2014-11-12, 11:56
Folks -
Part an unfettered rant, part a warning to do your research on compatilbilty.
I've run into an issue with a new motherboard (MSI H97M-G43/Haswell) and every kernel version I've tried. No matter what I do, the USB sybsystem (xhci_hcd) crashes completely when I connect more than one PCTV USB tuner (combination of 290e and 460e). I'm not alone, and the issue - or variants of it - seems to affect Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora and Red Hat, at least. What's odd is that it all works perfectly on a previous iteration of the board (MSI H77M-G43/Ivy Bridge), which is why I went for this one. Something's changed, perhaps the move to the H97 chipset, perhaps some vendor microcode.
It seems to be a kernel driver bug that's been around for a couple of years. What's irritating is (a) it hasn't been fixed (welcome to the world of FOSS, I know!) and (b) there seems to be no way to work around it on MSI boards. From what I can see, on Gigabyte (at least), you can tell the mobo to switch off xHCI and step back to EHCI, effectively presenting the ports as USB2 instead: all is then good. However, MSI doesn't have that option; I tried re-compiling the kernel with EHCI and xHCI as modules, and then blacklisting the latter, but that just turned all my USB ports off, which really didn't help.
The final straw is MSI's response this morning: "we didn't test such systems... and the chipest (sic) vendor didn't supply us the drivers for Linux system. We suggest you use the normal system on the MB, such as win 7 or win 8" (my emphasis). In other words, 'tough luck, we're wedded to Seattle's finest and that's the end of it'.
GrumbleGripeMoanComplain. While I don't have a problem with a vendor selectively supporting OSes, they could have said so...
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=184705.0
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sourc...ug/1313279
</rant>
Part an unfettered rant, part a warning to do your research on compatilbilty.
I've run into an issue with a new motherboard (MSI H97M-G43/Haswell) and every kernel version I've tried. No matter what I do, the USB sybsystem (xhci_hcd) crashes completely when I connect more than one PCTV USB tuner (combination of 290e and 460e). I'm not alone, and the issue - or variants of it - seems to affect Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, Fedora and Red Hat, at least. What's odd is that it all works perfectly on a previous iteration of the board (MSI H77M-G43/Ivy Bridge), which is why I went for this one. Something's changed, perhaps the move to the H97 chipset, perhaps some vendor microcode.
Code:
Nov 8 17:42:17 Server kernel: [ 95.306697] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: xHCI host not responding to stop endpoint command.
Nov 8 17:42:17 Server kernel: [ 95.306706] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: Assuming host is dying, halting host.
Nov 8 17:42:17 Server kernel: [ 95.306837] xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: HC died; cleaning upIt seems to be a kernel driver bug that's been around for a couple of years. What's irritating is (a) it hasn't been fixed (welcome to the world of FOSS, I know!) and (b) there seems to be no way to work around it on MSI boards. From what I can see, on Gigabyte (at least), you can tell the mobo to switch off xHCI and step back to EHCI, effectively presenting the ports as USB2 instead: all is then good. However, MSI doesn't have that option; I tried re-compiling the kernel with EHCI and xHCI as modules, and then blacklisting the latter, but that just turned all my USB ports off, which really didn't help.
The final straw is MSI's response this morning: "we didn't test such systems... and the chipest (sic) vendor didn't supply us the drivers for Linux system. We suggest you use the normal system on the MB, such as win 7 or win 8" (my emphasis). In other words, 'tough luck, we're wedded to Seattle's finest and that's the end of it'.
GrumbleGripeMoanComplain. While I don't have a problem with a vendor selectively supporting OSes, they could have said so...
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=184705.0
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sourc...ug/1313279
</rant>
) and swapped out the motherboard for a Gigabyte H97M-D3H. I decided that it was much the same cost as a new (diagnostic) USB3 hub, and was almost guaranteed to work somehow.