Internal Ethernet PHY

Quad / mCore-H616
#1

So seems like we can benefit from an Ethernet port 100Mbps BUT enabling it trough dtb gives a strange error:

[    2.733314] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: supply phy-io not found, using dummy regulator
[    2.733688] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: PTP uses main clock
[    2.733760] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Current syscon value is not the default 58000 (expect 50000)
[    2.734905] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: No HW DMA feature register supported
[    2.734934] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: RX Checksum Offload Engine supported
[    2.734940] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: COE Type 2
[    2.734948] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: TX Checksum insertion supported
[    2.734955] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Normal descriptors
[    2.734962] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: Chain mode enabled
[    2.735154] sunxi-mmc 4020000.mmc: Got CD GPIO
[    2.762052] sunxi-mmc 4020000.mmc: initialized, max. request size: 16384 KB, uses new timings mode
[    2.800150] mmc1: host does not support reading read-only switch, assuming write-enable
[    2.803702] mmc1: new high speed SDHC card at address aaaa
[    2.805790] mmcblk1: mmc1:aaaa SC32G 29.7 GiB 
[    2.810811]  mmcblk1: p1
[    2.851686] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet: EMAC reset timeout
[    2.851715] dwmac-sun8i 5030000.ethernet eth0: stmmac_dvr_remove: removing drive

Any clue why is that?

#2

More on the topic, I see some TV boxes that uses the same SoC are utilizing the internal EPHY like:
https://linux-sunxi.org/Tanix_TX6s
some dmesg logs from there: TanixTX6s - no ap6330 wifi · Issue #46 · warpme/minimyth2 · GitHub
so seems like it’s possible.
The questions I guess are:

  • is it require magjack with some passive circuitry
  • it’s a kernel issue

Because I see that H2+/H3 SoCs also have internal EPHY that seems to work with straight RJ45 without 1:1 transformers and passive components.
Example here: [BPI-M2 Zero]Ethernet socket reference - BPI-M2+/BPI-M2 Zero/BPI-P2 Zero - banana pi single board computer open source project official forum BPI team

#3

test the new IMAGE : 1.43 GB file on MEGA

1 Like
#4

Thanks @admin any changelog of that new image? also should we expect a new version for the server image? Will try it and post an update here

#5

I can confirm that image has a working ethernet port. It works with my extension board also from here Extention board - 2xUSB2.0, i2s, LRADC and RJ45 - #3 by Kris
Will be glad to hear what’s has been done to that new image as I see the kernel version is the same, dtbs are quite different and are not working with the old image

#6

So I’ve transplanted the kernel from that new image, just copied:

/boot
/lib/modules

and edited /boot/orangepiEnv.txt to reflect the old rootdev and that thing booted. I now got another issue, seems like that internal EPHY and I2C interfere somehow. When eth0 is in use I2c no longer works and if eth0 is not in use (no ip assigned) i2c works without issue. Thanks for the help

1 Like
#7

That’s because TX5/RX5 are also used for EPHY_LEDS link & speed. So either I have to use other pins for i2c again or somehow disable the ethernet port leds?!

#8

I tried to sort out the code, involving AC300