[coreboot] unknown board - via chipset

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net
Fri Apr 11 12:53:38 CEST 2008


Hi Antoine,

I'll defer most of your questions to the real VIA experts on this list.

On 11.04.2008 01:16, Antoine Martin wrote:
> Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
> | On 10.04.2008 18:23, Antoine Martin wrote:
> |> I've got this board I would like to get coreboot flashed on:
> |> *eBox-3850
> |> **http://www.icoptech.com/ebox-pc/*
> |>
> |> 1) CPU is a via C3 Nemehia
> |> Northbridge is a VT8623
> |> Southbridge is a VT82xxxxx?

To have any reasonable chance of checking whether coreboot supports your
chipset, we need to know exactly which chipset it is (that includes the
exact sub-revision). Without that, you'll have virtually zero chance of
getting the machine to reach early init at all, and even less so if you
want it to boot a payload.

> |> [...]
> |> The box cannot be opened easily as the cpu is glued on to the case...
> |> Which is why I would rather make sure it is possible to flash before I
> |> start damaging the box.
> |>
> |
> | Please do not try to flash any BIOS or firmware on a board you can't
> | access physically. That also applies if you can't open the box.
> | Flashing can go wrong and if you're porting coreboot to a new board, the
> | first image you flash is very likely not to boot far enough to reflash
> | the BIOS chip, so you have to open the case and remove the flash chip
> | anyway. If that is not possible, the machine is bricked.
> |
> If there is a reasonable chance that I can make it boot, I might take
> the risk of bricking one unit or having to find a creative way of
> opening and putting it back together (and that's assuming that the bios
> chip can be swapped out..)
> I won't blame anyone for it but myself if this goes wrong - and it often
> does...

Sorry, without exact chip revisions, there is no reasonable chance to
make it boot.

> So does it look like it might work from those specs?
> A lot of the via boards seem to be very similar, does the hardware and
> payload vary so much that this would be pointless?

To give you a perspective on the difficulty of bringing up a board: Even
if chipset and processor are perfectly identical to another board, you
will have to go through a few iterations until it works (IRQ routing,
GPIO configuration and a few other things usually differ). For your
board, we don't even know the exact chipset, so the only way I see is to
open the box and write down the numbers on the chips. And please find
out whether flash is soldered (will need to be changed) or socketed (good).

Regards,
Carl-Daniel




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