[LinuxBIOS] Which BIOS Savior for VIA EPIA M-II?

[Coquelicot]

Dear LinuxBIOSers,

I have a brand new VIA EPIA M-II (with 1 GHz CPU) motherboard that I would
like to boot faster than by factory default (carputer projects). I have
following purchased BIOS Savior from FrozenCPU : RD1-PMC2 but it seems that
it is the wrong one (I have installed the BIOS Savior but the motherboard
doesn't boot, I have tried both positions of the switch). After replacing
the original BIOS back on the motherboard the boot works OK, so it seems
that's definitely the BIOS Savior chip that is not working.

I am tempted to do the direct flashing (ie. without the BIOS Savior) but I
know that's pretty risky... especially that I want the motherboard boot
Linux from CF port (I read the howto and I think I know what to do) which
can be tricky.

Greetings to all LinuxBIOS users & developers,

[Markus]

Am Fri, 26 Oct 2007 10:22:04 +0200
schrieb Coquelicot :
> Dear LinuxBIOSers,
>
> I have a brand new VIA EPIA M-II (with 1 GHz CPU) motherboard that I
> would like to boot faster than by factory default (carputer
> projects). I have following purchased BIOS Savior from FrozenCPU :
> RD1-PMC2 but it seems that it is the wrong one (I have installed the
> BIOS Savior but the motherboard doesn't boot, I have tried both
> positions of the switch). After replacing the original BIOS back on
> the motherboard the boot works OK, so it seems that's definitely the
> BIOS Savior chip that is not working.
>
> I am tempted to do the direct flashing (ie. without the BIOS Savior)
> but I know that's pretty risky... especially that I want the
> motherboard boot Linux from CF port (I read the howto and I think I
> know what to do) which can be tricky.
>
> Greetings to all LinuxBIOS users & developers,

If you don't have two left hands, i suggest this.

Buy an second Flashchip, which same Pining.
Bend out the Pins of this, so you can stack both Flashchips together.
Bend the ChipSelect Pin seperate from both chips.
Take an drilling tool and cut out the Chipselect in the socket.
Take the CS from mainboard and search for an 3,3 or 5 V pin, depend on
what is for the flashchip high.
Buy an switch, 2 changer,

___ Chip 1
Mainboard -----/
           ___ Chip 2

___ Chip 2 
3,3/5V --------/
           ___ Chip 1

For my it work perfect. The unused, saved, Chip have to see the high
pegel, so it ignor everything.

And sorry about my bad english.

Greeding Markus

[Peter Stuge]

On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 10:22:04AM +0200, Coquelicot wrote:
> I have a brand new VIA EPIA M-II (with 1 GHz CPU) motherboard that
> I would like to boot faster than by factory default (carputer
> projects). I have following purchased BIOS Savior from FrozenCPU :
> RD1-PMC2 but it seems that it is the wrong one

Yes, unfortunately it is. The M-II uses parallel flash so you need
RD1-PL (2Mbit, 256kb) or RD1-PL4 (4Mbit, 512kb). These models are no
longer in production and may be difficult to come by.
> I am tempted to do the direct flashing (ie. without the BIOS
> Savior) but I know that's pretty risky...

I strongly suggest to at least get some extra flash chips.
SST39SF040-70-4C-NHE will work well. Glue plastic push pin
knobs to the top of the chips for a nice handle.
> especially that I want the motherboard boot Linux from CF port (I
> read the howto and I think I know what to do) which can be tricky.

Note that I don't know if anyone has actually gotten this to work. I
made some effort about a year ago but there were issues. There was
some discussion on this very topic about one month ago too, look for
a thread in the archive either late September or beginning of October.

//Peter

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Peter Stuge  [071030 03:23]:
> > especially that I want the motherboard boot Linux from CF port (I
> > read the howto and I think I know what to do) which can be tricky.
>
> Note that I don't know if anyone has actually gotten this to work. I
> made some effort about a year ago but there were issues. There was
> some discussion on this very topic about one month ago too, look for
> a thread in the archive either late September or beginning of October.

There was a small program for the initrd that would fix it by resetting
the CF controller after FILO would use it as IDE.

The correct fix would be to put this piece of code in FILO itself after
the kernel was loaded.

I can't seem to find that code anymore though.

[Peter Stuge]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2007 at 03:27:36AM +0100, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Peter Stuge  [071030 03:23]:
> > > especially that I want the motherboard boot Linux from CF port (I
> > > read the howto and I think I know what to do) which can be tricky.
> >
> > Note that I don't know if anyone has actually gotten this to work. I
> > made some effort about a year ago but there were issues. There was
> > some discussion on this very topic about one month ago too, look for
> > a thread in the archive either late September or beginning of October.
>
> There was a small program for the initrd that would fix it by
> resetting the CF controller after FILO would use it as IDE.

That's right! It works with an initrd! Forgot about that.
> The correct fix would be to put this piece of code in FILO itself
> after the kernel was loaded.
>
> I can't seem to find that code anymore though.

LinuxBIOSv2/util/resetcf/resetcf.c

//Peter