Support ASUS M4A78PRO motherboard ?

[N. Pattakos]

Hi everyone,

I have followed the mailing list for a couple of years now and I would now like 
to try installing coreboot to my desktops. I am not a hardware person but I 
will try to get both of my desktops supported.

The first mobo I intend to "port" is an ASUS M4A78 PRO which is not listed as a 
supported motherboarf. I saw that ASUS M4A78EM is and they are pretty similar so 
I guess I should be lucky.
My mboard has a fam10h Northbridge and AMD 780G/SB700 southbridge and I will 
test using an AMD 7750 (2core, K10 based, 2.7ghz) cpu. I am not using it right 
now to post more information but I guess these are enough to begin with.

To begin with I read everything I found on your web page and bought a spare BIOS 
chip (hopefully the correct one :p . I downloaded and built seabios to use as a 
payload and then built a coreboot image for the M4A78EM mobo which I am ready to 
flash as soon as I get my new BIOS chip.

However, I bet it will not work. Can someone please help me move on? What do I 
do next ? What should I look for? I am completely lost from this point on

Best regards
Nikos

[Myles Watson]

> To begin with I read everything I found on your web page and bought a
> spare BIOS
> chip (hopefully the correct one :p . I downloaded and built seabios to use
> as a
> payload and then built a coreboot image for the M4A78EM mobo which I am
> ready to
> flash as soon as I get my new BIOS chip.
>
> However, I bet it will not work. Can someone please help me move on? What
> do I
> do next ? What should I look for? I am completely lost from this point on

While you're waiting, you could:

- Check the serial port with another computer and a null-modem cable
- Compare the lspci from the M4A78 PRO & EM
- Check to see if the SuperIO is the same
- Try out AMD SimNOW with coreboot to familiarize yourself with the boot
process

Once you get output from the serial port that you can send to the list, it's
easier to help you.

Thanks,
Myles

[Juhana Helovuo]

Myles Watson wrote:
> While you're waiting, you could:
> Check the serial port with another computer and a null-modem cable
> Compare the lspci from the M4A78 PRO & EM
> Check to see if the SuperIO is the same
> Try out AMD SimNOW with coreboot to familiarize yourself with the boot
>
> process

A zoomable photo of the board available at

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131362

shows that the SuperIO chip is ITE IT8720F. This is not yet supported in 
  Coreboot. ITE web pages offers a data sheet, but it is only a short 
summary with no programming specs. But you could always try with e.g. 
ITE IT8718F driver code, in case that is similar enough for booting.

If the serial port cable is not included with the board, you need to 
also get or build a cable to connect the null-modem cable to "COM1" 
connector on the board.

Remember to keep your original BIOS chip safe, so that you don't 
accidentally flash over it. The safest thing should be to first practice 
with flashrom by reading the original BIOS image, then replacing the 
BIOS chip with a new one while the board is running, and then flashing 
the factory BIOS to the new chip.

Best regards,
Juhana Helovuo