Re: [LinuxBIOS] [:LinuxBios] GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4

[Allix Davis]

A bios enables/disables CPU extensions that determines what can be used once
the os is loaded.
I wonder why they did disable it, i don;t think they have more expensive
boards with it enabled, it just seems bizarre especially with virtualization
being a hot topic.

In regard to me and spi , ive not looked at it yet. I won't flash the bios
for a while.

kind regards

Allix Davis
> Sorry, maybe this is a dumb question, but can someone explain to me what
> virtualization has to do with the chipset? I thought that it was only

related to
> the amd64 core, isn't it?
> BTW, how did you Alix to reflash your bios? Was it a spi flash?
> Best regards,
> FD

[LinuxBIOS] [:LinuxBios] GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4

What you say is a little bit surprising to me: I tought that the AMD-V (or SVM
if you like..) extension cannot be disabled permanently (contrary to Intel)..
The technical documents of AMD say that the virtualization is enabled by
setting the bit 12 into the EFER MSR register. In my understanding this flag can
be put at 0 or 1 at any time by the OS, even later after the boot (see KVM or
Xen)..
 Also I still don't understand the relationship btw SVM and the chipset, maybe
this has something to do with the concept of "IOMMU" or am I mistaken? (Can
someone explain this, please.. Or maybe this is related to the instruction
SKINIT and the way it interacts whith the chipset and the TPM (if there is one
present on the mobo..), but I disgress..)
 Anyway I don't see why ACPI comes into play here..

BR,
 Florentin

Quoting Allix Davis :
> A bios enables/disables CPU extensions that determines what can be used once
> the os is loaded.
> I wonder why they did disable it, i don;t think they have more expensive
> boards with it enabled, it just seems bizarre especially with virtualization
> being a hot topic.
>
> In regard to me and spi , ive not looked at it yet. I won't flash the bios
> for a while.
>
> kind regards
>
> Allix Davis
> > Sorry, maybe this is a dumb question, but can someone explain to me what
> > virtualization has to do with the chipset? I thought that it was only
>
> related to
> > the amd64 core, isn't it?
> > BTW, how did you Alix to reflash your bios? Was it a spi flash?
> > Best regards,
> > FD