[Xen-users] Troubleshooting PCI Passthrough with Radeon HD 7970

[ShadesOfGrey <shades_of_grey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To make a long story short.  I've used Casey DeLorme's tutorial as a template for creating a Xen environment with a gaming capable Windows 7 Professional DomU. 
I've done this with various combinations of Xen (4.2.0, 4.2.1, and several 4.3-unstable snapshots) and Linux kernels for Dom0 (3.6.8, 3.6.9, 3.6.11, 3.7.0, and 3.7.1).  After several false starts and some obvious mistakes, I've reached the point where I can consistently get a Windows 7 DomU installed and working exactly as I've so anticipated... so long as I don't need or want to restart the Windows 7 DomU.  If I attempt to restart the Windows 7 DomU without a full system restart, I end up at one of two outcomes.

The first outcome is a BSOD.  Usually it is a 0x00000005 STOP error, but occasionally, IIRC, I'll get 0x0000003B instead.   The second outcome results in a Code 43 warning for the Radeon card in the Windows 7 Device Manager.  As such, I'm only slightly better off than if I were merely dual booting. 

During a lengthy email exchange with Casey, he suggested that I 'eject' the Radeon card from Windows each time the DomU was created.  In his case, ejecting the Radeon card resolved the BSOD and allowed him to successfully passthrough his card each time the Windows DomU was created.  I've had no such luck.

Since I've exhausted my limited knowledge of Linux and Xen, and I don't know what I'm looking for.  I'm hoping to prevail on participants here to help me troubleshoot why it is the Radeon HD 7970 I have fails to passthrough, after the first creation of a DomU.


FYI.  My hardware breaks down thusly.

Motherboard:    ASRock Z77 Extreme9
CPU:            Intel Core i7-3770
RAM:            32GB (G.Skill something or other)
Discrete GPU:   Gigabyte HD 7970 GHz Edition
Discrete Audio: ASUS Xonar DX
                Gigabyte HD 7970 GHz Edition (HDMI Audio)

I'm using the integrated sound and GPU for Dom0 for the time being.


Presently, my software stack is Xen 4.2.1, Linux Kernel 3.6.11, and the xl tool stack.  My Dom0 is essentially my Linux desktop.  I had toyed with a separate Linux DomU, but with the complications I've already encountered I felt it prudent to consolidate.

The only change I've made to xl.conf was to disable autoballoon.  I started with these two lines in /etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_XEN_REPLACE_DEFAULT="xen-pciback.hide=(00:1d.0)(01:00.0)(01:00.1)(04:04.0)(0d:00.0)"
GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT="iommu=1 dom0_mem=16G,max:16G dom0_max_vcpus=4 loglvl=all guest_loglvl=all"

They presently look like this though I'm uncertain as to what the effect xen-pciback.permissive and pci=resource_alignment actually have.  That is to say, I didn't experience any of the problems that the Xen PCI Passthrough wiki page would recommend adding these options.  Also, from what I gather, these options may only apply to PV guests anyway?  Regardless, the result is the same with or without them.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_XEN_REPLACE_DEFAULT="xen-pciback.permissive xen-pciback.hide=(00:1d.0)(01:00.0)(01:00.1)(04:04.0)(0d:00.0) 'pci=resource_alignment=00:1d.0;01:00.0;01:00.1;04:04.0;0d:00.0'"
GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT="iommu=verbose dom0_mem=16G,max:16G dom0_max_vcpus=4 loglvl=all guest_loglvl=all"

Attached is my current 'xl.cfg'.  Again, I really don't know what effect the pci_permissive is actually having, but from what I gathered, it doesn't (necessarily) hurt anything.

I'll be happy to post any other configuration files, log files, or command output.

Attachment: windows-gplpv.cfg
Description: Text document

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