EPIA flash questions

[Joshua Wise]

Hi folks,

Well, I finally got myself a Linuxbios supported board (an EPIA 
ME-6000). Later tonight I'm going to order a flash from Mouser to swap 
out, but before I do, I have a few questions:

On board is a PLCC form factor 39SF020A. Mouser also carries the 
39SF040A, which is a 512k ROM. The pinouts seem to be the same, but I'm 
not sure whether the extra address lines are carried out anywhere. Does 
anyone know whether the EPIA will be able to use the extra 256k?

Also, I was not planning on getting a BIOS savior. Does anyone have 
experience with hotswapping flashes on the EPIA? Will bad things happen 
if I do? Do I need to make myself an external board with chip select 
lines, or can I just hotswap?

Thanks,

joshua

[Nathanael Noblet]

On Aug 26, 2004, at 2:42 PM, Joshua Wise wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Well, I finally got myself a Linuxbios supported board (an EPIA 
> ME-6000). Later tonight I'm going to order a flash from Mouser to swap 
> out, but before I do, I have a few questions:
>
> On board is a PLCC form factor 39SF020A. Mouser also carries the 
> 39SF040A, which is a 512k ROM. The pinouts seem to be the same, but 
> I'm not sure whether the extra address lines are carried out anywhere. 
> Does anyone know whether the EPIA will be able to use the extra 256k?

Don't know, but would like to know so please post your success/failure 
back to the list
> Also, I was not planning on getting a BIOS savior. Does anyone have 
> experience with hotswapping flashes on the EPIA? Will bad things 
> happen if I do? Do I need to make myself an external board with chip 
> select lines, or can I just hotswap?

I've hotswapped it with a little PLCC puller probably 50 something 
times, not a problem yet.

[ron minnich]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Joshua Wise wrote:
> On board is a PLCC form factor 39SF020A. Mouser also carries the 
> 39SF040A, which is a 512k ROM. The pinouts seem to be the same, but I'm 
> not sure whether the extra address lines are carried out anywhere. Does 
> anyone know whether the EPIA will be able to use the extra 256k?

I think it will, I've used that I'm pretty sure.
> Also, I was not planning on getting a BIOS savior. Does anyone have 
> experience with hotswapping flashes on the EPIA? Will bad things happen 
> if I do? Do I need to make myself an external board with chip select 
> lines, or can I just hotswap?

hot swap has always worked fine for me.

ron

[Marc Nicholas]

Do either of you happen to know if all the EPIA boards use the same PLCC
Flash?

-marc

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of ron minnich
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 5:50 PM
To: Joshua Wise
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: EPIA flash questions

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Joshua Wise wrote:
> On board is a PLCC form factor 39SF020A. Mouser also carries the 
> 39SF040A, which is a 512k ROM. The pinouts seem to be the same, but

I'm
> not sure whether the extra address lines are carried out anywhere.

Does
> anyone know whether the EPIA will be able to use the extra 256k?

I think it will, I've used that I'm pretty sure.
> Also, I was not planning on getting a BIOS savior. Does anyone have 
> experience with hotswapping flashes on the EPIA? Will bad things

happen
> if I do? Do I need to make myself an external board with chip select 
> lines, or can I just hotswap?

hot swap has always worked fine for me.

ron

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[ron minnich]

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Marc Nicholas wrote:
> Do either of you happen to know if all the EPIA boards use the same PLCC
> Flash?

"All"? wow. There are so many.

Our EPIA and EPIA-M all use the same part. I would be surprised if they 
did much else, since the southbridge is commonly only one of two types.

ron

[Marc Nicholas]

Six boards are 'so many'? That's the entire EPIA range. ;-)

-marc

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of ron minnich
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 11:29 PM
To: Marc Nicholas
Cc: 'Joshua Wise'; [e-mail]
Subject: RE: EPIA flash questions

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Marc Nicholas wrote:
> Do either of you happen to know if all the EPIA boards use the same

PLCC
> Flash?

"All"? wow. There are so many.

Our EPIA and EPIA-M all use the same part. I would be surprised if they 
did much else, since the southbridge is commonly only one of two types.

ron

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Linuxbios mailing list
[e-mail]
http://www.clustermatic.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios

[Dmitry Borisov]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joshua Wise" 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2004 2:42 PM
Subject: EPIA flash questions
> Hi folks,
>
> Well, I finally got myself a Linuxbios supported board (an EPIA
> ME-6000). Later tonight I'm going to order a flash from Mouser to swap
> out, but before I do, I have a few questions:
>
> On board is a PLCC form factor 39SF020A. Mouser also carries the
> 39SF040A, which is a 512k ROM. The pinouts seem to be the same, but I'm
> not sure whether the extra address lines are carried out anywhere. Does
> anyone know whether the EPIA will be able to use the extra 256k?
>
> Also, I was not planning on getting a BIOS savior. Does anyone have
> experience with hotswapping flashes on the EPIA? Will bad things happen
> if I do? Do I need to make myself an external board with chip select
> lines, or can I just hotswap?

I would not recommend hot swap. 20 times and then your contacts will fade or
break( epia has very little space ).
BIOS savior is much better solution if you plan to work with Linuxbios( I've
burned mine 30+ times already with it... ).
Dmitry/

[Miernik]

Dmitry Borisov  wrote:
> I would not recommend hot swap. 20 times and then your contacts will fade or
> break( epia has very little space ).
> BIOS savior is much better solution if you plan to work with Linuxbios( I've
> burned mine 30+ times already with it... ).

Does anyone have any schematics of a BUIS savior (to do it yourself). 
I'm interested in making these, and maybe even selling them to 
interested people, but before I start designing my own schematics, 
maybe someone has seen it somewhere.

[Sven Luebke]

At 12:02 29.08.2004 +0000, Miernik wrote:

Hi Miernik!
> > I would not recommend hot swap. 20 times and then your contacts will
>
> fade or
> > break( epia has very little space ).
> > BIOS savior is much better solution if you plan to work with Linuxbios(
>
> I've
> > burned mine 30+ times already with it... ).
>
> Does anyone have any schematics of a BUIS savior (to do it yourself).
> I'm interested in making these, and maybe even selling them to
> interested people, but before I start designing my own schematics,
> maybe someone has seen it somewhere.

Look at:

http://www.clustermatic.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2003-September/005136.html

It's a hack of a BIOS savior using one FlashROM, no PCB, just a switch and 
three
wires. I don't know what the BIOS saviour is doing exactly, but generally 
you could
wire two identical FlashROMs in parallel (except the /CE signal). Then you 
connect
the /CE signal coming from the Mainboard to the switch. The other two pins 
of the
switch are connected to the /CE signal of the two FlashROMs. That's all...

Disadvantage: You'll need a 32pin PLCC-Plugin-Adapter (I don't know the 
right name)!

Best regards,

Sven

[Joshua Wise]

> It's a hack of a BIOS savior using one FlashROM, no PCB, just a switch 
> and three
> wires. I don't know what the BIOS saviour is doing exactly, but 
> generally you could
> wire two identical FlashROMs in parallel (except the /CE signal).

Heck, you could wire as many as you'd like in parallel, as long as the 
motherboard's fanout is great enough.

The disadvantage to the hack using the 040 is that you only get 256k per 
side - with a /CE hack, it is theoretically possible to get 512k per 
side, given that you have a big enough flash chip.

Also put a pull-up resistor on the /CE of both flash parts so that when 
the switch is not selecting one of them, the /CE line is not floating.

joshua

[Joshua Wise]

> Does anyone have any schematics of a BUIS savior (to do it yourself). 
> I'm interested in making these, and maybe even selling them to 
> interested people, but before I start designing my own schematics, 
> maybe someone has seen it somewhere.

It's just a switch hooked up to the chip enable line of the ROMs.

joshua