pci hardware arbitration

[df]

do i have a question on hardware for chris? you bet.

i noticed the msi dual socket mobo has a pci arbitor chip.. funky. why dont more motherboards have them? considering how many pci cards dont 'play nice'?

nice examples, 3com NIC's (especially the 905/a/b/c babies), sb lives.

ooooh those sblives... i hate installing those with a passion.

do you think, now with the push to 6 pci slots that we will see more pci arbitor chips on mobo's? and especially with lots of integration with, 6 pci, all those ide channels, usb, etc

i think, in future, i wont buy a mobo without it. even if all 6 pci slots are bus mastering capable.

whats your take on all this? (hmm and why not daisy chain another irq chip... we daisy chain 2 now.. you'd think they could just add another... since spec is capable of it....)


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Stuart 'Dark Fiber' George [ FreeBSD 4.1 / BeOS 4.5.2 / Win2K ]
Write Your Own Operating System [FAQ]

[chrisangelini]

df,

It's my understanding that the arbiter chip helps reduce the load on the PCI bus as several PCI devices make data requests. With the arbiter chip, all 6 devices can be mastering (as opposed to slave devices) without a problem (the other solution is to use an additional PCI bridge, if this is what you mean?). I'm not really sure this would help you with either the NIC's or the Live, though.




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Chris Angelini
Editor
[email protected]