Thanks for the confirmation and the insight. My hope is to remove most of the peripherals, including the BR-D drive, the wireless card, the GPU, and whatever else will come off, while still keeping the processor functional.

Is their a way i can get my laptop to get recognized as a sever than a media sever,or can i get a way to get my ps 3 to recognized my usb modem for the internet?

Wanted to follow up on this topic,

I have not had much luck removing components from the ps3. In particular, the Wireless card and the GPU/RSX are leading to unexpected behavior. For example, disabling the wireless (removing a resistor and capacitor), causes the wired interface to be disabled.

Likewise, removing the RSX causes the PS3 to start up and then immediately shutdown with flashing red.

My suspicion is that the hypervisor is running a diagnostic check at start up and disables (or balks) when certain components are missing.

My question is whether you agree and if you think there is a way to trick the hypervisor into thinking that a device is physically available, even if it is not.

Note, removing the blueray player and bluetooth do not cause these problems.

Thanks.

Edit: I forgot to restate that I am booting into the OtherOS (FC9).

Last edited by thumble (2009-05-04 16:01:45)

lol if you're removing chips from the board and turning it on I'm surprised it's doing anything.

You're removing stuff that the firmware builds a memory map with and interrupt configuration with. They probably only made the modular devices dynamically loaded. Also you're breaking parts of the computer bus/circuit.

Thanks for the feedback, and sarcasm :-D. I understand this request seems odd, but my task is to reduce power consumption while maintaining functionality of the Cell (even if that sounds silly). Besides $300 is nothing compared to a QS22.

You're removing stuff that the firmware builds a memory map with and interrupt configuration with.

Thanks for the insight about the firmware. Any chance you can elaborate on the memory map and interrupt configuration?

My current thinking is that the firmware (hypervisor?) is doing a diagnostic check at startup. I would like to send the firmware/hypervisor a signal/response that makes it seem like things are okay. But I am not sure yet what the appropriate ACK/OK signal or protocol looks like.

Thanks for the reply:

The_Wii_Nes_Boy wrote:

Please elaborate on the process you used to remove the GPU, I'm interested in knowing whats involved.

An in-line inductor was removed (desoldered) from the GPU's power conditioning circuitry, which prevented powering of the actual GPU. Note, the GPU appears to be mounted as a ball grid array and that it may be difficult to physically remove this device (but that doesn't bother me).

The PS3 doesn't operate like a PC

I agree, and I'm trying to figure out why depowering the GPU would prevent start up. In line with your analogy, even if I remove the gearbox, the engine should still run. However, that is not what is happening.

Again, I think this is the hypervisor/firmware complaining about the absence of the hardware and forcing a shutdown of the system. I'm just not sure how it knows that has happened...any thoughts?

Last edited by thumble (2009-05-05 12:47:50)

I meant the whole intake system not just the filter but thanks for clearing thats up Mick, I guess I shoudl have been more pecific.

@ tumble: Of course the PS3 is gonna complain, it requires the GPU to work in full before it'll fully boot. Because you've basicly turned off the GPU the PS3 will not boot and as far as I am aware there is now way to circumvent this.

Last edited by The_Wii_Nes_Boy (2009-05-06 01:25:49)

Powerslave wrote:

During the boot process of the PS3, it looks for all it's hardware, and then has to authenticate and MAP all the hardware, and that means asking the component for information, and making the BIOS aware the parts are all there.  IF the GPU does not respond, it won't get past it.  It will request acknowledgment from the GPU, it may even try many times, then the process just STOPS because there was no response from the GPU, and boot fails at the very beginning.

Thank you for confirming what I stated in my previous posts. My contention is that the hypervisor is running a diagnostic check at start up. However, a broader question remains open: what is the process for authenticating/checking devices? If anyone has specific information about that process it would be helpful.

The best information I have found about the startup process from the hypervisor perspective comes from ps2dev.org/ps3:hypervisor.  Most likely, lv1_panic() is getting called and forcing a shutdown of the system, but it is not apparent which of the many other hypervisor function calls would be doing this. (I'm guessing it is one with _gpu_ in the name...)

Powerslave wrote:

Video ram is ON the GPU, not on the motherboard, so you fail at even mapping video memory, but, don't even get that far because the GPU didn't respond, at all.  Even if you could get the PS3 to boot without the GPU, what kind of notification are YOU getting?  There's no video anyway, so what are you seeing?  You're seeing NOTHING, #1, because it won't boot without the GPU; and, #2, you wouldn't know anyway because you can't see anything.

I agree that if you remove the GPU, there will be no video. My intent is to boot into linux and network into the ps3.

An alternative being explored at the moment is just disabling the component and hdmi outs, while keeping the rsx powered.

To restate my original question, how does the hypervisor manage hardware for the OtherOS and, more specifically, is there any *technical* information about the start up sequence?

Powerslave wrote:

...PS3 and CAR ENGINE are not even close to use an analogy to compare the two...

I agree, the car analogy has become a red herring and should be abandoned.

OK the car analogy was a bad choice but I was in a rush and it was the first thing that popped in to my head and by intake manifold I meant air filter, carburetor and manifold