Would it help any if I made a list of items needed for proper Intel northbridge (and possibly southbridge/smbus) initialization?
(This would be intended to help ensure we've done everything within proper order. I'm noticing some bugs documented within updated Intel 440bx specs. From what I've seen also, the info is there, it's just categorized instead of listing chronologically.)
(I've read/scanned most of the northbridge pdf files, and starting to get an understanding of i440bx/raminit.c)
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 15:57:11 PDT 2007
Quoting roger roger@eskimo.com:
Would it help any if I made a list of items needed for proper Intel northbridge (and possibly southbridge/smbus) initialization?
(This would be intended to help ensure we've done everything within proper order. I'm noticing some bugs documented within updated Intel 440bx specs. From what I've seen also, the info is there, it's just categorized instead of listing chronologically.)
(I've read/scanned most of the northbridge pdf files, and starting to get an understanding of i440bx/raminit.c)
-- Roger
Roger this would be very helpful. I have been working on other Intel chipsets (cousins of the i440bx) and something to go by would be great!!
Thanks - Joe
On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 19:09 -0400, joe@smittys.pointclark.net wrote:
Roger this would be very helpful. I have been working on other Intel chipsets (cousins of the i440bx) and something to go by would be great!!
Thanks - Joe
ok.. i'll start taking notes tonight.
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 17:49:02 PDT 2007
roger wrote:
On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 19:09 -0400, joe@smittys.pointclark.net wrote:
Roger this would be very helpful. I have been working on other Intel chipsets (cousins of the i440bx) and something to go by would be great!!
Thanks - Joe
ok.. i'll start taking notes tonight.
Great idea! With all of us chipping in, I'm sure we can get this going. Also you might find the LinuxBIOSv1 implementation of the 440bx helpful, that setup actually works! Only real major problem is, it's written in asm, so it's a bit hard to understand/follow. There's also a bunch of stuff in the bitworks ims's auto.c that might be important. I tried a simple port to C at one point, but that didn't work out. I'm going to work right now on getting smbus working correctly, and the drb/timing registers set by it..first have to get the board set up again though ;)
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista. I'm starting to wonder if it's just a bum unit.
-Corey
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 00:02 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
roger wrote:
On Sun, 2007-05-13 at 19:09 -0400, joe@smittys.pointclark.net wrote:
Roger this would be very helpful. I have been working on other Intel chipsets (cousins of the i440bx) and something to go by would be great!!
Thanks - Joe
ok.. i'll start taking notes tonight.
Great idea! With all of us chipping in, I'm sure we can get this going. Also you might find the LinuxBIOSv1 implementation of the 440bx helpful, that setup actually works! Only real major problem is, it's written in asm, so it's a bit hard to understand/follow. There's also a bunch of stuff in the bitworks ims's auto.c that might be important. I tried a simple port to C at one point, but that didn't work out. I'm going to work right now on getting smbus working correctly, and the drb/timing registers set by it..first have to get the board set up again though ;)
yes. I noticed the v1's asm implementation. But I take it with a grain of salt it was working because back in ~2002, as I was already hearing reports raminit.c was broken then -- whether or not that was v1 or v2, who knows.. still, my guess is, the code is there, probably just missing something with initializing something before doing something. Just a wild guess. I'll continue reading the specs tonight.
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 21:17:39 PDT 2007
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 00:02 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista. I'm starting to wonder if it's just a bum unit.
I believe there is something called firebrand that will write using the parallel part. And contacting sales at the main store selling those things, I was recommended using the parallel port one vs the usb one -- probably because the only s/w support is firebrand.
The only reason I needed a Willem programmer was in case I couldn't get the i440bx board flashing flash parts in Linux. Another idea, I got working, was a FreeDOS LiveCD bootdisk with the popular "UniFlash" DOS/Pascal based flash writer. (Hated the time wasting idea of rebooting though.)
Other then this, my impression is the Willem Programmers are basically bricks until somebody adds some code to firebrand for USB support.
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 21:21:13 PDT 2007
On Sun, May 13, 2007 at 09:28:39PM -0700, roger wrote:
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 00:02 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista. I'm starting to wonder if it's just a bum unit.
I believe there is something called firebrand that will write using the parallel part. And contacting sales at the main store selling those things, I was recommended using the parallel port one vs the usb one -- probably because the only s/w support is firebrand.
The only reason I needed a Willem programmer was in case I couldn't get the i440bx board flashing flash parts in Linux. Another idea, I got working, was a FreeDOS LiveCD bootdisk with the popular "UniFlash" DOS/Pascal based flash writer. (Hated the time wasting idea of rebooting though.)
Other then this, my impression is the Willem Programmers are basically bricks until somebody adds some code to firebrand for USB support.
-- Roger
I don't have too good an experience with willem.org.
* It's not a registered company, there's no VAT number. Since the proprietor is dutch, he should have a VAT number, yet he doesn't. This is really selling things out of the back of a truck here.
For your average consumer, this makes little difference. But for me, i paid dutch VAT which i can't reclaim, this money also comes out of taxed income now, so not fun at all.
The overhead to create and run a small company in a country like .nl shouldn't be too great. But this person just installed oscommerce and thought that that was it.
One day .nl VAT/taxes will catch up with him.
* It took a very very long while for my programmer to be delivered, in the end, another model was sent. Paid 28/01, received 12/03. Eindhoven, where this person is based, is about 120kms away.
As for the hardware: * usb is at most only there as a powersupply. Which is not correct as the amps drawn should be negotiated between host and endpoint. There's no means to negotiate anything. Yes, people abuse usb like this a lot. * As far as i understood the willem, from a quick look at it, you still shift in a bit at a time, which makes the willem _extremely_ slow.
To be honest, i haven't needed it yet, hotswapping is much much faster anyway and hasn't gone wrong yet.
So don't bother. You're only throwing money away. Just buy some roms.
Luc Verhaegen.
responding to both emails at once...
Luc Verhaegen wrote:
On Sun, May 13, 2007 at 09:28:39PM -0700, roger wrote:
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 00:02 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista. I'm starting to wonder if it's just a bum unit.
I believe there is something called firebrand that will write using the parallel part. And contacting sales at the main store selling those things, I was recommended using the parallel port one vs the usb one -- probably because the only s/w support is firebrand.
I've had a look at firebrand, but the problem is it only supports a few 27xxx model EEPROMs. No good when I'm trying to flash a 29F002, and I personally don't feel like rewriting it, at least not at the moment. I did find some info on getting the windows software to work with wine on some willem forum, but it keeps telling me the device can't be found.
I don't have too good an experience with willem.org.
- It's not a registered company, there's no VAT number. Since the
proprietor is dutch, he should have a VAT number, yet he doesn't. This is really selling things out of the back of a truck here.
For your average consumer, this makes little difference. But for me, i paid dutch VAT which i can't reclaim, this money also comes out of taxed income now, so not fun at all.
The overhead to create and run a small company in a country like .nl shouldn't be too great. But this person just installed oscommerce and thought that that was it.
One day .nl VAT/taxes will catch up with him.
- It took a very very long while for my programmer to be delivered, in
the end, another model was sent. Paid 28/01, received 12/03. Eindhoven, where this person is based, is about 120kms away.
As for the hardware:
- usb is at most only there as a powersupply. Which is not correct as
the amps drawn should be negotiated between host and endpoint. There's no means to negotiate anything. Yes, people abuse usb like this a lot.
- As far as i understood the willem, from a quick look at it, you still
shift in a bit at a time, which makes the willem _extremely_ slow.
To be honest, i haven't needed it yet, hotswapping is much much faster anyway and hasn't gone wrong yet.
So don't bother. You're only throwing money away. Just buy some roms.
Too late, bought it about a month ago. Flashrom doesn't work on this particular board, and besides, a dedicated programmer *should* be faster than booting up, flashing, and then rebooting (unless you stripped a distro down to nothing just for that purpose). It's almost guaranteed that it'd be faster than this system: boot up, copy rom from usb to floppy, reboot from disk, flash, reboot again. Also, I bought it from a canadian company (mcumall), and through ebay, no dealings with any dutch companies ;) Afaik, the Willem schematics are free for the taking, so anyone can build and/or sell one. I think I'm about to find a windows 98se cd and install that on whatever I can find, and see if this thing actually does work.
-Corey
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 01:09 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
Too late, bought it about a month ago. Flashrom doesn't work on this particular board, and besides, a dedicated programmer *should* be faster than booting up, flashing, and then rebooting (unless you stripped a distro down to nothing just for that purpose). It's almost guaranteed that it'd be faster than this system: boot up, copy rom from usb to floppy, reboot from disk, flash, reboot again. Also, I bought it from a canadian company (mcumall), and through ebay, no dealings with any dutch companies ;) Afaik, the Willem schematics are free for the taking, so anyone can build and/or sell one. I think I'm about to find a windows 98se cd and install that on whatever I can find, and see if this thing actually does work.
Have you tried Uniflash?
It run in DOS and is written in Pascal. I used a FreeDOS livecd... matter of fact, even installed FreeDOS to a 2nd partition with Uniflash.
Uniflash supports a vast number of flash parts.
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 23:31:49 PDT 2007
roger wrote:
Have you tried Uniflash?
It run in DOS and is written in Pascal. I used a FreeDOS livecd... matter of fact, even installed FreeDOS to a 2nd partition with Uniflash.
Uniflash supports a vast number of flash parts.
Yep, I know about uniflash, it's what I was using with this board before. The problem still is getting the rom from my floppy-less laptop to the other machine in a manner DOS can understand. I tried to get usb working on a dos boot disk, but none of the drivers I tried worked. So it's still boot into linux, read rom off the usb/network and copy to floppy/second partition, then reboot to flash. I suppose it is possible to set up DOS to work on the network, but that's something I've never done before, and doesn't seem like much fun. I found one howto in the freedos wiki, but it's really just the history of networking, with no real instruction. Anyways, time to get some sleep, but I'll work more on spd stuff tomorrow.
If anyone working on the 440 has time, can you check the output of your spd data and see if there's any non-00 or 0xff data in 0x7e and 0x7f (aka 126/127)? This is part of the Intel SDRAM SPD standard, but not officially part of JEDECs. The 3 dimms I've checked all support it, along with one Uwe used (from a minicom.cap sent to the list), but I'm curious how many don't, and if they don't what values they return. This is by far the easiest way to set up a lot of the northbridge stuff by spd, but if there are lots of dimms out there NOT supporting it, I'll see if there's another way.
-Corey
On 14.05.2007 11:16, Corey Osgood wrote:
Yep, I know about uniflash, it's what I was using with this board before. The problem still is getting the rom from my floppy-less laptop to the other machine in a manner DOS can understand. I tried to get usb working on a dos boot disk, but none of the drivers I tried worked. So it's still boot into linux, read rom off the usb/network and copy to floppy/second partition, then reboot to flash. I suppose it is possible to set up DOS to work on the network, but that's something I've never done before, and doesn't seem like much fun. I found one howto in the freedos wiki, but it's really just the history of networking, with no real instruction.
The "Ultimate Boot CD" has bootable DOS images which can support Uniflash and IIRC one of the DOS images can even send files over the net or at least access some USB flash keys.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Quoting Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net:
On 14.05.2007 11:16, Corey Osgood wrote:
Yep, I know about uniflash, it's what I was using with this board before. The problem still is getting the rom from my floppy-less laptop to the other machine in a manner DOS can understand. I tried to get usb working on a dos boot disk, but none of the drivers I tried worked. So it's still boot into linux, read rom off the usb/network and copy to floppy/second partition, then reboot to flash. I suppose it is possible to set up DOS to work on the network, but that's something I've never done before, and doesn't seem like much fun. I found one howto in the freedos wiki, but it's really just the history of networking, with no real instruction.
The "Ultimate Boot CD" has bootable DOS images which can support Uniflash and IIRC one of the DOS images can even send files over the net or at least access some USB flash keys.
Regards, Carl-Daniel -- http://www.hailfinger.org/
-- linuxbios mailing list linuxbios@linuxbios.org http://www.linuxbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
I just use cf card /w usb reader on my linux build machine and a cf-to-ide adapter on my linuxbios devel board. Formated the cf card with dr. dos and put uniflash on it, this way I have lots of space and many flash images to choose from. Now I am ready for hotflashing:)
Thanks - Joe
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 05:16:06AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
It run in DOS and is written in Pascal. I used a FreeDOS livecd... matter of fact, even installed FreeDOS to a 2nd partition with Uniflash.
Uniflash supports a vast number of flash parts.
Yep, I know about uniflash, it's what I was using with this board before. The problem still is getting the rom from my floppy-less laptop to the other machine in a manner DOS can understand. I tried to get usb working on a dos boot disk, but none of the drivers I tried worked. So
I recently won a bet with a co-worker because he doubted that a USB flash drive would work under FreeDOS. He was wrong. The only thing was that the flash drive had to be plugged in before FreeDOS was booted.
Thanks, Ward.
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 05:16 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
If anyone working on the 440 has time, can you check the output of your spd data and see if there's any non-00 or 0xff data in 0x7e and 0x7f (aka 126/127)? This is part of the Intel SDRAM SPD standard, but not officially part of JEDECs. The 3 dimms I've checked all support it, along with one Uwe used (from a minicom.cap sent to the list), but I'm curious how many don't, and if they don't what values they return. This is by far the easiest way to set up a lot of the northbridge stuff by spd, but if there are lots of dimms out there NOT supporting it, I'll see if there's another way.
dimm: 00.0: 50 00: 80 08 04 0c 0a 01 40 00 01 a0 60 00 80 08 00 01 10: 8f 04 04 01 01 00 0e 00 00 00 00 14 14 14 32 20 20: 20 10 20 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 12 14 40: 7f 7f 98 ff ff ff ff ff 49 33 30 30 30 30 39 32 50: 36 2d 30 30 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 41 20 30 36 32 60: 31 30 30 20 53 4f 55 54 48 4c 41 4e 44 20 4d 49 70: 43 52 4f 20 53 59 53 54 45 4d 53 20 30 32 *64 *a4 80: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 90: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff a0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff b0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff c0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff d0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff e0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
am i looking at this right?
Row 0x70, and count in hex.
The values at 0x7e & 0x7f respectively are; 0x64 & 0xa4?
Looking at the other 2 sticks of sdram I have:
0x64, 0xf6 0x64, 0xf7
(0x64, 0xff are all on my Mushkin in my S1832DL)
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Mon May 14 12:45:58 PDT 2007
roger wrote:
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 05:16 -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
If anyone working on the 440 has time, can you check the output of your spd data and see if there's any non-00 or 0xff data in 0x7e and 0x7f (aka 126/127)? This is part of the Intel SDRAM SPD standard, but not officially part of JEDECs. The 3 dimms I've checked all support it, along with one Uwe used (from a minicom.cap sent to the list), but I'm curious how many don't, and if they don't what values they return. This is by far the easiest way to set up a lot of the northbridge stuff by spd, but if there are lots of dimms out there NOT supporting it, I'll see if there's another way.
dimm: 00.0: 50 00: 80 08 04 0c 0a 01 40 00 01 a0 60 00 80 08 00 01 10: 8f 04 04 01 01 00 0e 00 00 00 00 14 14 14 32 20 20: 20 10 20 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 30: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 12 14 40: 7f 7f 98 ff ff ff ff ff 49 33 30 30 30 30 39 32 50: 36 2d 30 30 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 41 20 30 36 32 60: 31 30 30 20 53 4f 55 54 48 4c 41 4e 44 20 4d 49 70: 43 52 4f 20 53 59 53 54 45 4d 53 20 30 32 *64 *a4 80: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 90: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff a0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff b0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff c0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff d0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff e0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff f0: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
am i looking at this right?
Row 0x70, and count in hex.
The values at 0x7e & 0x7f respectively are; 0x64 & 0xa4?
Looking at the other 2 sticks of sdram I have:
0x64, 0xf6 0x64, 0xf7
(0x64, 0xff are all on my Mushkin in my S1832DL)
Yep, exactly right, thanks! I think I'll work using these bits for now, and if it turns out they don't work I'll switch to some other method.
-Corey
I've taken notes on the following aspects of the Northbridge and am reading the Intel published SPD pdf now.
The following is only some clippings of what is said in the main pdf and the updates concerning DRAM config. I think I have yet to go through each DRAM register looking for notes pertaining to "what should be set before/after SPD".
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Mon May 14 17:23:51 PDT 2007
On Mon, 2007-05-14 at 06:55 +0200, Luc Verhaegen wrote:
As for the hardware:
- usb is at most only there as a powersupply. Which is not correct as
the amps drawn should be negotiated between host and endpoint. There's no means to negotiate anything. Yes, people abuse usb like this a lot.
- As far as i understood the willem, from a quick look at it, you still
shift in a bit at a time, which makes the willem _extremely_ slow.
The latest willem from the site Corey spoke of, does have a USB version that is writable via USB. But again, firebrand does only parallel that I know.
To be honest, i haven't needed it yet, hotswapping is much much faster anyway and hasn't gone wrong yet.
So don't bother. You're only throwing money away. Just buy some roms.
I was hesitant, but glad I waited as flashrom works for me now. Besides, it was better option then any of the other solutions.
-- Roger http://www.eskimo.com/~roger/index.html Key fingerprint = 8977 A252 2623 F567 70CD 1261 640F C963 1005 1D61
Sun May 13 23:36:11 PDT 2007
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 12:02:06AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista.
WINE has not implemented anything USB.
Vista uses a new USB API AFAIK.
I would suggest VMware and XP until xen runs XP. :)
VMware server doesn't cost anything.
//Peter
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 05:02:14PM +0200, Peter Stuge wrote:
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 12:02:06AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista.
WINE has not implemented anything USB.
Vista uses a new USB API AFAIK.
I would suggest VMware and XP until xen runs XP. :)
Actually Xen does run XP, if your CPU has hardware virtualization.
Thanks, Ward.
Peter Stuge wrote:
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 12:02:06AM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
BTW, anyone have experience with using a Willem EEPROM programmer under linux? I haven't been able to get the darn thing to work through wine, nor will it work on Vista.
WINE has not implemented anything USB.
Vista uses a new USB API AFAIK.
I would suggest VMware and XP until xen runs XP. :)
VMware server doesn't cost anything.
It's a parallel port model, the only thing it gets from USB is 5v DC, and that can be replaced with a regular AC adapter.
-Corey
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 05:02:14PM +0200, Peter Stuge wrote:
VMware server doesn't cost anything.
Yeah, but it's proprietary, closed-source. Try VirtualBox, that's said to work pretty well, in general.
(unfortunately, the USB support is currently a proprietary add-on if I'm informed correctly; they seem to have plans to also release that part one day, though)
Uwe.
* Uwe Hermann uwe@hermann-uwe.de [070515 18:01]:
On Mon, May 14, 2007 at 05:02:14PM +0200, Peter Stuge wrote:
VMware server doesn't cost anything.
Yeah, but it's proprietary, closed-source. Try VirtualBox, that's said to work pretty well, in general.
(unfortunately, the USB support is currently a proprietary add-on if I'm informed correctly; they seem to have plans to also release that part one day, though)
and it is based on Virtual PC and it is a lot slower than vmware.
-
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger -
Corey Osgood -
joe＠smittys.pointclark.net -
Luc Verhaegen -
Peter Stuge -
roger -
Stefan Reinauer -
Uwe Hermann -
Ward Vandewege