[coreboot] flashrom issues??

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net
Sat Mar 1 16:40:36 CET 2008


On 01.03.2008 14:04, joe at smittys.pointclark.net wrote:
> Quoting Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net>:
>
>> On 29.02.2008 20:21, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
>>> * Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net> [080229 
>>> 20:13]:
>>>
>>>>>>> Yes, it means the actual flash write mechanism is protected, 
>>>>>>> though the
>>>>>>> ID command gets through. I had the same thing on another ICH4M 
>>>>>>> board.
>>>>>>> Might be SMM protection, some GPIO or some other mapping/locking
>>>>>>> mechanism.
>>
>> "Might be SMM...", so this is not certain.
>>
>>>>>> Do you remember what you did to fix this on the ICH4-M?
>>>>>>
>>>>> The issue remained unfixed, I used a Galep5 to burn the flash chips.
>>>>>
>>>> In theory, this should be debuggable with DOS ports of the ICH  
>>>> GPIO dumper and superiotool.
>>>>
>>>
>>> SMM based bios lock down? How so? It does not seem to be a GPIO 
>>> issue in
>>> case.
>>
>> If the lockdown is indeed SMM based, we can find out with superiotool
>> and the GPIO dumper (they will show no changes in GPIO configuration).
>> Then again, if you can ID the chip, it means you can write to it and
>> the only thing missing is setting the TBL# and WP# pins of the flash
>> chip high. Both pins are probably connected to some GPIOs, so unless
>> SMM protects access to the GPIO settings, flashing should be possible.
>> If the problem appears under coreboot as well, we can rule out SMM
>> protection, but not SMM flash enabling.
>>
> To check this with superiotool I have to be able to dump the "Runtime 
> Registers", this is where the GPIO's are (See the SMSC lpc47m192 
> datasheet for more info). Currently superiotool does not dump these 
> registers so modifications will be required.

I was relying on the new extended superiotool dumping functionality. 
That doesn't exist yet for your superio, so I should have written 
"...can find out with superiotool (once that has GPIO dumping support 
for your superio) and...". Thanks for correcting me.

> Little confused about SMM? In the nothbridge datasheet it talks about 
> SMM (System Management Space), I do not have any of these registers 
> set, just defaults.

I only know SMM as "System Management Mode" and I hope very much we do 
not have to mess with SMM code arbitrating access to any superio/chipset 
GPIOs.

> In the southbridge datasheet it talks about SMM (special mask mode), I 
> do not have any of these registers set eithor, just defaults. Are 
> these related, or two different things? Do I need to set these 
> registers up?

I had no idea about this meaning of SMM, so I can't answer here.

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

-- 
http://www.hailfinger.org/





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