[coreboot] coreboot support: difference between ASRock E350M1 and ASRock E350M1/USB3

[Thomas Gstädtner]

On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 15:28, Paul Menzel
<paulepanter at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> Dear Marshall,
>
>
> Am Donnerstag, den 16.06.2011, 17:58 -0500 schrieb Marshall Buschman:
>> I own both boards - both do work, BUT there are still bugs:
>> USB3 and built-in NIC do not work on either by default.
>> Memory is only reported as roughly 512mb at this point.
>
> thank you for the status report.
>
>> You're welcome to help. :)
>
> I know and I would like to help. Unfortunately that would be limited to
> testing once I decide to buy the board.
>
>> As far as your other question... I'm not sure what you mean...
>> USB3 is a physically different connector, with a different pinout
>> entirely, although it does retain backward compatibility with USB2. See
>> http://www.addonics.com/emerging_technologies/usb3_tutorial.asp
>
> I am sorry, let me rephrase my question. The boards have almost the same
> model number so are probably very similar. So I am wondering how the one
> model can support USB3.

The reason is, that USB3 is no chipset feature, it's an external
controller, probably attached over PCIe.
In case of the ASRock it's an EtronTech EJ168A (sits directly behind
the USB controller, the one with the rather large footprint).
The non-USB3 model is the very same mainboard, but they spared that controller.

>
>> If you're referring to the bios chips themselves, they're DIP8s -- both
>> the USB3 and the regular E350M1 use the same kind of chip, but the
>> BIOSes themselves do differ.
>
> That is interesting and strange (for me).
>
>> Hopefully this helps.
>
> Yes, thank you very much for your answers.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul
>
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