status of coreboot on Asus A8N-E

[Pierre Schmitz]

Hi there,

I have an A8N-E from Asus and according to your wiki it is supported by 
coreboot: http://www.coreboot.org/ASUS_A8N-E

I did search the wiki, mailing list archives and even had a look at the 
source. But I am not sure about the statement about the PCIx16 slot: "Doesn't 
seem to work, yet (?)"

Is this still valid and would it mean I wont have any display output? The 
latter would be some kind of showstopper for me :-)

Greetings,

Pierre

[Andy Jakobs]

Hello Pierre,

I also have this board and a NVIDIA 7600GT PCI-E card.

I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there was 
still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no real 
alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.

But console output works.

Best regards,
Andy
> > Hi there,
> >
> > I have an A8N-E from Asus and according to your wiki it is supported by
> > coreboot: http://www.coreboot.org/ASUS_A8N-E
> >
> > I did search the wiki, mailing list archives and even had a look at the
> > source. But I am not sure about the statement about the PCIx16 slot: 
> > "Doesn't
> > seem to work, yet (?)"
> >
> > Is this still valid and would it mean I wont have any display output? 
> > The latter would be some kind of showstopper for me :-)
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Pierre
> >
> > Pierre Schmitz
> >
> > Clemens-August-Straße 76
> > 53115 Bonn
> >
> > Telefon		[phone]
> > Mobil		0160 95269831
> > Jabber		pierre at jabber.archlinux.de
> > WWW		http://www.archlinux.de

[Pierre Schmitz]

Am Freitag, 8. Mai 2009 08:37:15 schrieb Andy Jakobs:
> I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there was
> still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no real
> alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.

Thanks for the information. I'll keep a look at corebooot; maybe some day 
someone will find a solution.

However: keep up the great work. I think once there are more fully supported 
(mainstream) boards development speed will increase a lot.

[Uwe Hermann]

Hi,

On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:37:15AM +0200, Andy Jakobs wrote:
> I also have this board and a NVIDIA 7600GT PCI-E card.
>
> I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there was  
> still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no real  
> alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.
>
> But console output works.

I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board documentation/datasheets
are not available of course).

Uwe.

[Andrew Goodbody]

Uwe Hermann wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:37:15AM +0200, Andy Jakobs wrote:
> > I also have this board and a NVIDIA 7600GT PCI-E card.
> >
> > I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there was  
> > still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no real  
> > alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.
> >
> > But console output works.
>
> I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
> stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
> that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board documentation/datasheets
> are not available of course).
>
> Uwe.

I doubt it's an IRQ issue. The IRQ was used in CGA/EGA adapters to 
signal frame sync in order to allow updating of the screen without 
causing flicker. This has not been an issue since the introduction of 
the original VGA adapter, IIRC.

Andrew

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 08.05.2009 14:31, Andrew Goodbody wrote:
> Uwe Hermann wrote:
> > On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:37:15AM +0200, Andy Jakobs wrote:
> > > I also have this board and a NVIDIA 7600GT PCI-E card.
> > >
> > > I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there
> > > was  still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no
> > > real  alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.
> > >
> > > But console output works.
> >
> > I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
> > stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
> > that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board
> > documentation/datasheets
> > are not available of course).
>
> I doubt it's an IRQ issue. The IRQ was used in CGA/EGA adapters to
> signal frame sync in order to allow updating of the screen without
> causing flicker. This has not been an issue since the introduction of
> the original VGA adapter, IIRC.

Most drivers don't work if interrupt routing is not set up correctly.
Many modern graphics cards use interrupts a lot for lots of purposes
besides signal frame sync.
So far, fixing interrupt routing fixed graphics on lots of boards.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

[Pierre Schmitz]

Am Freitag, 8. Mai 2009 13:26:10 schrieb Uwe Hermann:
> I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
> stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
> that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board
> documentation/datasheets are not available of course).

Fine. There is nothing I can do to help, right? There is a irq/priority/device 
table in the manual, but it lacks information about PCIx.

[Myles Watson]

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 11:23 AM, Pierre Schmitz  wrote:
> Am Freitag, 8. Mai 2009 13:26:10 schrieb Uwe Hermann:
> > I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
> > stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
> > that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board
> > documentation/datasheets are not available of course).
>
> Fine. There is nothing I can do to help, right? There is a irq/priority/device
> table in the manual, but it lacks information about PCIx.

You could dig around in the factory DSDT, mptable, ...

Myles

[Andy Jakobs]

Hello Uwe,

I would bring this topic "up" again and kindly ask you, if had some time 
looking at the A8N-E board.

Is there any way forward planned on your side for this board yet?

I am honestly waiting for a running coreboot on A8N-E since ~two years.
A lot of little (or better big) steps were made to get each component of 
the board running. But unfortunately no "breakthrough" so far... meaning 
I can't use it for daily work yet.

Please don't get me wrong - I know that you and all the other devs are 
doing difficult and time intensive work on the whole coreboot project.

So I want to thank all of you for this hard work!

Salutations,
Andy
> Uwe Hermann uwe at hermann-uwe.de
> Fri May 8 13:26:10 CEST 2009
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>
> Hi,
>
> On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 08:37:15AM +0200, Andy Jakobs wrote:
> > I also have this board and a NVIDIA 7600GT PCI-E card.
> >
> > I tested the latest revision a few days ago. Unfortunately there was
> > still no output on the screen after a power-off. So it is no real
> > alternative/replacement for the legacy bios of the board yet.
> >
> > But console output works.
>
> I have the board here, maybe I find the time to look into it. The issue
> stems very likely from an incorrect IRQ routing setup, however fixing
> that is not always trivial unfortunately (and board 
> documentation/datasheets
> are not available of course).
> Uwe.
>
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