[LinuxBIOS] Intel SE440BX support

[Oscar Molin]

that was a post by Richard Smith, not Ron. my bad

2007/3/29, Oscar Molin <oscarmolin at gmail.com>:
>
> Hi Peter
> I said in an email to Corey about unbricking, that I think it might be
> possible to use the recovery part of the bios, appending that file from
> Intels own bios with a linuxbios.
> I'm not 100% sure that works but it might. I forgot to forward that
> message to the mailing list.
> Intels bios structure is divided in 64k parts and there are 3-4 (or more
> depending on size i guess) that is the bios.
> There are two that intels readme says is "recovery" bios (two identical
> files, two different places on the flash chip, I think)
> Then there is one which seems to have settings and "stuff".
> If I can include these recvery files, and place the linuxbios in the
> regular bios files (with intels header info to make their flash-program
> accept it), I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work.
> Intels flasher also has a function that checks validity of the files
> before flashing, so if there is a checksum or something in the header that
> has to match, I would be able to solve it or even bruteforce it to make it
> accept my files instead.
> The reason I'm looking at this way of handling things, and not just
> soldering a socket the first thing I do, is:
> 1) I'm lazy
> 2) This is the way it has to be done if there is ever going to be Intel
> OEM support, since their flasher is AFAIK the only one that can flash there
> chips. Regular users can't be expected to solder bios chips.
>
> Thanks for the offer about the socket, but I'm too far away so I'll have
> to do it myself.
>
> One last thing about 440bx.
> Since Rons assembly code from v1 works, why is it that it is so hard to
> port it to C?
> Is it a compiler bug/feature that makes it not work correctly or what is
> the exact problem?
> I've just started trying to understand this stuff and I read a post by Ron
> from 2004 where he had two boards working well apparently, he didn't mention
> any memory issues.
> If the working assembler code can be put in with the C code, and then
> change it line by line until it stops working, you should be able to
> pinpoint the problem right?
> Maybe my thinking is flawed, I'm not a good programmer.
>
> 2007/3/26, Peter Stuge <stuge-linuxbios at cdy.org>:
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 26, 2007 at 01:09:57PM +0200, Oscar Molin wrote:
> > > I have 2 Intel SE440BX and one Intel SE440bx-3 (it's some kind of
> > > subversion to sebx-2)
> > > These were very popular Intel OEM boards and were used by Dell,
> > > compaq, fujitsu and the like.
> > > If someone wants info on what chips they have etc I'm willing to be
> > > of assistance and help with testing code one them to make them
> > > work. Since they all have Intels soldered on flash chips you can't
> > > make too many mistakes but I have no problem losing one in the
> > > process as I don't need all of them.
> >
> > I would wait with flashing until there was a practical way to unbrick
> > the board. :) That said, 440BX is getting some work in v2, so more
> > systems to test on would be great. If need be I could replace your
> > flash with a socket. (I'm in Malmö)
> >
> >
> > //Peter
> >
> > --
> > linuxbios mailing list
> > linuxbios at linuxbios.org
> > http://www.linuxbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
> >
>
>
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