[LinuxBIOS] Ready to LinuxBIOS on a GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4?

[Dave Crossland]

Hi,

I've recently bought a new workstation using a GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4
motherboard. http://linuxbios.org/Desktops says this is supported but
its status is still 'work in progress.'

Are there any other LinuxBIOS users about to upgrade their BIOS on
this board? I've never flashed a BIOS before, and don't want to brick
my nice new machine! :-)

[Corey Osgood]

Dave Crossland wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've recently bought a new workstation using a GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4
> motherboard. http://linuxbios.org/Desktops says this is supported but
> its status is still 'work in progress.'
>
> Are there any other LinuxBIOS users about to upgrade their BIOS on
> this board? I've never flashed a BIOS before, and don't want to brick
> my nice new machine! :-)

Not yet! Right now, I don't think it'll even build, from what I've heard
there are still pieces of the patch missing (can anyone confirm this?).
I tried to build it, but the config file failed, and I've got too many
other things going to mess with it right now. But, even at that, I don't
think it's been tested yet, so get an extra flash chip or two before you
try (mouser.com and avnet.com both sell them cheap, and mouser usually
has my order here within a couple days). I hope the board has a
removable bios chip!

-Corey

[Uwe Hermann]

On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 11:25:13PM -0500, Corey Osgood wrote:
> Not yet! Right now, I don't think it'll even build, from what I've heard
> there are still pieces of the patch missing (can anyone confirm this?).

Yes.
> I tried to build it, but the config file failed, and I've got too many
> other things going to mess with it right now. But, even at that, I don't
> think it's been tested yet, so get an extra flash chip or two before you
> try (mouser.com and avnet.com both sell them cheap, and mouser usually
> has my order here within a couple days). I hope the board has a
> removable bios chip!

Yep, you should definately have a means of backup. The chip seems to be
soldered on (at least on some of the boards)? Is yours socketed or soldered?

Uwe.

[Dave Crossland]

On 27/02/07, Corey Osgood  wrote:
> Not yet! Right now, I don't think it'll even build

On 27/02/07, Uwe Hermann  wrote:
> Yep, you should definately have a means of backup. The chip seems to be
> soldered on (at least on some of the boards)?
> Is yours socketed or soldered?

It arrives tomorrow so I can't check for sure, but an image of the board is at

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Image/motherboard_productimage_m57sli-s4...

and the manual at

http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-m57sli-s4_...

says the BIOS is between the two graphics card slots, and _looks_ like
its not soldered on.

[Ward Vandewege]

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 07:05:55PM +0000, Dave Crossland wrote:
> It arrives tomorrow so I can't check for sure, but an image of the board is at
>
> http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/Image/motherboard_productimage_m57sli-s4...
>
> and the manual at
>
> http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList/Manual/motherboard_manual_ga-m57sli-s4_...
>
> says the BIOS is between the two graphics card slots, and _looks_ like
> its not soldered on.

We got 2 boards from newegg last week, and the bios *is* soldered on :(

However, there's this photo:

http://www.motherboards.org/imageview.html?i=/images/reviews/motherboards/16...

There must be more than one revision of this board floating around.

It really sucks that they saved $0.30 or so on a socket - seems a bit
extravagant since this board is not low-end (for a desktop board).

Thanks,
Ward.

[Uwe Hermann]

On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 02:23:21PM -0500, Ward Vandewege wrote:
> However, there's this photo:
>
> http://www.motherboards.org/imageview.html?i=/images/reviews/motherboards/16...
>
> There must be more than one revision of this board floating around.

Maybe the one with the socket was a development board they used for
debugging and taking photos, but all the shipped boards come with a
soldered chip!? That would suck.

Uwe.