at 0x40800000, mapped to 0xc4880000, using 3072k, total 4032k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=1
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:6e32
vesafb: pmi: set display start = c00c6e5b, set palette = c00c6eac
vesafb: pmi: ports = 3b4 3b5 3ba 3c0 3c1 3c4 3c5 3c6 3c7 3c8 3c9 3cc 3ce 3cf 3d4 3d5 3da
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: Truecolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 8192K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00alpha2
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
CS5530: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:12.2
CS5530: chipset revision 0
CS5530: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:12.0 to 64
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
Probing IDE interface ide0...
hda: SONY DVD RW DRU-530A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hda: cs5530_set_xfer_mode(PIO 4)
hda: cs5530_set_xfer_mode(UDMA 2)
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Probing IDE interface ide1...
Probing IDE interface ide1...
hda: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.20
PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
EISA: Probing bus 0 at eisa.0
EISA: Detected 0 cards.
TCP cubic registered
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Using IPI Shortcut mode
Freeing unused kernel memory: 248k freed
Time: tsc clocksource has been installed.
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /class/input/input0
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0
ohci_hcd: 2006 August 04 USB 1.1 'Open' Host Controller (OHCI) Driver (PCI)
PCI: setting IRQ 15 as level-triggered
PCI: Assigned IRQ 15 for device 0000:00:13.0
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: OHCI Host Controller
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
ohci_hcd 0000:00:13.0: irq 15, io mem 0xd8004000
usb usb1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
usbcore: registered new interface driver hiddev
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbhid
drivers/usb/input/hid-core.c: v2.6:USB HID core driver
sl811: driver sl811-hcd, 19 May 2005
ieee1394: Initialized config rom entry `ip1394'
ieee1394: sbp2: Driver forced to serialize I/O (serialize_io=1)
ieee1394: sbp2: Try serialize_io=0 for better performance
libata version 2.00 loaded.
device-mapper: ioctl: 4.10.0-ioctl (2006-09-14) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
JFS: nTxBlock = 444, nTxLock = 3559
Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - version 7.2.9-k4
Copyright (c) 1999-2006 Intel Corporation.
ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft Joliet Level 3
Unable to load NLS charset iso8859-1
Unable to load NLS charset iso8859-1
ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.12ac

[didymos]

It could be, but this issue has been around for awhile. Basically, it's trying to set up the PCI stuff too early, and just keeps trying until it works. There's a bunch of stuff on LKML about it, the general consensus seems to be it's either harmless or it's not. Yeah, not a lot of help there.

Anyway, if the kernel isn't seeing it during boot, I doubt userspace tools have any chance of seeing it either. Sometimes, stuff like that shows up in the POST, but I haven't used linuxbios, so I don't know if it displays that sort of information or not.
_________________
Thomas S. Howard

[asymingt]

Thanks for the help. Its a very weird problem and I'm not too sure how easy its going to be to fix!