Difference between revisions of "Board:gigabyte/m57sli"

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===Before you begin===
===Before you begin===


The fact that the BIOS is soldered onto the board complicates matters considerably, because it means that one flash of a faulty image will render your board unusable (it will be 'bricked'). [[Top Hat Flash]] does not work with the SST 49LF040B 33-4C-NHE soldered onto the GA-M57SLI-S4, but might work with other chips (FWH).
The fact that the BIOS is soldered onto the board complicates matters considerably, because it means that one flash of a faulty image will render your board unusable (it will be 'bricked'). [[Top Hat Flash]] does not work with the SST 49LF040B 33-4C-NHE soldered onto the GA-M57SLI-S4, but might work with other chips (FWH). This means a hardware hack is necessary to prevent accidental bricking of the board.
 
 
This wiki page is maintained by Ward Vandewege (ward at gnu dot org).
 
<div style="color: red">If you're going to work on this board, you need a backup plan in the event you flash a faulty BIOS image. You have been warned!</div>
 
====PLCC32 hardware hack====


If you have a PLCC32 revision, it is possible to desolder the BIOS chip, and replace it with a PLCC socket. You will need some tools (heat gun/pencil, good soldering iron, etc) and soldering experience to do that. The other option is to add a PLCC socket to the empty position next to the soldered-on BIOS chip. With an extra resistor and a switch, this allows switching between 2 BIOS chips. This has been documented carefully by ST; see his [http://private.vlsi.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/st/instructions.html instructions].
If you have a PLCC32 revision, it is possible to desolder the BIOS chip, and replace it with a PLCC socket. You will need some tools (heat gun/pencil, good soldering iron, etc) and soldering experience to do that. The other option is to add a PLCC socket to the empty position next to the soldered-on BIOS chip. With an extra resistor and a switch, this allows switching between 2 BIOS chips. This has been documented carefully by ST; see his [http://private.vlsi.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/st/instructions.html instructions].
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If you don't feel like doing this yourself, you could try to find a commercial service to do it for you. One way to find a shop is to look for game console modification
If you don't feel like doing this yourself, you could try to find a commercial service to do it for you. One way to find a shop is to look for game console modification
shops, they do this sort of thing (and more advanced things) all day and should be able to help you for around $50 if you bring the needed components (PLCC socket, resistor, wire and switch). Possibly a friendly TV or radio repair shop could help too, but they may not have suitable soldering equipment for the surface mount parts.
shops, they do this sort of thing (and more advanced things) all day and should be able to help you for around $50 if you bring the needed components (PLCC socket, resistor, wire and switch). Possibly a friendly TV or radio repair shop could help too, but they may not have suitable soldering equipment for the surface mount parts.
If you have an SPI revision, you're out of luck for the time being. We don't have instructions yet for adding a second chip or SPI socket to the board, and flashrom needs to be modified to support the SPI chip on this board. If you can help out with any of that, please do!
<div style="color: red">If you're going to work on this board, you need a backup plan in the event you flash a faulty BIOS image. You have been warned!</div>


Once you put a socket on the board, you will also discover that the [http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionChart/PLCCTYPE/RD1PMC4.html RD1-PMC4 BiosSavior] does not work with this motherboard: the RD1's built-in chip seems to be incompatible with the mainboard. This means you will need to hot-swap BIOS chips until you have a working LinuxBIOS chip. Plugging your BIOS chip into the RD1 and switching it to 'ORG' does work though. I have used the BiosSavior to ease hot swapping; it's a lot easier to pull out the BiosSavior and replace the chip plugged into it than to replace the ROM chip on the board.
Once you put a socket on the board, you will also discover that the [http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD1BIOSSavior/SelectionChart/PLCCTYPE/RD1PMC4.html RD1-PMC4 BiosSavior] does not work with this motherboard: the RD1's built-in chip seems to be incompatible with the mainboard. This means you will need to hot-swap BIOS chips until you have a working LinuxBIOS chip. Plugging your BIOS chip into the RD1 and switching it to 'ORG' does work though. I have used the BiosSavior to ease hot swapping; it's a lot easier to pull out the BiosSavior and replace the chip plugged into it than to replace the ROM chip on the board.
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In the US, FrozenCPU seems to have stock (verified 2007/04). Eksitdata in Sweden also seems to have stock (verified 2007/03).
In the US, FrozenCPU seems to have stock (verified 2007/04). Eksitdata in Sweden also seems to have stock (verified 2007/03).


in the US). With it's standard F8 legacy BIOS it requires the '''noapic''' boot parameter with most old kernels (legacy BIOS v. F11b adds HPET 32/64 support, but often same problem).
====SOIC hardware hack====
 
If you have an SOIC revision, you can add a second SOIC chip in the unpopulated position, and use a switch to toggle between both chips. Instructions can be found here [http://linuxbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2007-September/024395.html here], and here are [http://stuge.se/lb/m57sli/ some photos]. These instructions have been [http://www.linuxbios.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2007-October/025827.html confirmed], with more photos [http://illmeyer.com/hg87/ here].
 
====flashrom====
 
Flashrom works fine under the proprietary BIOS (PLCC32 version). There seem to be some issues under LinuxBIOS (PLCC32 version), see this  [http://tracker.linuxbios.org/trac/LinuxBIOS/ticket/87 this issue tracker ticket].  


This wiki page is maintained by Ward Vandewege (ward at gnu dot org).
Flashrom does not yet work on the SOIC version of the board, but that is being worked on. It will detect the SOIC chip, but the read and write functions are not implemented yet (as of 2007-10-13).


===Payload===
===Payload===

Revision as of 16:30, 13 October 2007

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