[Asterisk-Users] beware supposed PCI 2.2 compatibility!

[Rob McGee]

I tried to convert a cheapie box with a VIA C3 processor into my 
Asterisk server with a TDM-400P rev. E. It didn't work. :) I'm just 
posting my experiences here for the record; this is not a plea for 
assistance.

The nifty-looking blue "E" cards, as most here probably know, require a 
PCI 2.2-compliant slot. What you may not know is that manufacturers may 
LIE about that (or to give them the benefit of the doubt, they may not 
know. But how is that any better? I'd just as soon buy hardware from a 
liar as from an incompetent.)

This motherboard from ECS, a P6VEM3, features a SiS chipset, and its 
documentation claims PCI 2.2-compliance for the 3 (count 'em, 3!) 
expansion slots. So we (Mike at Digium did most of it) persisted with 
the other difficulties (we discovered that a C3 CPU can't handle 
"-march=i686" binaries; it needs i586!) and got asterisk working with 
the old rev. C card.

"You should be able to swap out the cards and it will work," Mike said. 
I knew it wouldn't. I took out the "C" and put in the "E"; no luck. It 
doesn't even show up in lspci (Linux). "We check every card before it 
leaves here," Mike said. I panic. Did I do something to break it?

Well, no. It's now on another cheap ECS motherboard which also features 
a SiS chipset: K7S5A Pro. But this time (guided by an old Duron 700) it 
showed up in lspci; Linux hotplug loaded the hisax driver, asterisk 
fired right up (and "-march=i686" is fine on an Athlon or Duron. :)

On one hand I hate to use a decent machine (IMHO under Linux an old,
old Duron qualifies as "decent") as a server, but my telephony is very 
important. Thanks again to Mike for the help, and I hope this helps 
someone else who may be convinced that Digium sent them a bad card.

Lesson: don't work too hard to try to make asterisk work on a cheap 
computer. Better lesson: don't buy too-cheap computers. (I have an 
excuse: I didn't buy it. :)
-- 
    Rob - /dev/rob0