ASUS P4XP-X

[Patrick Welche]

Is there a newbies list?

I thought I would attempt to upgrade the firmware of a SiI3124 SATALink
PCI card plugged into a P4XP-X motherboard. Stage one seems to be to run
flashrom -V (attached). It seems that P4XP-X isn't listed in flashrom -L,
so maybe I could "test" somehow?

How can I probe for the sata card?

On another computer with an intel board, the intel supplied bios executable
contains EV0482C.BIO and EV0482C.ITK. .BIO seems promising as "BIOS", but
the .ITK looks as though it contains all the strings - presumably both
files are necessary for an upgrade?

Pointers to a FM welcome...

Cheers,

Patrick

[Bernd Blaauw]

Op 2-9-2011 14:01, Patrick Welche schreef:
> Is there a newbies list?

Not that I know of. Most developer lists tolerate non-developer input to 
a certain degree, or flat out ignore messages. Don't hesitate to ask, it 
might keep people sharp :)
> I thought I would attempt to upgrade the firmware of a SiI3124 SATALink
> PCI card plugged into a P4XP-X motherboard. Stage one seems to be to run
> flashrom -V (attached). It seems that P4XP-X isn't listed in flashrom -L,
> so maybe I could "test" somehow?

Likely flashrom defaults to a single device with ROM, instead of 
mentioning every device with a ROM, or accepting input for all of them 
(say, 6 Intel network cards each in their own PCI-express slot), and 
user wanting to flash them simultaneously.
> How can I probe for the sata card?

You'll need to indicate the specific programmer you want to use, in this 
case your sata card. Something like
flashrom -p:satasii

(the manual is located well-hidden on flashrom.org pages at:
[ http://flashrom.org/trac/flashrom/browser/trunk/flashrom.8 ])
> On another computer with an intel board, the intel supplied bios executable
> contains EV0482C.BIO and EV0482C.ITK. .BIO seems promising as "BIOS", but
> the .ITK looks as though it contains all the strings - presumably both
> files are necessary for an upgrade?

That's hard to say. You'd have to use your Intel reference flash tool 
while removing EV0482C.BIN. Basicly then you're testing if your BIO file 
can work standalone using the flashing tool. If it works, great. If it 
fails, Flashrom might be in trouble also, depending on if the file is 
required by Intel flash program, or if the BIO file won't run in 
cooperation with flashrom program at all.

If the ITK file contains all strings, then it means either the BIO file 
contains no strings (they're patched in by bios flash program) or the 
BIO file contains default strings which can be optionally localized by 
the ITK file.

You'll just have to try, but it would be very wise to have a spare BIOS 
chip available with a known working BIOS on it, before experimenting
> Pointers to a FM welcome...

[Stefan Tauner]

On Fri, 2 Sep 2011 13:01:49 +0100
Patrick Welche  wrote:
> Is there a newbies list?
>
> I thought I would attempt to upgrade the firmware of a SiI3124 SATALink
> PCI card plugged into a P4XP-X motherboard. Stage one seems to be to run
> flashrom -V (attached). It seems that P4XP-X isn't listed in flashrom -L,
> so maybe I could "test" somehow?

hi there!

bernd has already answered most of your questions. the only thing i
want to add is this:
the list of mainboards in flashrom -L and in the wiki are only
indicating support for flashing the onboard flash chips (where the
BIOS/firmware) resides. for pci-based (and other "external")
programmers this is not relevant.
the "problem" is, that the internal programmer is the default. for
everything else you have to select the programmer with the -p option as
bernd told you and which is also described in the man page.