ICH9 issues

[BuG]

I have big problems if I choose the new ICH9 chipset for my guests. On the Windows 7 guest I get a BSOD after installing the guest additions. On the Windows XP guest there are yellow exclamation marks on every guest addition driver and the guest additions don't work at all.

This problem appears on the final release 4.0.0 with the final guest additions. If I use the Beta 4 additions instead, everything works fine.

[Sasquatch]

XP does not have drivers shipped for the ICH9 chipset, so why you want to use it is beyond me. As for W7, it does have the drivers, but as with any previous version, it can barf at you when you present it with different hardware after it's installed. Get a clean install if you want to use ICH9.

[squall leonhart]

Windows XP includes all the required drivers for the ICH9. (excl the SATA drivers). alot of people seem to think ICH = Sata, when Sata is just one of the many functions provided by the IO Controller Hub.

the Intel chipset software does not contain any actual driver .sys files for the hardware, it just applies the names from the inf and uses the already available windows included drivers.

[nike]

Did you installed guest with ICH9 chipset or just changed chipset type after installation? Second approach is just not supported, even on the real hardware.
XP is known to work rather well with ICH9, but please report here if it doesn't work for you (guest must be installed with ICH9 type).

[BuG]

but as with any previous version, it can barf at you when you present it with different hardware after it's installed. Get a clean install if you want to use ICH9.

This was my first idea... I don't want to be too rude, but I'm an IT professional and I usually know what I'm doing.

Did you installed guest with ICH9 chipset or just changed chipset type after installation?

I guess I described it not clear enough. I installed VB 4.0.0 Beta 4 and two new guests - Windows 7 x86 and Windows XP x86, both with ICH9. It was a clean install and everything worked fine with the guest additions of Beta 4.

After the release of 4.0.0 final I updated VirtualBox and everything was still fine. Then I updated the guest additions to 4.0.0 final and now there were the problems I described. It doesn't matter if I update the GA, if I uninstall the old GA and install the new ones or if I do a complete clean install of the guests.

So again, simple and clear: Nothing works with ICH9 if I install the final guest additions. If I choose the Beta 4 ones, everything works fine.

[Sasquatch]

This was my first idea... I don't want to be too rude, but I'm an IT professional and I usually know what I'm doing.

Good, that makes it a lot easier. I'm an IT pro as well and have seen plenty of issues with crashes and whatnot due to hardware changes.

So again, simple and clear: Nothing works with ICH9 if I install the final guest additions. If I choose the Beta 4 ones, everything works fine.

That's interesting. It should not cause this. I'll investigate after I've slept and have some spare time to install XP or W7 in a new VM. So far, all my VMs are happy with the 4.0 final GA, but are still running without ICH9 (don't plan to change that anytime soon either).

[squall leonhart]

Did you installed guest with ICH9 chipset or just changed chipset type after installation? Second approach is just not supported, even on the real hardware.

This is actually false, Windows XP's issues with swapping chipsets comes down to the IDE and PCI drivers, particularly on VIA mainboards. Switching between chipsets is as simple as making sure all mainboard drivers are removed and forcing the IDE driver back to the standard microsoft driver.

unlike with a VIA mainboard, Intel to Intel, and Intel to Nvidia (and back) usually work just fine.

To the op, i did a clean install with ich9 as well back in beta 3, and guest additions continues to work into the release version.

Is there anything more you can tell us about the guest configuration?

[nike]

"squall leonhart", please make only statements where you're really understand what you're talking about, otherwise level of this discussion gets too low to be useful. Windows BSODs when changing chipset types, if I understand reason correctly, due to the fact that boot device PCI path is somehow stored by boot
manager (this is definitively true for EFI boot manager). IDE controller is in different position in PIIX (0:01:1) and ICH9 (0:1f:1 IIRC).
We appreciate user-to-user technical support, but only in case where provided info correlates with reality, otherwise you just increasing universe entropy.

Regarding final GA issues, I'll recheck, but is anyone else able to reproduce this issue?

[Sasquatch]

I would try it if I could actually install Windows 7 x86 on ICH9 setting. My MSDN ISO just boots to the beginning of the setup and then doesn't respond to anything. Mouse cursor doesn't show, keyboard is dead, it's useless. When I pick the PIIX setting, I can install just fine, so the install media is fine too. I'll check with XP.

[Sasquatch]

Well, XP is no good either, a basic install disk with SP3 just BSODs. It seems that I am unable to reproduce this as I can't even install the darn OS with ICH9 setting.

[Perryg]

Just installed Win-XPsp3 32 bit new with ICH9. Also installed the latest GAs and all is well.
Host Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit.
I installed XPsp3 32 bit on Win-7 32 bit as well and it worked as expected with guest additions.

Now we need to figure out what is different. Can someone post a log file of their failed install?

[BuG]

I'll investigate after I've slept and have some spare time to install XP or W7 in a new VM. So far, all my VMs are happy with the 4.0 final GA, but are still running without ICH9 (don't plan to change that anytime soon either).

Thanks. But it's not so important for me anymore. I re-installed both machines with PIIX3 and they run fine.

[squall leonhart]

"squall leonhart", please make only statements where you're really understand what you're talking about, otherwise level of this discussion gets too low to be useful. Windows BSODs when changing chipset types, if I understand reason correctly, due to the fact that boot device PCI path is somehow stored by boot
manager (this is definitively true for EFI boot manager). IDE controller is in different position in PIIX (0:01:1) and ICH9 (0:1f:1 IIRC).
We appreciate user-to-user technical support, but only in case where provided info correlates with reality, otherwise you just increasing universe entropy.

Regarding final GA issues, I'll recheck, but is anyone else able to reproduce this issue?

No, you are wrong. the XP boot manager does not store any information about the chipset.
The BSOD is because of vendor specific drivers and nothing more.

I've done enough intel to nvidia, and via to nvidia changes to know what im talking about.

The first point of reference is http://arstechnica.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=42051
the second point of reference, which is one i wrote myself for those wanting to move from a uniprocessor to multiprocessor environment is at http://www.ngohq.com/processors/11891-h ... ndows.html

[nike]

Found an issue in ICH9 reset logic, so if your issues with ICH9 is only reproducible after VM reset, then it will be fixed with next maintenance release.

[nike]

Seems I was wrong indeed regarding chipset type changing, at least with XP build I tested, as my ICH9 XP VM successfully survived ICH9->PIIX3->ICH9
chipset type mods, and booted just fine in each config. So hopefully modulo fixed reset issue, ICH9 support shall work fine with XP guests.