Airbozo
02-15-2008, 07:58 PM
OK, another end of week rant. Made me feel good last time so here goes again. I may start a habit of this. Sorry for the length.
Serial port saga.
Background;
We have a customer that requires specific computer configurations and known good stable configurations that last for at least a couple of years before any parts are EOL'd. This is due to government regulations and acceptance testing issues (takes almost 6 months to get specific configurations approved and 3 months if you change a part like a serial port card). And I won't even go into the acceptance testing for drivers and such.
Issue:
Customer A, was using a serial port card that works in either a standard PCI slot or a PCI-X slot (64 bit pci slot), and auto detects what slot it is in and adjusts the voltage accordingly. Power up the system, looad the OS and it sees the 2 serial ports on this card, easy shmeasy. No driver, it is a serial port card after all and serial ports have been around since before any recent processor. The manufacturer EOL'd that particular card and never announced it. Customer A went to order said card and could not find any. Called the company to learn of the EOL and asked for the replacement card. No problem so far. They got the replacement and dropped it into one of their systems. Hit the power button, the power light flashed and the system shut off. They RMA'd the card and the second one did the same thing. They brought them to us and we tested them and found that they would not work in a PCI-X slot, but they worked in a PCI slot just fine. Only using a regular PCI slot was not an option since the only one on this mobo sits right next the the PCI-E slot and the GFX card would over heat if the serial card was in that slot. It is just to close and blocks the fan (on both the ati 1650 and the nvidia 8500gt).
Since we do a lot of the engineering research for their company I took this issue on. I mean how hard can it be to get a serial card that works in a PCI-X slot? I mena really, a serial port is a serial port and with the exception of speed bumps and interface connections the actual logic really has not changed in decades. I called the company to discuss with them and they were very surprised to find they did not work. After a couple of phone calls and some help from friends we determined that it was NOT compatible with a PCI-X slot as it was not adjusting the voltage on the card, and was shorting some signals on the PCI-X bus.
The card manufacturer agreed to send us a couple of other cards to test and when they came in I loaded one up in my test system. The system powered up. Good sign! Loaded RHEL5 and then tried to use the ports. No go. The system saw the ports but could not communicate with the card. More digging, Oh they require drivers. DRIVERS FOR A SERIAL CARD? OK, maybe there is something special the card does that we won't use. Load drivers (after several attempts to get the correct ones I was emailed the proper drivers), no go. Now I am pissed. I spent the next couple of days (between other projects) trying to figure it out. Never did. The company that made these cards was no help either. When I asked about the driver issue they told me it was becasue they use custom ASIC's that are programmed to look like a serial port card. ??? wtf? I would figure it would just be cheaper to actually use a 16550 chip that IS a serial port (along with other logic). We sent them back.
Today I get in another test card from another manufacturer and I am already put off because it came with a disk. Oh no. OK I plugged it in to my test system, fired right up, RHEL5 sees it and YES I can communicate with a console on another system! Success! Take it to the customer and everything works fine! Guess what? It is a custom asic on the card that _emulates_ a better chip than the 16550. But no drivers required! It works.
Part of my angst with the original company was the fact that the guy was treating me like I barely knew how to turn on the computer. He poopoo'd me when I was in disbelief that their card needed drivers (that did not work), and insisted that ANY serial card that works in a PCI-X slot needs drivers. I told him that was bunk, the serial port code is written into any OS developed after 1985 (or so) no matter what bus it is plugged into. It was only up the the manufacturer to build the logic into the card that sensed if it was getting 3.3v or 5v and adjust accordingly. FOOLS!
Now our customer is so happy I thought the engineering director was going to kiss me.
Serial port saga.
Background;
We have a customer that requires specific computer configurations and known good stable configurations that last for at least a couple of years before any parts are EOL'd. This is due to government regulations and acceptance testing issues (takes almost 6 months to get specific configurations approved and 3 months if you change a part like a serial port card). And I won't even go into the acceptance testing for drivers and such.
Issue:
Customer A, was using a serial port card that works in either a standard PCI slot or a PCI-X slot (64 bit pci slot), and auto detects what slot it is in and adjusts the voltage accordingly. Power up the system, looad the OS and it sees the 2 serial ports on this card, easy shmeasy. No driver, it is a serial port card after all and serial ports have been around since before any recent processor. The manufacturer EOL'd that particular card and never announced it. Customer A went to order said card and could not find any. Called the company to learn of the EOL and asked for the replacement card. No problem so far. They got the replacement and dropped it into one of their systems. Hit the power button, the power light flashed and the system shut off. They RMA'd the card and the second one did the same thing. They brought them to us and we tested them and found that they would not work in a PCI-X slot, but they worked in a PCI slot just fine. Only using a regular PCI slot was not an option since the only one on this mobo sits right next the the PCI-E slot and the GFX card would over heat if the serial card was in that slot. It is just to close and blocks the fan (on both the ati 1650 and the nvidia 8500gt).
Since we do a lot of the engineering research for their company I took this issue on. I mean how hard can it be to get a serial card that works in a PCI-X slot? I mena really, a serial port is a serial port and with the exception of speed bumps and interface connections the actual logic really has not changed in decades. I called the company to discuss with them and they were very surprised to find they did not work. After a couple of phone calls and some help from friends we determined that it was NOT compatible with a PCI-X slot as it was not adjusting the voltage on the card, and was shorting some signals on the PCI-X bus.
The card manufacturer agreed to send us a couple of other cards to test and when they came in I loaded one up in my test system. The system powered up. Good sign! Loaded RHEL5 and then tried to use the ports. No go. The system saw the ports but could not communicate with the card. More digging, Oh they require drivers. DRIVERS FOR A SERIAL CARD? OK, maybe there is something special the card does that we won't use. Load drivers (after several attempts to get the correct ones I was emailed the proper drivers), no go. Now I am pissed. I spent the next couple of days (between other projects) trying to figure it out. Never did. The company that made these cards was no help either. When I asked about the driver issue they told me it was becasue they use custom ASIC's that are programmed to look like a serial port card. ??? wtf? I would figure it would just be cheaper to actually use a 16550 chip that IS a serial port (along with other logic). We sent them back.
Today I get in another test card from another manufacturer and I am already put off because it came with a disk. Oh no. OK I plugged it in to my test system, fired right up, RHEL5 sees it and YES I can communicate with a console on another system! Success! Take it to the customer and everything works fine! Guess what? It is a custom asic on the card that _emulates_ a better chip than the 16550. But no drivers required! It works.
Part of my angst with the original company was the fact that the guy was treating me like I barely knew how to turn on the computer. He poopoo'd me when I was in disbelief that their card needed drivers (that did not work), and insisted that ANY serial card that works in a PCI-X slot needs drivers. I told him that was bunk, the serial port code is written into any OS developed after 1985 (or so) no matter what bus it is plugged into. It was only up the the manufacturer to build the logic into the card that sensed if it was getting 3.3v or 5v and adjust accordingly. FOOLS!
Now our customer is so happy I thought the engineering director was going to kiss me.