Re: [flashrom] [coreboot] Support for Gigabyte ga-ma78gm-us2h?

[Mike Banon]

Get a hardware programmer for BIOS chips (e.g. cheap CH341A) together
with SOIC8 test clip (if your type of BIOS chip is indeed SOIC8, I
just looked at some photos of your board online...) and do In-System
Programming with a flashrom. Thanks to a test clip you will not need
to solder your board in order to flash a BIOS.

Nothing can stop a hardware programmer ;) You could backup both of
your current BIOSes and replace everything with coreboot to get rid of
original BIOS warnings/checksums , and if you would like to restore
the original BIOS back it will be really easy.

Now, what could be tried if a current revision of coreboot does not
work for you?

1) Check what is the date of last successful board status report. At
your case, I see that nobody submitted a report for your board, so you
probably need to choose this day as the day of support addition ( Aug
17 13:22:40 2010 ) and test if it worked at this time or maybe 1 month
after this time (if a full support has been added gradually)

2) You divide the time between current date and "1)" date by 2 - to
get a "test date" - then download a coreboot/seabios repositories at
this "test date", build and test it. If it works --> you go forward in
time, if it does not work --> you go back in time; again, dividing the
remaining range by two. You have to go through a long history in your
case, 2000 days, but if you are always dividing by two its less than
2048 = 2^11 so you could find the last day it worked in 11 tries

3) So you found the last day, and then the last commit when it worked.
Now you see what commit broke a support for your board, and could
either live with old coreboot stuff, or figure out what changes need
to be made to newer coreboot - so that your board works, while not
breaking a support for other boards (IMPORTANT)

Best regards,
Mike Banon
> Thanks a lot for the help, but now I don't even get to the black screen.
> Whenever I flash coreboot and reboot the computer, after a few seconds of
> black-screen the backup BIOS complains about a checksum fail from the main
> bios chip and resets the contents to the original BIOS. I have a few ideas
> to try tonight, so I'll try that. Hopefully I'll be able to achieve
> something.
>
> Cheers,
> Alberto

2016-09-28 15:10 GMT-03:00 Zoran Stojsavljevic <
zoran.stojsavljevic at gmail.com>:
> *"Приветствую!*
> *Если я правильно понял, то у меня была схожая проблема, когда я пытался
> запустить coreboot на Asus m4a785-m. Я потратил 2 месяца на ее решение, а
> решение оказалось простым.*
> *Проблема в вызовах printk() до инициализации консоли. Видимо
> переполняется кэш процессора."*
>
> Translation for the above is the following (maybe this also can help):
>
> Hello,
>
> If I correctly understand, I had very similar problem, when I
> struggled/tried to bring up Coreboot on Asus m4a785-m. I lost two months
> for solution finding, and solution appeared to be simplistic.
> Problem is by calling printk() before console init. Apparently CPU cache
> is overloading.
>
> (love Russian language, could not resist)!
>
> Zoran
>
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 5:54 PM, Alexey Borovikov via coreboot <
> coreboot at coreboot.org> wrote:
> > Hi!
> > May be the problems in call printk() before console_init(). Two way:
> > To comment printk in function which call before console_init.
> > Call console_init first in function cache_as_ram_main.
> >
> > May be this help.
> >
> > /*
> > Приветствую!
> > Если я правильно понял, то у меня была схожая проблема, когда я пытался
> > запустить coreboot на Asus m4a785-m. Я потратил 2 месяца на ее решение, а
> > решение оказалось простым.
> > Проблема в вызовах printk() до инициализации консоли. Видимо
> > переполняется кэш процессора.
> > Для решения два пути:
> > Закомментировать все вызовы printk до вызова console_init
> > Попробовать вызвать console_init как можно раньше в функции
> >
> > cache_as_ram_main (файл romstage.c).
> > Возможно это поможет.
> > */
> >
> > *From:* Alberto Simón Francés <alberto at simon.ph>
> > *Sent:* Sunday, September 25, 2016 6:07 PM
> > *To:* coreboot at coreboot.org
> > *Subject:* [coreboot] Support for Gigabyte ga-ma78gm-us2h?
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > I've been trying to make this board boot and I haven't had much success.
> > Sometimes I've been able to get it to POST, but it's not something that
> > happens consistently. Since I can't find much info other than it being
> > listed, I'm asking here to see if by any chance there's something that I'm
> > missing, because I feel like I'm just trying random things to see what
> > sticks.
> >
> > Thankfully the board has dual bios, so it's easy to go back if I mess
> > something up. Please, help.
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Albert