ASRock 939A785GMH/128M trouble

[Dmitry Samoyloff]

Hello!

I've tried to install Coreboot/SeaBIOS on my ASRock 939A785GMH/128M
motherboard [1], leaving it totally unbootable: no beeps, no VGA output :-(

I followed installation instructions from coreboot.org with SVN checkout,
"make menuconfig" and "make". The payload is SeaBIOS stable.

BTW, what makes me suspicious is a build process, the first "make" failed
with:

<...>
    Compiling (16bit) out/code16.o
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "./tools/layoutrom.py", line 436, in <module>
    main()
    File "./tools/layoutrom.py", line 428, in main
    keep16[0], keep32seg[0], keep32flat[0])
    File "./tools/layoutrom.py", line 161, in doLayout
    locs16fixed, firstfixed = fitSections(fixedsections, textsections)
    File "./tools/layoutrom.py", line 141, in fitSections
    firstfixed = fixedsections[0][0]
    IndexError: list index out of range
    make[2]: *** [out/romlayout16.lds] Error 1
    make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    make[2]: *** wait: Нет дочерних процессов.  Stop.
    make[1]: *** [seabios] Error 2
    make: *** [seabios] Error 2

However, the subsequent "make clean" and "make" ended up with success:

<...>
    Compiling (16bit) out/code16.o
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_200005-innsmouth")
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_200005-innsmouth")
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_200005-innsmouth")
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_200005-innsmouth")
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    Linking out/rom16.o
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    Linking out/rom32seg.o
    Stripping out/rom32seg.strip.o
    Stripping out/rom16.strip.o
    Fixed space: 0xe05b-0x10000  total: 8101  slack: 15  Percent slack: 0.2%
    16bit size:           39872
    32bit segmented size: 2529
    32bit flat size:      54383
    Linking out/rom.o
    Prepping out/bios.bin
    Total size: 96784  Free space: 34288  Percent used: 73.8% (128KiB rom)
    CBFS       coreboot.rom
    PAYLOAD    SeaBIOS (internal, compression: LZMA)
    CBFSPRINT  coreboot.rom

After that I copied build/coreboot.rom onto USB flash and installed it on
motherboard's flash successfully using "flashrom -w coreboot.rom". The
motherboard's chip is Winbond W25Q80, 1024 KB (this size is a default in
menuconfig, so I didn't changed it).

I will answer more questions if it's needed.

I'd also appreciate any help or hints on recovery, because now I can't even
boot. I tried that trick with AMIBOOT.ROM on USB flash and <Ctrl>+<Home>, but
it didn't worked for me.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[1] http://www.coreboot.org/ASRock_939A785GMH-128M

[Dmitry Samoyloff]

At Sun, 30 Jan 2011 00:07:29 +0300,
Dmitry Samoyloff wrote:
> The motherboard's chip is Winbond W25Q80, 1024 KB.

I also have ASUS M3A78-EM mobo with chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB,
SPI). Is it a good idea to hot swap these chips to try to recover? Are they
interchangeable?

[Neo The User]

> I've tried to install Coreboot/SeaBIOS on my ASRock
> 939A785GMH/128M
> motherboard [1], leaving it totally unbootable: no beeps,
> no VGA output :-(

This is why you need a seperate flash chip, so you can back up your working system. Now you have to solder the chip off the motherboard, put it in another motherboard, flash the BIOS chip with the ASRock BIOS (AMI), and put it back into the broken / bricked motherboard and reboot it.
> I'd also appreciate any help or hints on recovery, because
> now I can't even
> boot. I tried that trick with AMIBOOT.ROM on USB flash and
> <Ctrl>+<Home>, but
> it didn't worked for me.

It didn't work because Coreboot doesn't have a USB rescue feature, so the only way to fix it, to my knowledge is to solder parts on and off. This requires very good soldering skills in order to have it work successfully. If you strip the traces off, let alone the pads, you have just made a bad situation worse. Flashing a motherboard with Coreboot should never be done unless you have some sort of back-up and hardware / soldering skills.

[Neo The User]

> > The motherboard's chip is Winbond W25Q80, 1024 KB.
>
> I also have ASUS M3A78-EM mobo with chip "Macronix
> MX25L8005" (1024 KB,
> SPI). Is it a good idea to hot swap these chips to try to
> recover? Are they
> interchangeable?

They are both serial flash devices and in theory, should work. I personally have a MX25L8005 as well on my 785 board and it works fine with Flashrom.

However keep in mind that the BIOS stored on the MX25L8005 will NOT work on the ASRock board because the CPU sockets are different and among other things, but when you re-flash the chips, the data is overwritten anyway with whatever you just flashed it with.

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Dmitry Samoyloff  [110129 22:07]:
> I've tried to install Coreboot/SeaBIOS on my ASRock 939A785GMH/128M
> motherboard [1], leaving it totally unbootable: no beeps, no VGA output :-(

What's on serial console?
> I followed installation instructions from coreboot.org with SVN checkout,
> "make menuconfig" and "make". The payload is SeaBIOS stable.
>
> BTW, what makes me suspicious is a build process, the first "make" failed
> with:
> <...>
> Compiling (16bit) out/code16.o
> Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
> Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
> Building ld scripts (version "0.6.1.2-20110129_195624-innsmouth")
> Traceback (most recent call last):

This was fixed in the upstream repository.

http://git.linuxtogo.org/?p=kevin/seabios.git;a=blobdiff;f=Makefile;h=dfccce...

Once there is a new release tag it'll go into the stable seabios build
for coreboot.

Stefan

[Dmitry Samoyloff]

At Sat, 29 Jan 2011 18:43:10 -0800 (PST),
Neo The User  wrote:
> > > The motherboard's chip is Winbond W25Q80, 1024 KB.
> >
> > I also have ASUS M3A78-EM mobo with chip "Macronix
> > MX25L8005" (1024 KB,
> > SPI). Is it a good idea to hot swap these chips to try to
> > recover? Are they
> > interchangeable?
>
> They are both serial flash devices and in theory, should work. I personally have a MX25L8005 as well on my 785 board and it works fine with Flashrom.
>
> However keep in mind that the BIOS stored on the MX25L8005 will NOT work on the ASRock board because the CPU sockets are different and among other things, but when you re-flash the chips, the data is overwritten anyway with whatever you just flashed it with.

Thank you very much for your response! I did hot swapping successfully and
will now be able to boot anyways in case of disaster. I will also try to find
identical backup chips for my motherboards to make recovery easier.

[Dmitry Samoyloff]

At Sun, 30 Jan 2011 06:59:39 +0100,
Stefan Reinauer  wrote:
> Dmitry Samoyloff  [110129 22:07]:
> > I've tried to install Coreboot/SeaBIOS on my ASRock 939A785GMH/128M
> > motherboard [1], leaving it totally unbootable: no beeps, no VGA output :-(
>
> What's on serial console?

I can't check it currently as I have no serial port on any other computer than
939A785GMH/128M itself. I will get a serial port bracket tomorrow and report.