Re: VIA's Southbridge bug: Latest (pseudo-)patch

[Gérard Roudier]

On Sun, 3 Jun 2001, Adrian Cox wrote:

> Marc Lehmann wrote:
> 
> 
> > Aren't PCI delayed transaction supposed to be handled by the pci master
> > (e.g. my northbridge), not by the (software) driver for my pdc(?) I would
> > also be surprised if my pdc actually used that feature, not to speak of
> > the fact that the promise + harddisk worked fine in another computer (the
> > data corruption was easily detectable, one couldn't even write 500megs
> > without altered bytes).
> 
> 
> Wrong way round. You're right that the pci master is supposed to handle 
> delayed transactions, but during data transfer the pdc is the pci master 
> and the northbridge is the PCI target.

Wrong in my opinion, at least as it is worded. :)

PCI delayed transactions are not a PCI master issue at all, for the reason
it is not possible for a PCI master to distiguish between a transaction
which is delayed by the target and a simple retry requested by the target.

Btw, a PCI master that is unable to properly retry a transaction (could
the transaction be handled by the target as a delayed transaction on not)
would not allow a system to work for a long time. I would expect system
breakage within seconds in such situation.

Gérard.