ASUS A8N-E

ASUS A8N-E, rev. 2.00

This HOWTO explains how to use coreboot on the ASUS A8N-E board.

Status

Device/functionality	Status	Comments
CPU
CPU works	OK	Tested: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+.
L1 cache enabled	OK	CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
L2 cache enabled	OK	CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
L3 cache enabled	N/A
Multiple CPU support	N/A
Multi-core support	Untested
Hardware virtualization	N/A
RAM
EDO	N/A
SDRAM	N/A
SO-DIMM	N/A
DDR	OK	Tested with one DIMM in slot DIMM_B1 (see manual). Since r3614 it's also possible to use a single DIMM in slot DIMM_B2.
DDR2	N/A
DDR3	N/A
Dual channel support	Untested
ECC support	Untested	The board supports ECC according to the manual.
On-board Hardware
On-board IDE 3.5"	OK	Tested: Primary IDE (master and slave) and secondary IDE (master and slave).
On-board IDE 2.5"	N/A
On-board SATA	WIP	Port 3 (hde in FILO) and 4 (hdg in FILO) on the board work fine. Port 1 and 2 don't seem to work, this is being investigated.
On-board SCSI	Unknown
On-board USB	OK	Tested: USB keyboard (on each of the 10 possible USB ports).
On-board VGA	N/A
On-board ethernet	OK
On-board audio	WIP	This is being worked on.
On-board modem	N/A
On-board FireWire	N/A
On-board smartcard reader	N/A
On-board CompactFlash	N/A
On-board PCMCIA	N/A
Add-on slots/cards
ISA add-on cards	N/A
Audio/Modem-Riser (AMR/CNR) cards	N/A
PCI add-on cards	OK	Tested: PCI VGA card in all three PCI slots.
Mini-PCI add-on cards	N/A
PCI-X add-on cards	N/A
AGP graphics cards	N/A
PCI Express x1 add-on cards	OK	Both PCIe x1 slots works fine (tested with a network card).
PCI Express x2 add-on cards	N/A
PCI Express x4 add-on cards	Untested
PCI Express x8 add-on cards	N/A
PCI Express x16 add-on cards	WIP	Doesn't seem to work, yet (?)
PCI Express x32 add-on cards	N/A
HTX add-on cards	N/A
Legacy / Super I/O
Floppy	WIP
Serial port 1 (COM1)	OK
Serial port 2 (COM2)	N/A
Parallel port	OK	Tested: modprobe ppdev, further tests were not performed.
PS/2 keyboard	OK	Works since r3610,
PS/2 mouse	OK	Works since r3610,
Game port	WIP
Infrared	N/A
PC speaker	OK
DiskOnChip	N/A
Miscellaneous
Sensors / fan control	OK	Tested: sensors reports K8 core temp. (kernel module k8temp) and various other values from the IT8712F Super I/O (kernel module it87).
Hardware watchdog	N/A
SMBus	Unknown
CAN bus	N/A
CPU frequency scaling	No	Needs (at least partial) ACPI support.
Other powersaving features	N/A
ACPI	No	There's no ACPI implementation for this board.
Reboot	OK
Poweroff	No
Suspend	Unknown
Nonstandard LEDs	OK	There's a green LED on the board which is enabled when the board is powered-on. Works out of the box, no special coreboot support required.
High precision event timers (HPET)	OK	The hardware supports it, but you currently need the hpet=force Linux kernel parameter. Reduces the number of wakeups in powertop drastically.
Random number generator (RNG)	N/A
Wake on modem ring	Untested
Wake on LAN	N/A	The on-board ethernet device doesn't seem to support WOL (also not mentioned in the manual).
Wake on keyboard	Untested
Wake on mouse	Untested
Flashrom	OK	Works fine when booted with BIOS and also with coreboot.

Building coreboot

See the Build HOWTO for information on how to build coreboot for this board.

Known issues

• The MAC address is stored in flash for almost all CK804/MCP55 boards. All of these boards flashed with coreboot probably have the same MAC address. See src/southbridge/nvidia/ck804/romstrap.inc and src/southbridge/nvidia/mcp55/romstrap.inc for details. On some of these boards, the MAC address is stored in a separate EEPROM, but you can't count on that.

If you can help out with this, please join the mailing list and let us know!

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version. This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.