I have Slackware 13.37 64-bit, and the built-in card reader on my HP Pavilion DV4 laptop does not work. It is JMB38x by JMicron and I need it to read SD cards at least. I already e-mailed JMicron tech support the best they could do is give me two drivers, one for XD/MS/MS-Pro and another for SD/MMC. I asked JMicron if i'm supposed to install both of them or just one, but i got no response.

So, i decided to install each of them starting with the XD driver first, that seems to install fine. The INSTALL file says to run just make, then make install. However, the SD driver needs me to run make header_install, and that gives me *** [header_install] Error 1. Then, i continued with make, and it gives some warnings. Oddly, make install does not show any errors. After restarting, it still does not read an SD card. I'm attaching logs for the make header_install and make commands. Any ideas what to do next?

Thanks in advance

Attached Files

	make_header install.txt (495 Bytes, 54 views)
	make.txt (3.0 KB, 36 views)

adding or compiling drivers must be done as root.

is there a configure script? check in the "root" directory of the source code file tree, and see if there's a file with the name "configure". that script (if it's there) checks for the necessary libraries, etc... and sets build options before you continue with "make".

if it's there, run it with a "dot slash"

otherwise, if you're sure the drivers were built correctly, you may need to add them with modprobe. it's been a while since i've had to use modprobe, so i recommend you familiarize yourself with it:
or

I'm running 32-bit Fedora 19 with kernel 3.10.5-201.f19.i686 on my Acer Aspire One ZG5 with the JMB385 multi-card reader. It's using the jmb38x_ms module, which is apparently part of the Fedora build. Seems to me it had problems booting off an xD card (haven't done that in quite a while), but works fine with SD and SDHC cards.

Im logged in root account, and no configure file or script here. i need to compile the drivers first, so i fail to see how modprobe can help. I may install a 32 bit linux and see how that goes. Oddly, if SD card is inserted during bootup, it seems to work, but that's hardly a workaround.

"Oddly, if SD card is inserted during bootup, it seems to work" This means there is no driver problem. The problem is that a builtin cardreader is only scanned when the whole device is initialized. When a card is later inserted this does not cause a kernel event -hence the card doesn't get recognized. It might help to use the old 'scanluns' script.

Well, i see some SD card drivers loaded when i run modprobe -l, namely: kernel/drivers/mmc/core/mmc_core.ko, kernel/drivers/mmc/card/mmc_block.ko, kernel/drivers/mmc/card/sdio_uart.ko, kernel/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci.ko, kernel/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci-pci.ko, and kernel/drivers/mmc/host/sdhci_platform.ko. This is the case whether or not i insert an SD card during bootup.

But these could all be a generic SD card driver that does not support JMB38x. When can be done to cause JMB38x card reader device to be initialized after bootup? How can i make it so when SD card is inserted it makes a kernel event happen? What is 'scanluns'? The best i can find about that is something to do with SCSI.

An often-necessary extra step from the early days of the AOA150:
Don't know if it will help, but it shouldn't do any harm

Unfortunately, sudo modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1, is unable to make the JMB38x read an SD card when its inserted. Any other ideas or suggestions would be great. I've noticed live distros like knoppix also do not work with this card reader either.

I'm running out of ideas, but you might give Fedora a try.

Card insertion does not cause any hardware event which can be detected. The only way to detect a card is by polling.

Your first attachment is basically useless.

The second one shows a few .ko files that were created. These are kernel modules aka drivers. Although if there's no make install option. Or if there's no kernel versioning and your kernel requires it, they may be difficult to use. You could modprobe driver[.ko] and see if that works for you.

# cd /root/jmb_38X_sdxcUHS_patch/jmb38x_sdxc/core/
# modprobe mmc_block
# modprobe sdio_uart
# modprobe mmc_core
# modprobe cb710-mmc
# modprobe sdhci-pci
# modprobe sdhci

If there was a make install and it worked you might be able to skip the cd. Although you might need a depmod -a to merge the modules into the list. The sequence might differ, but the modules should show in lsmod when loaded. Or some other message on the CLI saying you don't have matching hardware when you try to modprobe. Note that # implies as root.

I'm going to attach the results of make install in case something is in there that might be useful. I did a modprobe on each of those drivers listed one by one, but that did not make Slackware detect an SD card when it's inserted. I'm not sure how to use depmod -a to merge the drivers, some help here would be great.

However, i do see the drivers present when i run lsmod, if that means anything. If drivers are loaded, what is preventing it from recognizing the card as its inserted? How can i cause a hardware event to occur when SD card goes in the reader? I installed Slackware 14.1 on a Dell Vostro 3450, and card reader works when SD card is put in it fine. And just what is polling?

Attached Files

make install.txt (1.1 KB, 30 views)

I'm not quite sure what you're doing there with the install commands. They "should" exist with the .ko extension for 2.6+ kernels, including 3.x series. As least where your install commands seem to place them anyway. When you plug in or power on or remove the device, something should log the event in dmesg or /var/log/syslog. Depending on distro. Live discs might avoid writing logs, but most other distros or flavours do not.

Well, i solved the problem it had nothing to do with any settings within Slackware at all. The issue was in the BIOS of the HP Pavilion DV4 laptop. There is a power saver setting for card reader; i disabled it, and now it detects SD card once its inserted. Thanks everyone for the help