ASUS M4A785T-M
From coreboot
Contents |
Status
| Device/functionality | Status | Comments | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | ||||||||
| CPU works | OK | Tested: AMD Athlon64 X2 250. | ||||||
| L1 cache enabled | Untested | Not tested yet | ||||||
| L2 cache enabled | Untested | Not tested yet | ||||||
| L3 cache enabled | N/A | |||||||
| Multiple CPU support | N/A | |||||||
| Multi-core support | OK | |||||||
| Hardware virtualization | Untested | Not tested yet | ||||||
| RAM | ||||||||
| EDO | N/A | |||||||
| SDRAM | N/A | |||||||
| SO-DIMM | N/A | |||||||
| DDR | N/A | N/A | ||||||
| DDR2 | Untested | |||||||
| DDR3 | WIP | 2G works but not 4G(graphics issues(see here for a fix),64bit booting issues(there was no USB and no SATA, with the fix it seem that SATA is recognized)). | ||||||
| Dual channel support | Untested | |||||||
| ECC support | Untested | |||||||
| On-board Hardware | ||||||||
| On-board IDE 3.5" | OK | Tested: 500GB HDD | ||||||
| On-board IDE 2.5" | N/A | |||||||
| On-board SATA | OK | Tested on port 1, untested for the rest | ||||||
| On-board SCSI | N/A | |||||||
| On-board USB | OK | USB keyboard works | ||||||
| On-board VGA | OK | Tested:analog VGA and HDMI,dual screen. | ||||||
| On-board ethernet | OK | |||||||
| On-board audio | No | Linux driver crashes. | ||||||
| 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 | I've an ath9k wifi PCI card and it works. | ||||||
| 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 | Untested | |||||||
| PCI Express x2 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
| PCI Express x4 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
| PCI Express x8 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
| PCI Express x16 add-on cards | Untested | |||||||
| PCI Express x32 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
| HTX add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
| Legacy / Super I/O | ||||||||
| Floppy | N/A | There is no floppy connector at all. | ||||||
| Serial port 1 (COM1) | OK | COM1 is only pin header on board. DB-9 serial connector is available, but not included with board. | ||||||
| Serial port 2 (COM2) | N/A | |||||||
| Parallel port | Untested | No connector, pins on board only | ||||||
| PS/2 keyboard | OK | |||||||
| PS/2 mouse | Untested | |||||||
| Game port | N/A | |||||||
| Infrared | N/A | |||||||
| PC speaker | Untested | |||||||
| DiskOnChip | N/A | |||||||
| Miscellaneous | ||||||||
| Sensors / fan control | Untested | |||||||
| Hardware watchdog | N/A | |||||||
| SMBus | Unknown | |||||||
| CAN bus | N/A | |||||||
| CPU frequency scaling | Untested | |||||||
| Other powersaving features | Untested | |||||||
| ACPI | Untested | |||||||
| Reboot | OK | |||||||
| Poweroff | OK | |||||||
| Suspend | Unknown | |||||||
| Nonstandard LEDs | ||||||||
| High precision event timers (HPET) | ||||||||
| Random number generator (RNG) | Untested | |||||||
| Wake on modem ring | Untested | |||||||
| Wake on LAN | ||||||||
| Wake on keyboard | Untested | |||||||
| Wake on mouse | Untested | |||||||
| Flashrom | OK | The chip is SPI | ||||||
Introduction
This pages is about the port to the M4A785T-M, this mainboard is very similar to the M4A785-M, but:
- it has DDR3 instead of DDR2
The port is in the very early stages...(it will be ok when screen will not flickers at resolutions > 800x600)
Building the serial port adapter
You'll need to build a serial port adapter to get the coreboot logs during.
Here's a picture of the serial port connector on the mainboard:

And here's the kind of cable you will need:

And you'll need to build a cable similar to this one(on the picture the DB9 is connector is a male connector):

Here's how it looks like on the mainboard:
_____________________ | |NC|09| |08|07| |06|05| |04|03| |02|01| | |
Here's a table of corresponding pins:
| Mainboard connector pin | Mainboard pin Function | Standard DE9 pin connector | Standard DE9 pin Function | Mandatory for coreboot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ? | ? | ? | No |
| 2 | RX | 3 | TX | Yes (you could do without but it's advised to get it, to be able to use certain functions of coreboot) |
| 3 | TX | 2 | RX | Yes |
| 4 | 4 | DTR | No | |
| 5 | Ground | 5 | Ground | Yes |
| 6 | ? | ? | ? | No |
| 7 | 7 | RTS | No | |
| 8 | 8 | CTS | No | |
| 9 | ? | ? | ? | No |
Adapting GNU/Linux
Before booting with coreboot, do the following:
- blacklist the snd-hda* modules (refer to the usual way to get help for the GNU/Linux distribution you want to run for doing that)
- 32bit trisquel distribution tested
Building Coreboot
To build coreboot for this mainboard:
- checkout coreboot revision 1b1309f289d6fc9f6ec348686665d25218535030
- Configure and Build it as usual(for having graphics you need to extract your VGA BIOS ROM from your BIOS)
SerialICE
- Selecting the ASUS M4A77TD-PRO mainboard makes the serialICE shell appear once flashed.