ASUS M4A785T-M

Status

Device/functionality	Status	Comments
CPU
CPU works	OK	Tested: AMD Athlon64 X2 250.
L1 cache enabled	Untested	Not tested yet (how to test?)
L2 cache enabled	Untested	Not tested yet (how to test?)
L3 cache enabled	N/A
Multiple CPU support	N/A
Multi-core support	OK
Hardware virtualization	OK	KVM seem to work
RAM
EDO	N/A
SDRAM	N/A
SO-DIMM	N/A
DDR	N/A	N/A
DDR2	Untested
DDR3	OK	2G works, 4G(2 * 2G) works with lastest coreboot
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 some ports, works fine
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	WIP	See http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/2067/
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	OK	works in GNU/Linux
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

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 GNU/Linux trisquel distribution tested
• 64bit GNU/Linux trisquel distribution failed to initialize the USB.

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)

PCIe

See http://review.coreboot.org/#/c/2067/ (which has 2 other patch-dependencies)

SerialICE

• Selecting the ASUS M4A77TD-PRO mainboard makes the serialICE shell appear once flashed(however running the BIOS under SerialICE fails at some point).

Howto

WARNING, This Howto is for SerialICE and not for coreboot, don't flash the resulting image unless you really know what you're doing...

git clone http://review.coreboot.org/p/serialice.git
cd serialice
make menuconfig
make

cd ../
cd qemu-0.15.x
sh build.sh
ln -s ../SerialICE/simba/*.lua ./

Add the following to asus_m4a77td_pro.lua:

microcode_patchlevel_eax = 0x010000b7

function do_mainboard_setup()
	do_minimal_setup()
	do_default_setup()
	enable_hook(cpumsr_hooks, filter_amd_microcode)
end

Failing

It fails like that(it inits the 2 cores and we have 1 core(qemu)):

[fffc06a:0c0f] e25f.e260   LAPIC: [00000380] <= 00000000
[fffc06a:1321] e26b.e26d   PCI: 0:18.0 [60] => 00010000
[fffc06a:12e3] e273.e275   PCI: 0:18.3 [e8] => 00075f79
[fffc06a:1397] e27e.e27f   CPUID: eax: 00000001; ecx: 0000001b => 00100f62.00020800.00802009.178bfbff
[fffc06a:1321] e290.e292   PCI: 0:18.3 [e8] => 00075f79
[fffc06a:1397] e297.e298   CPUID: eax: 00000001; ecx: 0000001b => 00100f62.00020800.00802009.178bfbff
[fffc06a:121e] e2a5.e2a6   CPUID: eax: 80000001; ecx: 0000001b => 00100f62.10001b26.000037ff.efd3fbff
[fffc06a:12ff] e2bb.e2bc   CPUID: eax: 80000008; ecx: 0000001b => 00003030.00000000.00002001.00000000
[fffc06a:130c] e2bf.e2c0   CPU MSR: [c001001f] => 00584000.00000008
[fffc06a:131d] e2c4.e2c5   CPU MSR: [c001001f] <= 00584000.00000008
[fffc06a:131d] e2cf.e2d1   PCI: 0:18.3 [90] => 00000000
[fffc06a:1348] e2dc.e2dd   CPUID: eax: 80000008; ecx: 0000001b => 00003030.00000000.00002001.00000000
[fffc06a:135d] e2e2.e2e3   CPU MSR: [c001001f] <= 00584000.00000008
[fffc06a:0b7d] e2f2.e2f3   CPU MSR: [0000001b] => 00000000.fee00900
[fffc06a:0b7d] e2f4.e2f5   LAPIC: [00000020] => 00000000
[fffc06a:127a] e2f9.e2fa   CPUID: eax: 00000001; ecx: 0000001b => 00100f62.00020800.00802009.178bfbff
[fffc06a:1289] e2f9.e2fb   CPUID: eax: 80000008; ecx: 00802009 => 00003030.00000000.00002001.00000000
[fffc06a:1057] e302.e304   PCI: 0:18.0 [68] => 004fac0f
[fffc06a:1071] e30d.e30f   PCI: 0:18.0 [68] <= 004fac2f
Readback error! 30/72
Readback error! a/63
Readback error! 72/30
Readback error! 3e/30
Readback error! 20/30
Readback error! 63/30
Readback error! 66/30
Readback error! 45/30
Readback error! a/31
Readback error! 52/62
Readback error! 3e/2e
Readback error! 52/66
Readback error! 20/66
Readback error! 4f/66
Readback error! 30/65
Readback error! 52/62
Readback error! a/30
Readback error! a/30
Readback error! 3e/30
[fffc06a:0c50] e31d.e31e   CPU MSR: [0000001b] => 00000000.00000000

TODO

• Add defaults for the nvram settings.
• find a clean way to merge the patch for the PCIe graphic card.
• fix the Audio CODEC(it's the same than the x60 and it works on the x60):

<DarkDefender> GNUtoo-hplaptop: I think you should be able to disable it if you look at "src/southbridge/amd/cimx/sb700/late.c" and line 266

• handle suspend to ram
• lock SMM/SMI
• make it possible to run the BIOS under serialICE
• 64bit support