powerxcell 8i

[THEkitchenSINK]

Hello so I have acquired a fixstars GigaAccel 180 I'm trying to find information about all the pins on the card. The only thing the manual covers is the serial console connection with a rs232c 3pin to db9. I am attempting to get the card working for render tests and eventually ploping it in a raptor blackbird (once I have the funds). Driver files and functional operation seems to be straight forward with the user manual I wish I had the install discs that came with the card. All I have is the card and a PDF of the user manual. Any help finding information would be appreciated, thank you!

[MPC7500]

It doesn't look like this card will work under PowerPC, but it's worth a try.

According to the manual the whole thing works under CentOS 4.5 and YDL6. The YDL repositories should still be online. Maybe you can find drivers there.

Here you can find YDL: Download
This is the product page: Fixstars

Probably none of this is news to you. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything more in a hurry. In any case it is very interesting

[nglevin]

Sent a PM with some relevant historical resources.

The manual for this card doesn't appear to reference any DVD besides YDL, and the Fixstars site indicates that YDL 6.x should support that card. That's about as much as I think we are likely to find.

[nglevin]

Tiny follow up that I'm repeating for the public, as it looks like Fixstars moved the site they reference for manual Section 4.10; https://us.fixstars.com/products/ydl/support/solutions/ydel-6x/ydel-configure-host-nohd/

This is the "Installation of Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux" section, for hardware that has no hard drive, like that card. It's essentially a recipe for Netboot.

As I mentioned in that follow up PM, I doubt you'll be able to interact with the card through PCIe instead of gigabit ethernet. Best thing I recommend is to keep the card in an eGPU box, and use ethernet for all communications. That'll save you a PCIe slot, and keep your future Blackbird happy. 

[THEkitchenSINK]

Thank you all so far and in the future for information. Installing ydl seems the route so far and digging more I have found some fedora driver images after going through the manual and googling anything that might lead to anything.

Thank you for the PM's I will attempt to keep updating what I can find. The fedora 7 links in the manual brought me to the ftp server and have pcie pxcab driver Which is for another powerXcell 8i card IBM matrix card they seem similar but I cannot confirm they are the same. I will be attempting soon

[nglevin]

PXCAB is the IBM reference design that the card was derived from, so that should work perfectly.

Unicamp has a mirror of drivers for the PXCAB, which match some of the bits from the manual's Appendix A; http://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/linuxpatch/pxcab/Fedora7/ppc64/

I believe Appendix A is only necessary if you'd rather run Fedora 7 or another Fedora 7 derivative instead of YDL... which is itself a Fedora/RHEL derived distro. I'd imagine YDL is better supported for the card, as Fixstars bought the Yellow Dog folks, but you never know...


EDIT: It also looks like pxcab-pcie-driver-1.1.0-0.src.rpm from the Unicamp mirror has all the GPLed source code for PCIe drivers mentioned in Section 7 (apnet and axon via triblade), so I guess I was mistaken! There might be a shot at getting all this running.

[nglevin]

For future generations, attaching the manual that I've been referencing this whole time.

[MPC7500]

Installation and User's Guide
Problem Determination and Service Guide

[THEkitchenSINK]

now that i have the driver make files i have to install ydl on my g5quad to test will get back to you with more

plus i am thinking of testing in my razer core v1 but i doubt it will work
i wanted to share the tarball of the driver sauce and make file

well its in the src img

[THEkitchenSINK]

got the card running in the g5 quad with fedora 7 and ydl will be attempting to build the pcie tcpip driver soon seems to work and now i need to install a os to the card but hoooooooooo yeah its working

[THEkitchenSINK]

i killed my 6600 while it wasnt in the g5 FUN guess no fiber card but i dunno if the quad can power 250 watt max draw from both w/o a fire

[THEkitchenSINK]

the card does not want to interact with the g5 quad it hangs boot and falls to ofw looking into it the card has its own ofw and they are conflicting vrs and freak out when they check each other i will get more info as i go

[THEkitchenSINK]

http://manualzilla.com/doc/6624107/gigaaccel-180?page=1

i found the japanese (what i think is japanese) manual for the gigaaccel it seems to have more info and better (more pixels, i like pictures) walk through on install
they also seem to have more information as a whole so i need a translator if possible about error leds codes

[THEkitchenSINK]

the g5 quad and its apple pcie bus prevent me from getting farther with this i will need to put the card in a different system

the g5 quad hates the card

i will attempt to get it working in another once i have a system to drop it in

[MPC7500]

You killed the nVidia? Not working anymore? You need a working Mac graphic card otherwise the Mac won't boot. Or you have a modified OFW
Here is the english version of the manual. Should be almost the same. It's Version 17. Yours is V18.