[coreboot] Intel FSP on Bayley Bay CRB: No output

[Martin Roth]

This whole microcode issue caused us a couple of weeks of delay.
Here's the basics of what I found - I don't know if any of this is
fixed, I'll check with Intel and report back:

There are 2 different microcode load routines, one for the BSP, and
one for the APs.  The BSP's routine will load the microcode without
checking that the SKU is correct.  The AP's loading routine won't load
if the microcode SKU is wrong.  Unfortunately, it doesn't report this,
it just doesn't load the microcode and carries on as if nothing
happened.

The hang is caused due to an MSR access that isn't valid unless the
microcode is loaded.  Accessing this MSR hangs the APs.  The system
will then hang waiting for the AP init to complete.

I believe you'll find that if you comment out the final FSP call, the
system will boot, but you'll probably only have one core running.

The issue with the correct microcode is that apparently there were no
Bay Trail I SKUs released for the B0 rev - they were released as a
"super-Sku" that is identified as a Bay Trail T.  There is, however,
for some reason, still a microcode patch available for the Bay Trail I
B0/B1.

I *believe* that the correct microcode patch for the B0 parts is the
Bay Trail T patch that's in the FSP package.  If this microcode patch
isn't working for anyone on their B0, please let me know.

We (Intel and Sage) had initially decided that only the B3 silicon was
going to be supported for this release.  I'm still not sure that
wasn't the correct choice, but it was later requested to add the
support for the B0 part as well.  I'd really urge anyone using a B0 to
just upgrade to a B3 part.


On an unrelated note, after heavy use of the Bayley Bay and Bakersport
boards, we noticed that the boot was halting in memory init, when
nothing on the board had changed.  I finally figured out that this was
due to a bad board connection with the processor.  Since the
processors are not soldered to the board, it seems like sometimes the
connection would develop issues.  Tightening the adapter holding the
processor to the board fixed all the issues we were having.

Martin

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 5:37 PM, Giri <girim77 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Regarding below two items
>
> 1) The microcode that is being included is not a part of coreboot, so it
> needs to be disabled for the default build so that abuild doesn't fail.
> Intel wants to release the microcode as part of the FSP package and not
> include it in the coreboot repo so that the microcode vs FSP versions can be
> matched up.
>
> Microcode is not part of FSP but just consumes the pointer and length.
> Microcode and FSP versions doesn't need to match but the microcode needs to
> match the CPU on that platform.
>
> 2) The microcode that's included for the intel FSP is for B2/B3 silicon, but
> it seems like many users are still using B0 silicon, which requires a
> different microcode patch.  This shouldn't be a problem but since there are
> 4 SKUs of Bay Trail and using the microcode for the wrong SKU will *APPEAR*
> to work, but cause issues later, the microcode can cause massive amounts of
> confusion.
>
> Please check if the microcode is loaded by reading MSR 0x8B
>
> -Giri
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coreboot [mailto:coreboot-bounces at coreboot.org] On Behalf Of Peter
> Stuge
> Sent: Friday, June 6, 2014 2:57 AM
> To: coreboot at coreboot.org
> Subject: Re: [coreboot] Intel FSP on Bayley Bay CRB: No output
>
> Martin Roth wrote:
>> Eh, it's code...  It's going to have issues and bugs.
>
> I disagree with that attitude. A platform vendor writing platform init code
> doesn't really have a valid excuse for producing buggy code.
>
> "Release early, release often" can't be an excuse to push the consequences
> of one's own shortcomings onto others. That's just poor programmer's moral.
>
> I obviously disagree with letting shortcomings in other code generate issues
> in coreboot.
>
>
>> We're all interested in getting these things to the highest quality,
>
> It doesn't seem to me that Intel is interested in that at all.
>
> They're making themselves the only actor in the world capable of producing
> correct platform init code for their platforms, yet they don't. My guess as
> to why is that time to market is quite short.
>
>
>> They're still actively developing the code and working to improve
>> things, so in that way it's definitely better than getting a single
>> source code drop that never gets updated again.
>
> That's a joke, right?
>
> Source code without updates is clearly better than no source code.
>
> Maybe I'm getting too old to waste my life on closed source nonsense?
>
>
> //Peter
>
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