I can confirm I'm still able to buy a G505S in my country but it seems to
have the quad core A8-4500M (not the A10) with a dedicated Radeon HD 8570M.
It's a decent machine and it would be great to have it on the official LTS
list.
Speaking of the list, I cannot find any store selling the Toshiba Satellite
C50D-A mentioned in the wiki.
--emi
On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Vladimir <quickcracktime(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear coreboot developers,
>
> Francis Rowe (main Libreboot developer) has hinted an idea about adding
> Lenovo G505S to Coreboot LTS Candidates list of laptops, which is hosted at
> MrNuke's User talk coreboot wiki page. I believe it is an excellent idea,
> because:
>
> *1)* Lenovo G505S contains AMD APU, so there is no need to deal with
> Intel ME/AMT so-called "features"
> *2)* this APU has Richland architecture: as result (unlike the more
> recent AMD offerings) it doesn't have "AMD Secure" feature -- based on ARM
> Trustzone technology which already has some exploits against it; there are
> security concerns about ARM Trustzone that are similar to concerns about
> Intel vPro "feature" (remote management etc.)
> *3)* this APU is A10-5750M, the most powerful mobile APU among Richland
> designs - as result, this laptop is still very competitive regarding its
> performance, and also price/performance
> *4)* Unlike the older HP M6-1035DX amd laptop, Lenovo G505S seems to be a
> very popular model: even now, more than 1.5 years after its' introduction,
> there are >200 Internet shops in my large city still selling it new in box
> - not used/refurbished
> *5)* Lenovo G505s works without microcode updates, and already has a
> working Coreboot build (although Video BIOS and SMU firmware have blobs
> that are still not reverse-engineered; and some minor issues - e.g. ACPI
> not perfect yet )
>
> These great points are making me wonder, why this interesting laptop still
> haven't been added to that LTS Candidates list? Does it fail to meet some
> requirement for LTS candidates in a not-obvious way
> (RYF-certifiable,Sturdy,Long shelf-life,Cool factor) or there is some
> not-listed AMD laptop that could be a better candidate?
>
> By the way, I have discovered that there are many modifications of Lenovo
> G505S, which could be divided into three primary groups by their major
> difference - GPU *(minor differences, such as different size of RAM or
> hard drive, are not interesting)*
> GPU modification groups:
> *1)* only 8650G, which is built-in into APU (no dual graphics)
> *2)* 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics)
> *3)* 8650G + AMD R5 M230 ( dual graphics, slightly more powerful than
> "2)" )
> Are these modifications all supported by Coreboot? And would be there any
> additional difficulties regarding modifications with dual graphics?
>
> Your answers and opinions will be very welcome
> Best regards,
> Vladimir Shipovalov
>
> --
> coreboot mailing list: coreboot(a)coreboot.org
> http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
>
Dear coreboot developers,
Francis Rowe (main Libreboot developer) has hinted an idea about adding
Lenovo G505S to Coreboot LTS Candidates list of laptops, which is hosted at
MrNuke's User talk coreboot wiki page. I believe it is an excellent idea,
because:
*1)* Lenovo G505S contains AMD APU, so there is no need to deal with Intel
ME/AMT so-called "features"
*2)* this APU has Richland architecture: as result (unlike the more recent
AMD offerings) it doesn't have "AMD Secure" feature -- based on ARM
Trustzone technology which already has some exploits against it; there are
security concerns about ARM Trustzone that are similar to concerns about
Intel vPro "feature" (remote management etc.)
*3)* this APU is A10-5750M, the most powerful mobile APU among Richland
designs - as result, this laptop is still very competitive regarding its
performance, and also price/performance
*4)* Unlike the older HP M6-1035DX amd laptop, Lenovo G505S seems to be a
very popular model: even now, more than 1.5 years after its' introduction,
there are >200 Internet shops in my large city still selling it new in box
- not used/refurbished
*5)* Lenovo G505s works without microcode updates, and already has a
working Coreboot build (although Video BIOS and SMU firmware have blobs
that are still not reverse-engineered; and some minor issues - e.g. ACPI
not perfect yet )
These great points are making me wonder, why this interesting laptop still
haven't been added to that LTS Candidates list? Does it fail to meet some
requirement for LTS candidates in a not-obvious way
(RYF-certifiable,Sturdy,Long shelf-life,Cool factor) or there is some
not-listed AMD laptop that could be a better candidate?
By the way, I have discovered that there are many modifications of Lenovo
G505S, which could be divided into three primary groups by their major
difference - GPU *(minor differences, such as different size of RAM or hard
drive, are not interesting)*
GPU modification groups:
*1)* only 8650G, which is built-in into APU (no dual graphics)
*2)* 8650G + AMD HD 8570M (dual graphics)
*3)* 8650G + AMD R5 M230 ( dual graphics, slightly more powerful than "2)" )
Are these modifications all supported by Coreboot? And would be there any
additional difficulties regarding modifications with dual graphics?
Your answers and opinions will be very welcome
Best regards,
Vladimir Shipovalov
Iru Cai wrote:
> I read previous config files from board status, and configured my Lenovo
> ThinkPad X220 with CONFIG_MAINBOARD_DO_NATIVE_VGA_INIT and
> CONFIG_VGA_ROM_RUN.
Unless you know why exactly you should do things any other way, always
let SeaBIOS run option ROMs, never coreboot.
//Peter
Very sorry to hear that your LCD backlight problem is not resolved yet!
Are you confident that LCD backlight is not faulty, and have you tried
reinstalling coreboot?
If answer for both questions is "yes", then you could try these two advices:
1) Redownload a source code of coreboot from github, compile it and flash
again to your G505s.
Since your last try - at the end of January - there were 5 commits to
"coreboot/src/mainboard/lenovo/g505s" branch,
and also some commits to the common branches, changes that affect all the
mainboards supported by coreboot.
Maybe your issue will be resolved if you would try coreboot again, with
latest sources!
2) If 1st advice doesn't work, you could open
"coreboot/src/mainboard/lenovo/g505s/buildOpts.c" file
(which is the only file from G505s branch that has a reference to "LCD")
Go to line 158, try to change the "#define
BLDCFG_CFG_LCD_BACK_LIGHT_CONTROL 200" parameter.
Default value seems to be 200 for most platforms, but you could try setting
it to 0. Then compile & flash again
=== Any advices from experienced coreboot members would be very welcome! ===
On 3 April 2015 at 17:46, 1 1 <zilogpnz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> No. I not solved this problem.
>
> 2015-04-03 17:08 GMT+04:00 Vladimir <quickcracktime(a)gmail.com>:
>
>> > On Mon Jan 26 13:07:42 CET 2015 zilogpnz wrote:
>> >> I'm trying to run Coreboot on Lenovo G505s and have a problem:
>> >> - backlight of LCD is not turn on. But on the external LCD (by CRT
>> >> connector) is all good.
>> >>
>> >> Could you help me with a solution to this problem?
>>
>>
>> Sorry for such a long reply, but what is a current status of this problem?
>> Have you resolved the LCD backlight problem with your G505s - and, if
>> yes, how?
>>
>
>
Very sorry to hear that your LCD backlight problem is not resolved yet!
Are you confident that LCD backlight is not faulty, and have you tried
reinstalling coreboot?
If answer for both questions is "yes" - then you could try these two
advices:
1) Re-download a source code of coreboot from github, compile it and flash
again to your G505s.
Since your last try - at the end of January - there were 5 commits to
"coreboot/src/mainboard/lenovo/g505s" branch,
and also some commits to the common branches, changes that affect all the
mainboards supported by coreboot.
Maybe your issue will be resolved if you would try coreboot again, with
latest sources!
2) If 1st advice doesn't work, you could open
"coreboot/src/mainboard/lenovo/g505s/buildOpts.c" file
(which is the only file from G505s branch that has a reference to "LCD")
Go to line 158, try to change the "#define BLDCFG_CFG_LCD_BACK_LIGHT_CONTROL
200" parameter.
Default value seems to be 200 for most platforms, but you could try setting
it to 0. Then compile & flash again
=== Any advices from experienced coreboot members would be very welcome! ===
On 3 April 2015 at 17:46, 1 1 <zilogpnz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> No. I not solved this problem.
>
> 2015-04-03 17:08 GMT+04:00 Vladimir <quickcracktime(a)gmail.com>:
>
>> > On Mon Jan 26 13:07:42 CET 2015 zilogpnz wrote:
>> >> I'm trying to run Coreboot on Lenovo G505s and have a problem:
>> >> - backlight of LCD is not turn on. But on the external LCD (by CRT
>> >> connector) is all good.
>> >>
>> >> Could you help me with a solution to this problem?
>>
>>
>> Sorry for such a long reply, but what is a current status of this problem?
>> Have you resolved the LCD backlight problem with your G505s - and, if
>> yes, how?
>>
>
>
> On Mon Jan 26 13:07:42 CET 2015 zilogpnz wrote:
>> I'm trying to run Coreboot on Lenovo G505s and have a problem:
>> - backlight of LCD is not turn on. But on the external LCD (by CRT
>> connector) is all good.
>>
>> Could you help me with a solution to this problem?
Sorry for such a long reply, but what is a current status of this problem?
Have you resolved the LCD backlight problem with your G505s - and, if yes,
how?
I read previous config files from board status, and configured my Lenovo
ThinkPad X220 with CONFIG_MAINBOARD_DO_NATIVE_VGA_INIT and
CONFIG_VGA_ROM_RUN. And according to:
http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2014-July/078342.html
I added the bios.bin.elf to GRUB and vgabios.bin to CBFS. However, after I
chose SeaBIOS in GRUB, SeaBIOS was loaded and the screen became blank. I'm
not sure if there's something wrong with option ROM and SeaBIOS.
