My Aspire 3680 has a bad BIOS, is no longer under warranty, and is already leaning towards obsolescence a year and a half after its purchase; I'm wondering if Coreboot might work on it.
The output of lspci follows: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02) 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01) 0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller 0a:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
How well are 945GM and 82801G supported? Could I actually have Coreboot working on this machine, or would I only succeed in bricking it? Would I need custom code for the laptop?
Also, for whatever it's worth - can Coreboot load GNU GRUB (or FreeBSD's BTX bootloader) instead of a Linux kernel?
Hi Daniel,
On 04.12.2008 21:17, Daniel Levine wrote:
My Aspire 3680 has a bad BIOS, is no longer under warranty, and is already leaning towards obsolescence a year and a half after its purchase; I'm wondering if Coreboot might work on it.
The output of lspci follows: [...] How well are 945GM and 82801G supported? Could I actually have Coreboot working on this machine, or would I only succeed in bricking it? Would I need custom code for the laptop?
That depends a lot on the embedded controller in your laptop. Unfortunately, finding the embedded controller chip by software is next to impossible because almost all embedded controller data sheets are under NDA or totally unavailable. That's also the biggest reason why coreboot focuses on desktop, server and embedded boards. Usually none of those boards need or have an embedded controller, so we can circumvent the associated headache.
Also, for whatever it's worth - can Coreboot load GNU GRUB (or FreeBSD's BTX bootloader) instead of a Linux kernel?
It can work with GRUB2, but I have no idea about BTX loading. Most bootloaders try to use BIOS interrupt services and for that you need to load SeaBIOS.
Regards, Carl-Daniel
Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
That depends a lot on the embedded controller in your laptop. Unfortunately, finding the embedded controller chip by software is next to impossible because almost all embedded controller data sheets are under NDA or totally unavailable.
I've been having a hit rate of 100% on free data sheets for the ECs used in 945 based systems so far. Doesn't significantly help though, as the protocol for communication between "the bios" and the EC firmware is usually not documented, and schematics for the systems are hard to find.
Daniel, you might want to start with reading out your flash chip with flashrom, finding out what chip it is, open the laptop, check if it's socketed... Find out what superios are in there (superiotool), investigate the system with inteltool, ...
Stefan
On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Daniel Levine dlev89@gmail.com wrote:
My Aspire 3680 has a bad BIOS, is no longer under warranty, and is already leaning towards obsolescence a year and a half after its purchase; I'm wondering if Coreboot might work on it.
The output of lspci follows: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02) 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8038 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 14) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01) 0a:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller 0a:09.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
How well are 945GM and 82801G supported? Could I actually have Coreboot working on this machine, or would I only succeed in bricking it? Would I need custom code for the laptop?
they're quite well supported. But there is so much custom hardware in these laptops -- the embedded controller is the big one -- that you would have to commit to significant reverse engineering. This will be a bit of work absent help from Acer.
Also, for whatever it's worth - can Coreboot load GNU GRUB (or FreeBSD's BTX bootloader) instead of a Linux kernel?
Does BTX make BIOS calls? In any event there are lots of bootloaders you can use, I believe (but have not tried) GRUB+seabios+coreboot ought to work.
ron
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Carl-Daniel Hailfinger -
Daniel Levine -
ron minnich -
Stefan Reinauer