[GTALUG] VL805 USB3 controller. Was Re: Need to get rid of old computer parts

[Alex Volkov]

Hello everyone,

I have a bit of followup on the USB3 issue on VIA VL805. After updating
Linux kernel to 4.2.0-1 USB3 I was able to successfully copy bulk data
using the front panel. In general the computer appears to be very
stable, so I didn't bother with checking BIOS settings as the culprit
was buggy USB3 kernel drivers.

USB controller info from lspci:
02:00.0 USB controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VL805 USB 3.0 Host
Controller (rev 01)

Card reader \w USB3 header connector info from lsusb:
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0bda:0301 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. multicard
reader

Alex.


On 07/10/15 12:16 PM, Alex Volkov wrote:
> Hi Lennart,
>
> On 07/10/15 11:24 AM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 06, 2015 at 10:26:29PM -0400, Alex Volkov wrote:
>>> Hello everyone,
>>>
>>> I had to upgrade my old computer, and I can report a success with
>>> everything except VIA VL805 USB 3.0 host controller that locks up the
>>> system whenever I attempt to use USB 3 in Linux. Oh well.
>> I have encountered that in the past with other USB 3 controllers.
>> No idea what causes it.
>>
>> Which kernel version do you have?  I have found some discussions about a
>> problem with some 3.1x kernels and 64bit mode on the VIA VL805 controller
>> with IOMMU enabled.
>>
>> And apparently it mainly affects seagate external drives.
>>
>> See https://www.mail-archive.com/linux-usb%40vger.kernel.org/msg43326.html
>> if interested.
> I run debian testing with kernel 4.2.0, last time I tried doing anything
> in linux was in 4.1.0. I mainly tested with a 3.5" front panel \w card
> reader, connected via USB3 header on the motherboard. The reader runs
> realtek-something chip (I will look it up when I get home).
> I'm able to boot debian USB image from bios, err, uefi, but when the OS
> tries to read some pictures from SD card or usb key, about three or four
> thumbnails in, the system locks up and needs to be rebooted. I found
> bunch of recent posts on debian, ubuntu and fedora mailing list dealing
> with very similar issues which leads me to believe it's not related to
> hardware.
>
> I tweaked with IOMMU settings for a bit, I had to enable it to get
> keyboard and mouse to work during the install, but I changed settings
> afterwards, I will verify this.
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