Re: Problems with Texas Instruments TSB82AA2 chipset and cameras on both new and old stacks

[Stefan R. <st...@s5...>]

On Nov 15 Joan Pau wrote:
> I am experiencing problems with the Texas Instruments TSB82AA2 chipset on an
> Eurotech COM1461 PC104 pci firewire card (ieee1394 a and b) in Ubuntu 10.04
> (withs linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic).

There is a TSB81BA3 physical layer chip on that card.  This is an early
1394b device with a long list of serious hardware errata (TI literature
SLLZ015C).  Hardly any of them can be worked around in software.  Most
of these errata affect 1394b mode only though, i.e. not 1394a cameras
such as yours.  However, one or another hardware workaround for 1394b
issues may in turn cause cause problems in 1394a mode.

One of the errata is actually a documentation erratum that caused board
designers to provide for insufficient cooling of TSB81BA3.  But I would
expect this to become a problem only after some use.  Problems due to
overheating PHYs have indeed be reported here on this list a few years
ago.

Furthermore, 1394b hardware requires clean board layouts.  I wonder
whether this was done properly on a crammed board like this PC/104+ one.

> I tried both an Unibrain Fire-i camera and an AVT Marvin camera.
> The cameras work perfectly under Windows on the same machine.
> They also work on another Ubuntu 10.04 machine (with
> linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic) with different a firewire card.

At least this is an indication that you already got around the usual
setup problems (unsuitable group ownership of /dev/raw1394 and
possibly /dev/video1394/* on Ubuntu).

> By default, the old stack modules are loaded, but they don't work.
> Unloading and blacklisting them in modprobe.conf and loading the new stack
> ones do not work for me either.
> 
> I tried to update the kernel to linux-image-2.6.35-22-generic from Maverick
> repository, but a FATAL error appears at boot saying that modules were not
> found.

Can't comment on that.  Maybe there is an Ubuntu user here wo can tell
what to watch out for if a kernel package from a newer Ubuntu version
is to be installed.

That said, I don't expect any benefit of a kernel update for the 1394
hardware that you want to use, as far as the IEEE 1394 drivers (older
stack or newer stack) are concerned.

> Even though, I modprobed the new stack modules (and surprisingly they get
> loaded) but no luck, the problems persist.

Eventually, you should get to the point where you define "problems". :-)

> Sorry but I can not attach the kernel log excerpts with the errors until
> Wednesday, because the machine is embedded on an underwater robot now at the
> factory.
> I suppose that I should use the new stack modules, but to be sure, which
> stack should I use when attaching the kernel log with the errors?

Would be good to see logs from either of the two stacks if you can
arrange for that.  In addition, it may be helpful if you gather a log
from a session that you initiated with
# modprobe firewire-ohci debug=-1
for much increased verbosity.
-- 
Stefan Richter
-=====-==-=- =-== -====
http://arcgraph.de/sr/