Coreboot doesn't POST on ASUS KCMA-D8

      I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s, and 6x4GB (24GB) Hynix
HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. All my attempts of getting Coreboot to POST with this board
so far haven't worked. I'm compiling Coreboot from Git (master branch), and can
build it without issue. A pre-built Libreboot ROM (20160907) POSTs and boots fine.

For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode updates, along
with some less important-sounding options. For hardware, I've tried unplugging
everything external (KB/mouse), my GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick in (slot
A1). I've also tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but only had a
single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).

Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this board, or provide any tips
as to anything I could be missing?

I see this issue https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/151 but there's a board status
months after that that looks like it boots:
https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/board-status.git/tree/asus/kcma-d8/4.7-7...

[kinky_nekoboi]

      Please Try without GPU, AMD GPUs where often buggy for me in the Past.


Am 12.01.19 um 09:48 schrieb espionage724(a)posteo.net:
> I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s, and 6x4GB (24GB) Hynix
HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. All my attempts of getting Coreboot to POST with this board
so far haven't worked. I'm compiling Coreboot from Git (master branch), and can
build it without issue. A pre-built Libreboot ROM (20160907) POSTs and boots fine.
>
> For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode updates,
along with some less important-sounding options. For hardware, I've tried unplugging
everything external (KB/mouse), my GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick in (slot
A1). I've also tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but only had a
single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).
>
> Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this board, or provide any
tips as to anything I could be missing?
>
> I see this issue https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/151 but there's a board
status months after that that looks like it boots:
https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/board-status.git/tree/asus/kcma-d8/4.7-7...
> _______________________________________________
> coreboot mailing list -- coreboot(a)coreboot.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to coreboot-leave(a)coreboot.org

[petecb]

Hi,

It sounds like you may be having a similar issue to the one I had with the KGPE-D16 a
month or so ago. Currently coreboot 4.8 doesn't boot for me if "Use CMOS for
configuration values" is selected when coreboot is built. Coreboot 4.6 doesn't
have this issue, so it may be worth a try building that version and seeing if you have
better luck.

Kind regards,

Pete

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Saturday, January 12, 2019 8:48 AM, <espionage724(a)posteo.net&gt; wrote:

  I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s,
and 6x4GB (24GB) Hynix HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. All my attempts of getting Coreboot to
POST with this board so far haven't worked. I'm compiling Coreboot from Git
(master branch), and can build it without issue. A pre-built Libreboot ROM (20160907)
POSTs and boots fine.

 For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode updates,
along with some less important-sounding options. For hardware, I've tried unplugging
everything external (KB/mouse), my GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick in (slot
A1). I've also tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but only had a
single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).

 Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this board, or provide any tips
as to anything I could be missing?

 I see this issue https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/151 but there's a board status
months after that that looks like it boots:
https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/board-status.git/tree/asus/kcma-d8/4.7-7...

 coreboot mailing list -- coreboot(a)coreboot.org
 To unsubscribe send an email to coreboot-leave(a)coreboot.org

[Sean Lynn Rhone]

      After some more compiles, I finally figured it out; it's the RAM.

The Hynix HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 sticks I have work fine in Libreboot, but
didn't work with any Coreboot release I tried (tagged 4.6, the last
build reported in board status for the KCMA-D8, and master). Tossed in
the old RAM I had lying around, and Coreboot boots fine even on master.

I wasn't expecting the RAM to be an issue since it worked in Libreboot
though. As I understand, RAM compatiblity varies between the
stock/proprietary BIOS and Libreboot/Coreboot, but I didn't think the
compatibility would also vary between Libreboot and Coreboot.

On Sat, 2019-01-12 at 08:48 +0000, espionage724(a)posteo.net wrote:
  I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s,
and 6x4GB (24GB)
 Hynix HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. All my attempts of getting
 Coreboot to POST with this board so far haven't worked. I'm compiling
 Coreboot from Git (master branch), and can build it without issue. A
 pre-built Libreboot ROM (20160907) POSTs and boots fine.
 
 For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode
 updates, along with some less important-sounding options. For
 hardware, I've tried unplugging everything external (KB/mouse), my
 GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick in (slot A1). I've also
 tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but only had a
 single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).
 
 Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this board,
 or provide any tips as to anything I could be missing?
 
 I see this issue https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/151 but there's a
 board status months after that that looks like it boots: 

https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/board-status.git/tree/asus/kcma-d8/4.7-7...
 _______________________________________________
 coreboot mailing list -- coreboot(a)coreboot.org
 To unsubscribe send an email to coreboot-leave(a)coreboot.org

[Ivan Ivanov]

      Hi Sean, libreboot is always behind coreboot regarding the commits, so
RAM compatibility could vary because of some breaking commit that
happened after the latest libreboot release but before the latest
coreboot. So of course it would break at the next libreboot release as
well. You could prevent this by searching for this commit using
dichotomy method (e.g. just 10 tries to find at the range of 2^10 =
1024 commits) and tell us if you'd find it

[Merlin Büge]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2019 18:49:45 +0300
Ivan Ivanov <qmastery16(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

  Hi Sean, libreboot is always behind coreboot regarding
the commits, so
 RAM compatibility could vary because of some breaking commit that
 happened after the latest libreboot release but before the latest
 coreboot. So of course it would break at the next libreboot release as
 well. You could prevent this by searching for this commit using
 dichotomy method (e.g. just 10 tries to find at the range of 2^10 =
 1024 commits) and tell us if you'd find it
Hi all,

I ran into the same issue, and I'd like to find the coreboot commit
which introduces these problems.

My RAM is: Hynix HMT31GR7CFR4A-PB (8 GB 2Rx4 PC3L-12800R). I just now
realized that it's low power DIMMs, but it boots fine with libreboot,
so that shouldn't be a problem.
A have two DIMMs installed in the slots A2 and B2 (according to the
manual), with one Opteron 4332HE installed.

I managed to build an older coreboot revision around the time of the
last libreboot release (which boots fine for me), but unfortunately it
doesn't output anything on VGA / serial.

I might make a few more tries tonight, or in some weeks when I have
access to the machine again.

For the record I attached the serial log when booting with current
master; apparently there's a failure during DIMM training...


Regards,

Merlin


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-- 
Merlin Büge

      On 01/12/2019 03:48 AM, espionage724(a)posteo.net wrote:

Welcome to coreboot fine sir :D

  I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s,
(I assume you want to play games as you have a RX580)

You probably won't get decent gaming performance with these I would swap
them out for 4284's or 4240s I assume you want bulldozer cpus so you can
use libreboot ie: not needing microcode updates although I advise them
for spectre.

With 4284 (or the slightly faster but microcode updates mandatory 4386)
or what not and a RX580 8GB you should be able to max out new games
while gaming in a VM - let me know if you need help with that.

There are only a few games that are capable of using more than 8 cores
but the advantage of a second CPU is that you can do other stuff at the
same time without noticing as long as you use cpu pinning/isolcpus for
your vm gaming.

Another performance tweak is to combine half the modules of two CPU's to
obtain Turbo 2 performance on your gaming VM so with dual 4284's for
example you would get 3.7ghz rather than 3.3ghz or 3.7ghz on the first 4
cores and 3.3ghz on the last 4 cores in case you wish to do something
else on the second CPU while you are gaming.

For power consumption you should have nohz=on setting on your kernel
command line otherwise the modules will never enter CC6, pcie_aspm=force
is also another good one to have so is tweaking your CMOS settings for
power saving like enabling sata alpm and disabling 1394.

I also suggest obtaining:
FLR supporting SAS card as they are quite cheap right now on fleabay
either a $30 PIKE2008 to fit in the weird slot on the bottom or a $20
LSI SAS 9285 for the third PCI-e slot (On the D8 you can use the PIKE
slot or the third PCI-e slot but not both)
ASMB4 or ASMB5 module as they are hard to find, there is some on fleabay
for around $30 atm.

Btw have you heard of OpenPOWER? The raptor blackbird/talos 2? It is the
future of freedom computing now that new x86 is no longer free...gaming
is the the only reason to get a D8/D16 now that the blackbird is price
equivilant with much better performance.

 and 6x4GB (24GB) Hynix HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. 
Maybe try cleaning the contacts if they look dirty? I had a ram training
issue due to dirty RAM contacts that didn't appear all the time and only
on coreboot not the propriatary bios for some reason but after cleaning
is ok.

  All my attempts of getting Coreboot to POST with this
board so far haven't worked. I'm compiling Coreboot from Git >(master branch),
and can build it without issue. > A pre-built Libreboot ROM (20160907) POSTs and boots
fine.
 
 For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode updates,
along with some less important-sounding options. For hardware, I've tried unplugging
> >everything external (KB/mouse), my GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick
in (slot A1). I've also tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but
>only had a single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).
There is your issue or at least one of them - you need dual 8pin EPS
cables - one per CPU - like I said in the wiki not 4pin cables and not
adapters.

Anyway what does the console logs say? If you don't have one get a null
modem serial cable and hook it up to another PC to find out.

  
 Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this board, or provide any tips
as to anything I could be missing?
It should I tested it a few months back although I use v4.6 on mine due
to some power consumption regressions in master.

[Daniel Gröber]

      On Sat, Jan 26, 2019 at 03:54:18PM -0500, Taiidan(a)gmx.com wrote:
  On 01/12/2019 03:48 AM, espionage724(a)posteo.net
wrote:
 I also suggest obtaining:
 FLR supporting SAS card as they are quite cheap right now on fleabay
 either a $30 PIKE2008 to fit in the weird slot on the bottom or a $20
 LSI SAS 9285 for the third PCI-e slot (On the D8 you can use the PIKE
 slot or the third PCI-e slot but not both)
 ASMB4 or ASMB5 module as they are hard to find, there is some on fleabay
 for around $30 atm.
FYI I would caution against trying to use the PIKE slot on KCMA-D8, I
tried using a PIKE2008 in it but could never get it to enumerate
properly i.e. the card is detected by coreboot and Linux but it
doesn't get any addresses assigned to it by the kernel rendering it
unusable.

I use this card in a KGPE-D16 now so it's not the card that's broken,
could be that something was wrong with my D8. Regardless I tried to
bisect this back to when D8 support was initially introduced in
coreboot and as far as I could tell the PIKE slot never worked on D8.

@Taiidan have you ever actually seen (or head of) the PIKE slot
working on D8?

--Daniel

[Sean Lynn Rhone]

      Hi, thanks for the info!

For the particular POST issue, I limited it down to the RAM. I replaced
it with some other RAM and it POSTs fine. I don't know if I mentioned
it in the initial post, but Libreboot's 2016 stable build booted fine
with that same RAM, as did the ASUS vendor BIOS; Coreboot just didn't
like it.

  I assume you want to play games as you have a RX580
I ended up buying two 4386's and have those now; I don't do too much
gaming nowadays, but still have the RX 580 around for 4K@60Hz over
HDMI.

I don't include microcode updates just for an easier build (I do a
shallow clone of CB's repo but it doesn't seem to pull in 3rd-party CPU
stuff), but my distro handles microcode hotpatching at boot.

  There are only a few games that are capable of using
more than 8
cores
but the advantage of a second CPU is that you can do other stuff at the
same time without noticing as long as you use cpu pinning/isolcpus for
your vm gaming.

I'll have to figure out core pinning. The only game I play nowadays
(old school Runescape) uses Java, but really prefers single-threaded
performance.

  For power consumption you should have nohz=on setting
on your kernel
command line otherwise the modules will never enter CC6,
pcie_aspm=force
is also another good one to have so is tweaking your CMOS settings for
power saving like enabling sata alpm and disabling 1394.

Thanks for those kernel options as well!

  SAS card
I've heard about the SAS card, but I don't believe I particularly need
it for now.

  ASMB4 or ASMB5 module
I have some remote KVM chip thing that came on the motherboard, but I
can't quite figure out OpenBMC. Looks like it needs compiled from
source, but I wonder if there's a pre-compiled binary somewhere I can
just flash to give it a try.

  Btw have you heard of OpenPOWER?
I've heard of OpenPOWER, but their motherboard and CPU prices are way
out of my price range unfortunately.

  Maybe try cleaning the contacts if they look dirty?
I returned the RAM already, but didn't try cleaning the contacts.

  There is your issue or at least one of them - you need
dual 8pin EPS
cables - one per CPU

I have two actual 8-pin connectors; I unplugged one just to see if that
would change anything but nothing changed.

  It should I tested it a few months back although I use
v4.6 on mine
due to some power consumption regressions in master.

Now that I have compatible RAM, Coreboot master works fine for me.

On Sat, 2019-01-26 at 15:54 -0500, Taiidan(a)gmx.com wrote:
> On 01/12/2019 03:48 AM, espionage724(a)posteo.net wrote:
> 
> Welcome to coreboot fine sir :D
> 
> > I have a KCMA-D8 motherboard with two Opteron 4226s,
> 
> (I assume you want to play games as you have a RX580)
> 
> You probably won't get decent gaming performance with these I would
> swap
> them out for 4284's or 4240s I assume you want bulldozer cpus so you
> can
> use libreboot ie: not needing microcode updates although I advise
> them
> for spectre.
> 
> With 4284 (or the slightly faster but microcode updates mandatory
> 4386)
> or what not and a RX580 8GB you should be able to max out new games
> while gaming in a VM - let me know if you need help with that.
> 
  There are only a few games that are capable of using
more than 8
> cores
> but the advantage of a second CPU is that you can do other stuff at
> the
> same time without noticing as long as you use cpu pinning/isolcpus
> for
> your vm gaming.
> 
> Another performance tweak is to combine half the modules of two CPU's
> to
> obtain Turbo 2 performance on your gaming VM so with dual 4284's for
> example you would get 3.7ghz rather than 3.3ghz or 3.7ghz on the
> first 4
> cores and 3.3ghz on the last 4 cores in case you wish to do something
> else on the second CPU while you are gaming.
> 
  For power consumption you should have nohz=on setting
on your kernel
> command line otherwise the modules will never enter CC6,
> pcie_aspm=force
> is also another good one to have so is tweaking your CMOS settings
> for
> power saving like enabling sata alpm and disabling 1394.
> 
> I also suggest obtaining:
> FLR supporting SAS card as they are quite cheap right now on fleabay
> either a $30 PIKE2008 to fit in the weird slot on the bottom or a $20
> LSI SAS 9285 for the third PCI-e slot (On the D8 you can use the PIKE
> slot or the third PCI-e slot but not both)
> ASMB4 or ASMB5 module as they are hard to find, there is some on
> fleabay
> for around $30 atm.
> 
> Btw have you heard of OpenPOWER? The raptor blackbird/talos 2? It is
> the
> future of freedom computing now that new x86 is no longer
> free...gaming
> is the the only reason to get a D8/D16 now that the blackbird is
> price
> equivilant with much better performance.
> 
> > and 6x4GB (24GB) Hynix HMT151R7BFR4C-H9 RAM sticks. 
> 
> Maybe try cleaning the contacts if they look dirty? I had a ram
> training
> issue due to dirty RAM contacts that didn't appear all the time and
> only
> on coreboot not the propriatary bios for some reason but after
> cleaning
> is ok.
> 
> > All my attempts of getting Coreboot to POST with this board so far
> > haven't worked. I'm compiling Coreboot from Git >(master branch),
> > and can build it without issue. > A pre-built Libreboot ROM
> > (20160907) POSTs and boots fine.
> > 
> > For Coreboot's config, I've tried including/excluding CPU microcode
> > updates, along with some less important-sounding options. For
> > hardware, I've tried unplugging > >everything external (KB/mouse),
> > my GPU (RX 580), and only had a single RAM stick in (slot A1). I've
> > also tried a single CPU being powered (kept the 2nd CPU in but
> > >only had a single 4-pin CPU going to the 1st CPU).
> 
  There is your issue or at least one of them - you need
dual 8pin EPS
> cables - one per CPU - like I said in the wiki not 4pin cables
and
> not
> adapters.
> 
> Anyway what does the console logs say? If you don't have one get a
> null
> modem serial cable and hook it up to another PC to find out.
> 
> > Can anyone else confirm Git builds of Coreboot booting on this
> > board, or provide any tips as to anything I could be missing?
> 
  It should I tested it a few months back although I use
v4.6 on mine
> due
> to some power consumption regressions in master.
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