[Soekris] NET4801 - hw clock is spinning too fast...

[Mark Anacker]

Ted Phelps wrote:
> Mark Anacker writes:
> 
>>>Are you seeing this on more than one 4801?
>>
>>I'm working with 3 right now - they all seem to do this.
> 
> 
> Ouch.  I've never seen mine do this.  Could too much power cause a
> clock to spin too fast?

I wouldn't think so - those are supposed to be crystal-controlled.  And it's the
12v adaptor that came with the box.

> 
> The timer patch will cause Linux to use an entirely different clock to
> manage the system time, so it has a reasonable chance of working even
> if there's something wrong with the RTC.  Of course, if the
> applications are talking directly to the RTC then that won't help, but
> otherwise it might do the trick.  Is it feasible to install a 2.6
> kernel (with timer patch) on a test machine to see if this approach
> would help?

I'll probably have to try, but it's not simple.  I've managed to get SUSE 10 on
one of these things, which is a 2.6-based distro.  I'm going to try the tests on
it and see if it behaves the same way.

> 
>>The seconds counter spins up roughly 3x normal speed.  I suppose the
>>RTC driver could have an issue, but given that the BIOS counter is
>>running too fast also (1.28 comBIOS), I doubt it.
> 
> 
> Wouldn't the BIOS counter use the RTC?

I would think so.  We're leaning toward a hardware fault in this batch of
boards, but it *could* be an O/S problem too.  That's why I wanted to know if
anyone else (especially running a Linux 2.4 kernel) saw the same problem.

-- 
Mark Anacker
SecureD Services, Inc.