Re: [coreboot] Microcode problem with Braswell CPU

[Alexander Böcken]

Hi Zoran,

yes, that’s the function. I also found the same information in the Intel docs.

The docs say, the processor starts up with all caching disabled. So, the function marks the top 4 MB as write-protected memory and thus enables caching for this region. The MTTR_DEF_TYPE MSR set the default memory configuration for all memory regions that were not explicitly configured by fixed/variable MTTRs. Intel recommends to use uncachable memory for all non-existing physical memory. As we haven’t initialized DDR memory at this point, this seems fine to me.

However, TempRamInit also seems to fuss about caching, regarding the FSP specification. So the code seems to interfere somehow, at least on my CPU. I don’t know.

Best regards,
Alex

Von: Zoran Stojsavljevic [mailto:[e-mail]]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. Juli 2016 06:47
An: Alexander Böcken
Cc: cheng yichen; coreboot; [e-mail]
Betreff: Re: [coreboot] Microcode problem with Braswell CPU
> The function bootblock_cpu_init() (/src/soc/intel/braswell/bootblock/bootblock.c) contains a call to enable_rom_caching()

This is the function, you are talking about:

static void enable_rom_caching(void)
{
                msr_t msr;

disable_cache();
                /* Why only top 4MiB ? */
                set_var_mtrr(1, 0xffc00000, 4*1024*1024, MTRR_TYPE_WRPROT);
                enable_cache();

/* Enable Variable MTRRs */
                msr.hi = 0x00000000;
                msr.lo = 0x00000800;
                wrmsr(MTRR_DEF_TYPE_MSR, msr);
}

I went to the Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer Manualshttps://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj8pJm7m5XOAhWIQpoKHQ-pBQMQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.intel.com%2Fcontent%2Fwww%2Fus%2Fen%2Fprocessors%2Farchitectures-software-developer-manuals.html&usg=AFQjCNE0-V4xbVESpNFUdDMbSBXxnivKNw&sig2=6FShgOk_1L15UQbj6FlfYA&bvm=bv.128153897,d.bGg
to try to understand what really MTRR_DEF_TYPE_MSR refister (MSR 0x2FF) really means.

After reading the appropriate parts to actually analyze this register, I got confused.

[Inline image 1]

First, I do not understand (as comment says correctly: Why only top 4MiB?), why not all 8MiB? Or maybe 16MiB, actual size of board flash?

Second. I see that the type of this memory (msr.lo = 0x00000800;) is E - MTRR enable, FE disabled, type uncacheable - 0x00 (instead MTRR_TYPE_WRPROT - 0x05).

Seems that this function was blindly copy/pasted from some other place... While creating BSW Coreboot context.

Best Regards,
Zoran