I'm thinking about buying an Asus M2A-VM but the wiki page [1] saying 4GB of RAM doesn't work and listing sensors/fan control/ACPI as WIP worries me. The wiki was last updated about a year ago. Does this info still represent the current state of things?
Hi Jason,
On 28.06.2010 06:41, Jason Self wrote:
I'm thinking about buying an Asus M2A-VM but the wiki page [1] saying 4GB of RAM doesn't work and listing sensors/fan control/ACPI as WIP worries me. The wiki was last updated about a year ago. Does this info still represent the current state of things?
The wiki page is somewhat up to date. I did the M2A-VM port because I own the board. I don't know if the RAM issue is fixed because the board is in another country and switched off, and the last revision I checked was r4681. I can update my patch to latest svn, but it will take at least two weeks before I'm visiting the place where that board is, and due to that, testing will have to wait until then.
Please note that the M2A-VM has a soldered flash chip, and you will have to desolder it (or perform some top hat flash or in circuit flashing trickery) before you can try coreboot. The flash chip is LPC with PLCC32 form factor, and desoldering a 32-pin chip scares many people.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
Please note that the M2A-VM has a soldered flash chip, and you will have to desolder it (or perform some top hat flash or in circuit flashing trickery) before you can try coreboot. The flash chip is LPC with PLCC32 form factor, and desoldering a 32-pin chip scares many people.
Indeed; I've never soldered/desoldered anything in my life. I thought that Flashrom was used to get Coreboot onto the board. I clearly misunderstand the purpose of Flashrom if physical modification is also needed. If that's specific to the M2A-VM perhaps I should look for a different Micro ATX board with which I can use Flashrom. Suggestions?
29.06.2010 15:46, Jason Self пишет:
Indeed; I've never soldered/desoldered anything in my life. I thought that Flashrom was used to get Coreboot onto the board. I clearly misunderstand the purpose of Flashrom if physical modification is also needed. If that's specific to the M2A-VM perhaps I should look for a different Micro ATX board with which I can use Flashrom. Suggestions?
You can brick your board if something goes wrong. So it's recommended to use 'top hat' tool (simply 2 PLCC panels, that are connected pin-to-pin, except, as I remember, CS signal) - that allows to place new chip over soldered one, and safely use new chip for experiments - and if something goes wrong, just remove 'top hat' and get system with original BIOS. P.S. Soldering is easy by hot air that heating bottom of PCB - 300..350C. + of course flux. And it's ideal to have in this case two-side heating - ftom top and bottom; solder becomes liquid for 2-3 minutes...
On 29.06.2010 14:46, Jason Self wrote:
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote
Please note that the M2A-VM has a soldered flash chip, and you will have to desolder it (or perform some top hat flash or in circuit flashing trickery) before you can try coreboot. The flash chip is LPC with PLCC32 form factor, and desoldering a 32-pin chip scares many people.
Indeed; I've never soldered/desoldered anything in my life. I thought that Flashrom was used to get Coreboot onto the board. I clearly misunderstand the purpose of Flashrom if physical modification is also
No, flashrom works fine on the M2A-VM. The problem is that if your coreboot image is broken, you need to recover. Usually the first attempt at building coreboot image won't boot, and then you are stuck. You now need a way to reflash the chip with an external programmer or another board or you have to override the onboard chip. External programmers are expensive, and they usually can't flash a chip which is soldered to a mainboard. Programming the flash chip in another board is only possible if you desolder it. Overriding the flash chip with another known working chip can only be done with top hat flash on the M2A-VM and I don't know if the board survives top hat flash.
needed. If that's specific to the M2A-VM perhaps I should look for a different Micro ATX board with which I can use Flashrom. Suggestions?
AFAIK flashrom works on all coreboot-supported boards. However, if a machine doesn't boot, you can't run flashrom on it. For that, you need an easy way to boot from a working flash chip, and if your flash chip is socketed, this is really simple: Plug in another chip, done.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Okay -- I decided to go with the A8V-E SE instead. Like the M2A-VM, it's Mini ATX. It's sligtly more expensive, and has a slower system bus, but it appears to be better supported than M2A-VM and has a socketed ROM... just in case. :)
Jason Self jason@bluehome.net wrote ..
Okay -- I decided to go with the A8V-E SE instead. Like the M2A-VM, it's Mini ATX. It's sligtly more expensive, and has a slower system bus, but it appears to be better supported than M2A-VM and has a socketed ROM... just in case. :)
Er; I meant to say M2V-MX SE, not A8V-E SE, and Micro ATX. Uggh.