Board:asus/a8n e

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Documentation is now handled by the same processes we use for code: Add something to the Documentation/ directory in the coreboot repo, and it will be rendered to https://doc.coreboot.org/. Contributions welcome!

ASUS A8N-E, rev. 2.00

This HOWTO explains how to use coreboot on the ASUS A8N-E board.

Works fine, only smaller issues remain to be fixed. A list of known issues is available.

Status

Device/functionality	Status	Comments
CPU
CPU works	OK	Tested: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ and 3200+.
L1 cache enabled	OK	CPU: L1 I Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line), D cache 64K (64 bytes/line)
L2 cache enabled	OK	CPU: L2 Cache: 512K (64 bytes/line)
L3 cache enabled	N/A
Multiple CPU support	N/A
Multi-core support	Untested
Hardware virtualization	N/A
RAM
EDO	N/A
SDRAM	N/A
SO-DIMM	N/A
DDR	OK	Tested with one DIMM in slot DIMM_B1 (see manual). Since r3614 it's also possible to use a single DIMM in slot DIMM_B2.
DDR2	N/A
DDR3	N/A
Dual channel support	Untested
ECC support	OK
On-board Hardware
On-board IDE 3.5"	OK	Tested: Primary IDE (master and slave) and secondary IDE (master and slave).
On-board IDE 2.5"	N/A
On-board SATA	OK
On-board SCSI	N/A
On-board USB	OK	Tested: USB keyboard (on each of the 10 possible USB ports).
On-board VGA	N/A
On-board Ethernet	OK
On-board Audio	OK
On-board Modem	N/A
On-board FireWire	N/A
On-board Smartcard reader	N/A
On-board CompactFlash	N/A
On-board PCMCIA	N/A
On-board Wifi	N/A
On-board Bluetooth	N/A
On-board SD card reader	N/A
Add-on slots/cards
ISA add-on cards	N/A
Audio/Modem-Riser (AMR/CNR) cards	N/A
PCI add-on cards	OK	Tested: PCI VGA card in all three PCI slots.
Mini-PCI add-on cards	N/A
Mini-PCI-Express add-on cards	Unknown
PCI-X add-on cards	N/A
AGP graphics cards	N/A
PCI Express x1 add-on cards	Untested
PCI Express x2 add-on cards	N/A
PCI Express x4 add-on cards	Untested
PCI Express x8 add-on cards	N/A
PCI Express x16 add-on cards	Untested
PCI Express x32 add-on cards	N/A
HTX add-on cards	N/A
Legacy / Super I/O
Floppy	OK
Serial port 1 (COM1)	OK
Serial port 2 (COM2)	N/A
Parallel port	OK	Tested with a printer
PS/2 keyboard	OK
PS/2 mouse	OK
Game port	N/A
Infrared	N/A
PC speaker	OK
DiskOnChip	N/A
Input
Trackpoint	N/A
Touchpad	N/A
Fn Hotkeys	N/A
Fingerprint Reader	N/A
Laptop
Docking VGA	N/A
Docking LAN	N/A
Docking USB	N/A
Docking Audio	N/A
Docking Displayport	N/A
Thinklight	N/A
Webcam	N/A
Miscellaneous
Sensors / fan control	OK	Tested: sensors reports K8 core temp. (kernel module k8temp) and various other values from the IT8712F Super I/O (kernel module it87).
Hardware watchdog	N/A
SMBus	OK
CAN bus	N/A
CPU frequency scaling	No
Other powersaving features	N/A
ACPI	OK
Reboot	OK
Poweroff	OK
Suspend	No
Nonstandard LEDs	OK	There's a green LED on the board which is enabled when the board is powered-on. Works out of the box, no special coreboot support required.
High precision event timers (HPET)	OK	The hardware supports it, but you currently need the hpet=force Linux kernel parameter. Reduces the number of wakeups in powertop drastically.
Random number generator (RNG)	N/A
Wake on modem ring	Untested
Wake on LAN	N/A	The on-board ethernet device doesn't seem to support WOL (also not mentioned in the manual).
Wake on keyboard	Untested
Wake on mouse	Untested
TPM	Unknown
Flashrom	OK	Works fine when booted with BIOS and also with coreboot.

Building coreboot

See the Build HOWTO for information on how to build coreboot for this board.

Known issues

• The MAC address is stored in flash for almost all CK804/MCP55 boards. All of these boards flashed with coreboot probably have the same MAC address. See src/southbridge/nvidia/ck804/romstrap.inc and src/southbridge/nvidia/mcp55/romstrap.inc for details. On some of these boards, the MAC address is stored in a separate EEPROM, but you can't count on that.

If you can help out with this, please join the mailing list and let us know!

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version. This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.