Is this board supported?

[Thomas Rohloff]

Hi,
I have a AsRock 870 Etreme3
( http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=870%20extreme3 ) and
wanted to know if it's supported b coreboot.

This is the output from flashrom:

flashrom v0.9.3-r1205 on Linux 3.0.0-rc1 (x86_64), built with libpci
3.1.7, GCC 4.6.0, little endian flashrom is free software, get the
source code at http://www.flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
No coreboot table found.
Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address
0xfff00000. No operations were specified.

- Northbridge: AMD 870
- Southbridge: AMD SB850
- SuperIO: Nuvoton W83677HG-I (NCT6771F/NCT6772F/NCT6775F)
- CPU: Unlocked AMD Athlon II X3 455

So, is this possible? And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core
with coreboot?

[Russell Whitaker]

On Thu, 2 Jun 2011, Thomas Rohloff wrote:
> CPU: Unlocked AMD Athlon II X3 455
>
> And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core?

You may not want to. I don't know about AMD, but if I were a semiconductor 
manufacture I would build 4 core chips and if one core failed QC, I'd
lock that core off and sell it as a 3 core.

Russ

[Thomas Rohloff]

Am Thu, 2 Jun 2011 00:01:13 -0700 (PDT)
schrieb Russell Whitaker :
> On Thu, 2 Jun 2011, Thomas Rohloff wrote:
> > CPU: Unlocked AMD Athlon II X3 455
> >
> > And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core?
>
> You may not want to. I don't know about AMD, but if I were a
> semiconductor manufacture I would build 4 core chips and if one core
> failed QC, I'd lock that core off and sell it as a 3 core.
>
> Russ

I'm using the 4. core with the default BIOS (UCC) a long time now and
it's working fine.
So please don't tell me what I may want or not, simply answer my
original questions, please. :)

P.S. Sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language.

[Patrick Georgi]

Am 02.06.2011 09:01, schrieb Russell Whitaker:
> > And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core?
>
> You may not want to. I don't know about AMD, but if I were a
> semiconductor manufacture I would build 4 core chips and if one core
> failed QC, I'd
> lock that core off and sell it as a 3 core.

They also do that to "good" chips if there's more demand for 3-core
chips than what they produce (ie. if their yield is too good).

Patrick

[Stefan Reinauer]

On 6/1/11 10:52 PM, Thomas Rohloff wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a AsRock 870 Etreme3
> ( http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=870%20extreme3 ) and
> wanted to know if it's supported b coreboot.

See http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards for a list of 
supported boards.
> So, is this possible? And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core
> with coreboot?

Yes it is possible. You will have to figure out, how, though.

Stefan

[Thomas Rohloff]

Am Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:37:16 -0700
schrieb Stefan Reinauer :
> On 6/1/11 10:52 PM, Thomas Rohloff wrote:
> > Hi,
> > I have a AsRock 870 Etreme3
> > ( http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=870%20extreme3 ) and
> > wanted to know if it's supported b coreboot.
>
> See http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards for a list of 
> supported boards.

So it's not supported? Is there a change that it will be supported in
the near future?
> > So, is this possible? And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core
> > with coreboot?
>
> Yes it is possible. You will have to figure out, how, though.

Can you give me some hints?

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Thomas Rohloff  [110603 12:33]:
> Am Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:37:16 -0700
> schrieb Stefan Reinauer :
> > On 6/1/11 10:52 PM, Thomas Rohloff wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > I have a AsRock 870 Etreme3
> > > ( http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?model=870%20extreme3 ) and
> > > wanted to know if it's supported b coreboot.
> >
> > See http://www.coreboot.org/Supported_Motherboards for a list of 
> > supported boards.
>
> So it's not supported?

Most likely, no. Didn't particularly check the list, but I don't think
it contains any AsRock boards right now.
> Is there a change that it will be supported in
> the near future?

If someone with the hardware steps up to do a port there is a chance
indeed.

That someone could be you! :-)

Basically the way this works is that you look for the most similar board
in the tree, start out with that, and change it until everything works
the way you want it to. This might be an effort anywhere from an hour to
12 months ;) Most likely with AMD chipsets it's rather less time since
AMD supports coreboot quite well.

Also be sure that you have any means of recovery. A second flash chip if
yours is socketed, or an external eeprom burner for instance.
> > > So, is this possible? And is it possible to unlock the 4th CPU-Core
> > > with coreboot?
> >
> > Yes it is possible. You will have to figure out, how, though.
>
> Can you give me some hints?

Have not looked into it, but I believe I read that the 3core/4core switch
is done by some code running on the EC, so it might not be a lot of work
on the bios side.

[Thomas Rohloff]

Am Fri, 3 Jun 2011 20:43:17 +0200
schrieb Stefan Reinauer :
> If someone with the hardware steps up to do a port there is a chance
> indeed.

I googled a bit and found somebody called "Jonathan A. Kollasch". He
wrote that he has a board with the same north- and southbridge. This
message was from 12.04. at 23:06. If anybody has his message (subject:
"SB850 SERR# routinh (almost off-topic)") please re-send it to me
because his e-mail isn't shown in the mailing list archives found by
google but I would like to speak to him. :)
> That someone could be you! :-)

I don't think so. I know all the documentation is there but my coding
skills are extreme poor.
> Also be sure that you have any means of recovery. A second flash chip
> if yours is socketed, or an external eeprom burner for instance.

I would buy a secound chip if I could help with it, but I don't think I
could do more then testing.
> Have not looked into it, but I believe I read that the 3core/4core
> switch is done by some code running on the EC, so it might not be a
> lot of work on the bios side.

What is EC? Is this a chip called "UCC" by AsRock?

[David Hendricks]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Thomas Rohloff  wrote:
> Am Fri, 3 Jun 2011 20:43:17 +0200
> schrieb Stefan Reinauer :
> > If someone with the hardware steps up to do a port there is a chance
> > indeed.
>
> I googled a bit and found somebody called "Jonathan A. Kollasch". He
> wrote that he has a board with the same north- and southbridge. This
> message was from 12.04. at 23:06. If anybody has his message (subject:
> "SB850 SERR# routinh (almost off-topic)") please re-send it to me
> because his e-mail isn't shown in the mailing list archives found by
> google but I would like to speak to him. :)

He hangs out on #coreboot on freenode using the name "jakllsch".

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Thomas Rohloff  wrote:
> > That someone could be you! :-)
>
> I don't think so. I know all the documentation is there but my coding
> skills are extreme poor.

That's fine. It sounds like your board is like 95% done thanks to Jonathan's
efforts (assuming he's been successful) and AMD. If you can copy some files
and make some minor tweaks to config files, that might be enough to get you
up and running without actually doing any coding.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Thomas Rohloff  wrote:
> > Also be sure that you have any means of recovery. A second flash chip
> > if yours is socketed, or an external eeprom burner for instance.
>
> I would buy a secound chip if I could help with it, but I don't think I
> could do more then testing.
> Have not looked into it, but I believe I read that the 3core/4core
> > switch is done by some code running on the EC, so it might not be a
> > lot of work on the bios side.
>
> What is EC? Is this a chip called "UCC" by AsRock?

EC is sort of a SuperIO chip, but with more functions commonly used in
laptops. I think you have a normal SuperIO chip. "UCC" seems to be a
marketing name from AsRock that means "Unlock CPU Core".