[flashrom] verbose log of unsupported mainboard Foxconn Q45M

Mendler, Marc (STL) Marc.Mendler at stala.bwl.de
Mon Oct 1 15:42:40 CEST 2012


Hi,

thank you for your hint! With fpt.exe i was able to copy the whole bios with all settings to another machine. The correct syntax for dumping the bios is "fpt.exe -d filename.ext -bios".
The only thing i don't like about this solution is, that you have to "flash" the whole bios (not only the "cmos" memory) on the target machine. This can be dangerous for mass deployment in case of a power failure or something like that...
Is there a chance to read only the "cmos" when i know the correct register and adress ranges (with flashrom)?

kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Marc

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Stefan Tauner [mailto:stefan.tauner at student.tuwien.ac.at] 
Gesendet: Freitag, 21. September 2012 17:08
An: Mendler, Marc (STL)
Cc: flashrom at flashrom.org
Betreff: Re: [flashrom] verbose log of unsupported mainboard Foxconn Q45M

On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 10:22:03 +0200
"Mendler, Marc (STL)" <Marc.Mendler at stala.bwl.de> wrote:

> thanks for your fast reply! I tried the DOS version of fpt.exe. With it i was able to save the bios to an image file and restore it on another computer, but the configured settings are lost (bad checksum, load default values, etc.)
> On older machines/mainboards (without efi/uefi) i worked with a tool called uniflash (http://www.rainbow-software.org/uniflash/). It stores the cmos settings to a file and can restore these on other machines. So it's a perfekt tool for deploying cmos settings to a huge anmount of machines. 

the code to read out traditional "cmos" memory is pretty easy and short
afaik, no need for a dos application (although uniflash is or at least
was one of the better ones i have used in the past :)

> I red in the manual of the Q45M, that it is possible to disable the
> intel management engine with a jumper setting on the board. Do you
> think this makes a difference to the  actual problem?

there are two problems that i currently see:
1. flashrom plays safe whenever it notices read-protected regions on
intel hardware and bails out. this can be dealt with with existing
patches that just were not merged yet. i don't think that this would
change anything regarding the second problem though and if you are
happy with your dos-based solution there is no reason to not use
fpt.exe.

2. the configuration of your board is either not stored (completely) in
the bios region or it is somehow bound to the machine (or some other
problem i don't grasp).

neither of both would be solved by disabling the ME with the jumper i
think. there is no harm to try it though.

something else you could try is to deploy the platform region (which i
was talking about in my first mail) too together with the bios region.
maybe my guess in the first mail wasn't that wrong after all.

i can't remember the right syntax for fpt to operate on the platfrom
region, but IIRC it prints some useful usage information on -h or /? or
something...
be sure to backup the old content of the platform region!

if that does not help either, i am out of ideas and someone would need
to look at the actual bios code more closely. asking the vendor will
probably not help, but i would nevertheless try it.

-- 
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner


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