Driver for radeon 9250

[eliyahu]

I am looking for a bit of guidence. I have put a radeon 9250 in the pci slot of my sam460. When I try and turn the computer on with the card in it, it doesn't boot up.

I am guessing I need to install a driver for the 9250 for the computer to recognise it? If this is the case, where do I find a suitable driver for it?

this sounds like a u-boot settings issue.  a little more information could help us, here:

1.  do you see any video at all from either the DVI or VGA ports of your radeon 9250?  
2.  if so, at which point does video stop?  u-boot?  kickstart load?  workbench load?  
3.  have you verified the 9250 is not a 5V card?
4.  are you able to get a video signal when using the on-board SM502 VGA connector?

assuming this is a straightforward settings issue: you should be able to 'force' video-out through your radeon 9250 card via u-boot settings.  if you can get video from the on-board VGA connector, during startup hit whatever key brings up the u-boot menu.  there should be a 'video option' menu item; select it and then select your PCI card in the resultant list.  save changes, hard reboot, and voila, it should work.

let us know if it works, and if not, what the answers to the above questions are.  you might also find more useful help at amigans.net or via acube support directly.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

It looks like it is a v5. Does this mean its not gonna work

if it is a 5V-only card, not only will it not work, it could damage your board!

check out page 10 of the SAM460EX manual; it has a diagram there which shows you which cards will work and which will not.  i hope it's both 3.3V and 5V compatible, and not 5V-only!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Thanks, I have not seen this, Yes it was a v5 card. Thankfuly my sam is still working fine. (SATA card now being used in the pci slot for dvd).

I will have a look on ebay and make sure I get the RIGHT ONE!!!

whew.  glad everything is still working fine.  let us know how you get on.  out of curiousity, any reason you aren't using the much, much faster PCIe radeon HD cards instead?  is it just down to now warp3D drivers for them at the moment?

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Will I need to take the radeonhd card out of the pci-e before making use of such a card?

Oh and I have also heard about some problems getting the 9250 to work with update 3 intsalled. Anyone know anything about this?!

i don't know about your first question, unfortunately.  but as for the second, no, no issues with the radeon 9250 in any versions of OS4.  some cards that have 256MB of VRAM only register as having 128MB to the OS, but otherwise, smooth sailing.

do let us know how you get on with your SAM.  feedback from 'fellow travelers' is always nice to read.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Hi, ok so I got my hands on another 9250 card and have run into another problem!

This time it starts to boot up, recognises the usb stuff then I get a message saying

"AOS4 FLB

FLB: No SLB found in any of the designated boot sources; returning to u-boot. Press any key to continue."

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?!

I then start pressing keys, the keys I press are displayed but nothing happens. Please help!

ah. ok. it means that either u-boot is no longer pointing to your SATA drive as the boot device or the disk itself has somehow gotten hosed. i'd guess the former, though. unfortunately i can't help since i'm at work right now and don't have my SAM near by.

since you have a radeon 9250 in your PCI slot, i take it you are connecting your hard drive via the on-board SATA port, correct?  can you verify that u-boot 'sees' the drive by typing sata info at the u-boot prompt? if it sees the drive, chances are you just need to go into the boot menu and point u-boot to use the SATA drives as the primary boot device.

if after that it still cannot find the SLB on the drive, perhaps the RDB got corrupted some how.  in which case you would need to boot from the installation SD card and reinstall the SLB using the media toolbox.

again i highly recommend asking questions like this at amigans.net as there are far more knowledgeable people there.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

Ok, thanks. That kinda makes sense to me, your help has been much appreciated.

 Just one more thing, and im sure it may sound dumb but... how do I bring up the u-boot menu?

 I guess it will flash up when I turn the computer on but I have my pc set up right now. I would like to know for peace of mind incase it doesn't when I try the sam tomorow.

when the system boots, hit the 'enter' key or the space bar (depending on what the default is on your system.  it should pop up after u-boot finishes polling for devices.  if it doesn't for some reason, i think you can also just type menu at the prompt, but i don't remember. u-boot does have a help facility, though. just type help and you'll get a list of commands.

-- eliyahu