Bug #16679

USB ports are not working with some Gigabyte motherboards with AMD chipsets

Added by goupille 2019-04-29 22:03:22 . Updated 2019-06-19 12:07:45 .

Status:
Resolved
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
intrigeri
Category:
Hardware support
Target version:
Tails_3.14.1
Start date:
Due date:
% Done:

100%

Feature Branch:
web/16679-usb-broken-on-gigabytes
Type of work:
End-user documentation
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

a couple users reported having issues with USB with Tails on recent Gigabyte motherboards (“Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P FX (2.1)” and “Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 970”, not sure they are the same).

people are not able to log in as the mouse and keyboard are plugged in the USB ports, unless they turn on a iommu option in the BIOS, and add the following boot parameters:

amd_iommu=on iommu=pt

Subtasks

Related issues

Blocks Tails - Feature #15941: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: Technical writing Resolved 2018-09-11

History

#1 Updated by goupille 2019-04-29 22:12:52

the workaround is only confirmed for the “Gigabyte AM3+ AMD 970” motherboard at the moment.

#2 Updated by goupille 2019-05-02 12:23:30

the user with the “Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P FX (2.1)” needed to disable IOMMU in the Bios then enable it again, but didn’t need to add the boot parameters.

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2019-05-02 15:04:05

  • Category set to Hardware support
  • Assignee changed from intrigeri to goupille
  • QA Check set to Info Needed
  • Type of work changed from Research to End-user documentation

Just one question before I document this on our Known Issues page: do these users boot from a USB stick?

#4 Updated by goupille 2019-05-02 15:26:08

  • Assignee changed from goupille to intrigeri

intrigeri wrote:
> do these users boot from a USB stick?

yes, sorry for not mentioning it earlier…

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-01 09:51:26

  • Subject changed from Usb ports are not working with Gigabyte AMD 970 motherboards to Usb ports are not working with some Gigabyte motherboards with AMD chipsets
  • Assignee changed from intrigeri to sajolida
  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

I’ve been doing some online research and there are lots of people who have similar issues. Lots of workarounds may or may not work, I’ll stick to the simplest ones.

This goes a bit beyond my tech writing abilities to I’ll sum up the input data I think I tech writers may need.

Symptoms: the computer boots from the Tails USB stick but during system startup, USB support is broken/disabled ⇒ USB devices such as mouse/keyboard don’t work anymore once the user reaches the Greeter.

Affected hardware: some motherboards with an AMD chipset. I’m not sure it’s worth listing those we have on this ticket as examples.

Workarounds one may try:

  • try other USB ports (USB 2.0 if previously using USB 3.x, and vice versa)
  • enable these 3 options in the BIOS: “xHCI handoff”, “EHCI handoff”, “IOMMU controller”; if that’s enough, great; if that’s not enough, also add the amd_iommu=on iommu=pt startup options
  • disable IOMMU in the BIOS then enable it again

Drawbacks: some of these workarounds may break a subset of the computer’s USB ports (e.g. all USB 2.0 or 3.x ports).

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-01 09:51:37

  • Subject changed from Usb ports are not working with some Gigabyte motherboards with AMD chipsets to USB ports are not working with some Gigabyte motherboards with AMD chipsets

#7 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-01 09:51:55

  • blocks Feature #15941: Core work 2018Q4 → 2019Q2: Technical writing added

#8 Updated by sajolida 2019-06-02 18:58:24

  • Status changed from Confirmed to Needs Validation
  • Assignee changed from sajolida to intrigeri
  • Target version set to Tails_3.15
  • Feature Branch set to web/16679-usb-broken-on-gigabytes

Here is a branch.

I didn’t feel like it was a good investment to write more precise “if … else …” logic in the workarounds: I expect the people going that far as editing the BIOS will try anything possible anyway :)

#9 Updated by intrigeri 2019-06-07 10:38:55

  • Status changed from Needs Validation to Resolved
  • % Done changed from 0 to 100

Applied in changeset commit:tails|f0bec4f41691e90756d1195089758bb74b74e1c5.

#10 Updated by anonym 2019-06-19 12:07:45

  • Target version changed from Tails_3.15 to Tails_3.14.1