[coreboot] Asrock E350M1 option roms for AHCI mode for SATA controller

[Reiner Luett]

Hello Paul,

thank a lot for reply.

Sorry for the delay. I have done some further testing.

On 02.07.2013 23:42, Paul Menzel wrote:

> I do not understand that paragraph. Could you please elaborate how you
> figure out that the SATA controller is not running in AHCI mode anymore
> after powering off.

That was a bit strange, because I don't know why AHCI is not working
with the involved SSD.

My setup is the following: I've compiled coreboot with the defaults and
add the needed vBios. After flashing into the ROM and reboot the
machine, I can boot from the connected Sandisk pSSD P4  (SDSA3BD-016G).
After powering off, the AHCI mode is working, but I cannot boot from the
device any more.

I've tried some other devices. USB flash drive with DOS don't work. Also
some USB flash drive with grub doesn't work. But booting from a CD/DVD
or traditional SATA drive was fine.

If I have changed to IDE Mode, I can boot every device. I guess, that
there is a problem with this SSD. Maybe I need to debug the firmware,
but I don't know how.

> In coreboot since some months AHCI mode is the default mode and
> therefore everything should work out of the box. Even if you selected
> NATIVE (IDE mode) only loading the payload like GRUB or SeaBIOS would
> take a little longer. Afterward for example the Linux kernel switches to
> AHCI mode anyway [1].

Yes you are right. AHCI mode works. I only recognized a difference with
the sensors (CPU internal temp) and the fan control in AHCI mode. With
the IDE mode the values aren't correct shown. I would appreciate to use
the AHCI mode with the SSD. Maybe you have some suggestions how I could
get it working.

> I do not even know if the vendor BIOS ships these ROMs. But
> `bios_extract` would be the way to go to check.

IMC firmware should be free. It comes with the sources. I cannot use
bios_extract with the current Asrock UEFI.

Best regards,
Reiner

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