[flashrom] [coreboot] gigabyte dual bios programming

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net
Thu Jul 15 20:09:53 CEST 2010


Hi,

On 15.07.2010 16:29, Peter Stuge wrote:
> Andriy Gapon wrote:
>   
>>> Maybe you already know this, but I would not expect the superio to be
>>> involved very much in the dualbios mechanism - at most an IO pin
>>> would be used for the handshake with the patented timer.
>>>       
>> Still I would like to get the spec.
>>     
>
> Yes, fair enough. :)
>
>
>   
>> It may also depend on a particular motherboard, chip, etc.  Perhaps
>> the "patented timer" is implemented in Super I/O.
>>     
>
> I doubt this since Gigabyte owns the patent for the dual bios
> invention, and ITE is unrelated to Gigabyte. The dual bios invention
> might *use* a timer within the superio though - that's possible.
>
>
>   
>> At least, we see that some undocumented Super I/O register(s) are
>> used to switch between the flash chips and some other related
>> things.
>>     
>
> IO pins and timer on the superio could certainly be used.
>   

Did you know that SB700 (and later) has its own Dual BIOS mechanism? If
there is interest, I can help with implementing support for that feature
in flashrom.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

-- 
http://www.hailfinger.org/





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