DFI NF570 Build Tutorial
This page describes how to use coreboot on the DFI Infinity NF570 series mainboard. It is maintained by Chris Lingard.
Work in progress, back soon
After much failure trying to get a motherboard modified with a switch and a second BIOS socket, I found one with a socketed BIOS. It comes in three flavors:
NF570 SLI-M2/G, NS570-M2/G and NF550-M2/G
The designers have chosen an identical chip set to the Gigabyte M57SLI, so I only had to make trivial code changes for it to work to the standard shown below. All credit to coreboot's M57SLI team.
This board would be too easy for any experienced corebooter; but it is an ideal entry point for someone who has never hot swapped a chip before, nor flashed a BIOS.
Here is a picture of the motherboard:
Status
Device/functionality | Status | Comments | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CPU | ||||||||
CPU works | OK | AMD Athlon(tm) X2 dual core Processor 6000+ | ||||||
L1 cache enabled | OK | CPU: L1 Cache: 64K (64 bytes/line) | ||||||
L2 cache enabled | OK | CPU: L2 Cache: 1MB | ||||||
L3 cache enabled | N/A | |||||||
Multiple CPU support | N/A | |||||||
Multi-core support | OK | Works fine, tested with prolonged builds like gcc and glibc | ||||||
Hardware virtualization | Untested | |||||||
RAM | ||||||||
EDO | N/A | |||||||
SDRAM | N/A | |||||||
SO-DIMM | N/A | |||||||
DDR | N/A | N/A | ||||||
DDR2 | OK | Using 2 cards of 2GB 667 | ||||||
DDR3 | N/A | |||||||
Dual channel support | Untested | |||||||
ECC support | Untested | |||||||
On-board Hardware | ||||||||
On-board IDE 3.5" | N/A | |||||||
On-board IDE 2.5" | N/A | |||||||
On-board SATA | OK | Tested: SATA port 1 , that is my CD/DVD RW. | ||||||
On-board SCSI | Unknown | |||||||
On-board USB | WIP | Should be OK.all the right modules are loaded by udev/kernel | ||||||
On-board VGA | N/A | |||||||
On-board Ethernet | OK | |||||||
On-board Audio | OK | |||||||
On-board Modem | N/A | |||||||
On-board FireWire | Untested | |||||||
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 | Untested | |||||||
Mini-PCI add-on cards | Unknown | |||||||
Mini-PCI-Express add-on cards | Unknown | |||||||
PCI-X add-on cards | Unknown | |||||||
AGP graphics cards | N/A | |||||||
PCI Express x1 add-on cards | OK | |||||||
PCI Express x2 add-on cards | Untested | |||||||
PCI Express x4 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
PCI Express x8 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
PCI Express x16 add-on cards | OK | Tested: Saphire ati clone radion card. Works using the radionhd X11 driver. | ||||||
PCI Express x32 add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
HTX add-on cards | N/A | |||||||
Legacy / Super I/O | ||||||||
Floppy | WIP | Does not work with either the factory or coreboot BIOS | ||||||
Serial port 1 (COM1) | OK | |||||||
Serial port 2 (COM2) | N/A | |||||||
Parallel port | Untested | |||||||
PS/2 keyboard | OK | |||||||
PS/2 mouse | OK | |||||||
Game port | Untested | |||||||
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 | Untested | |||||||
Hardware watchdog | Untested | |||||||
SMBus | Unknown | |||||||
CAN bus | N/A | |||||||
CPU frequency scaling | Untested | |||||||
Other powersaving features | N/A | |||||||
ACPI | WIP | The Linux kernel does the right thing | ||||||
Reboot | OK | |||||||
Poweroff | Untested | |||||||
Suspend | Unknown | |||||||
Nonstandard LEDs | OK | |||||||
High precision event timers (HPET) | Untested | |||||||
Random number generator (RNG) | N/A | |||||||
Wake on modem ring | Untested | |||||||
Wake on LAN | Untested | |||||||
Wake on keyboard | Untested | |||||||
Wake on mouse | Untested | |||||||
TPM | Unknown | |||||||
Flashrom | OK | Works fine with coreboot and with the proprietary BIOS. |
Hardware
- AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2
- Nvidea MCP55
- Nvidea
- PMC Pm49FL004
lspci -tvnn
-[0000:00]-+-00.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller [10de:0369] +-01.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 LPC Bridge [10de:0362] +-01.1 nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMBus [10de:0368] +-01.2 nVidia Corporation MCP55 Memory Controller [10de:036a] +-01.3 nVidia Corporation MCP55 SMU [10de:036b] +-02.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller [10de:036c] +-02.1 nVidia Corporation MCP55 USB Controller [10de:036d] +-04.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 IDE [10de:036e] +-05.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller [10de:037f] +-05.1 nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller [10de:037f] +-05.2 nVidia Corporation MCP55 SATA Controller [10de:037f] +-06.0-[0000:01]----07.0 VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306 Fire II IEEE 1394 OHCI Link Layer Controller [1106:3044] +-06.1 nVidia Corporation MCP55 High Definition Audio [10de:0371] +-08.0 nVidia Corporation MCP55 Ethernet [10de:0373] +-0b.0-[0000:02]-- +-0c.0-[0000:03]-- +-0d.0-[0000:04]-- +-0e.0-[0000:05]-- +-0f.0-[0000:06]--+-00.0 ATI Technologies Inc RV630 [Radeon HD 2600XT] [1002:9588] | \-00.1 ATI Technologies Inc RV630/M76 audio device [Radeon HD 2600 Series] [1002:aa08] +-18.0 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration [1022:1100] +-18.1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map [1022:1101] +-18.2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller [1022:1102] \-18.3 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control [1022:1103]
The payload filo
Copy your /boot/grub directory to /boot/filo. This stops any interaction between grub and filo. Your future BIOS will boot according to /boot/filo/menu.lst, and the hard disk will boot according to /boot/grub/menu.lst.
Get and compile filo-0.5. Here is my configuration file
# Do NOT add spaces or comments at the end of option lines. # It confuses some versions of make. # Use grub instead of autoboot? USE_GRUB = 1 # Grub menu.lst path MENULST_FILE = "hda1:/filo/menu.lst" # Via Epia-MII CF boot: #MENULST_FILE = "hde1:/boot/filo/menu.lst" # time before default menu.lst is chosen. Set to 0 to ignore MENULST_TIMEOUT = 0 # Image filename for automatic boot and optional command line parameter AUTOBOOT_FILE = "hda1:/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200" #AUTOBOOT_FILE = "mem@0xfff80000" #AUTOBOOT_FILE = "hde1@0" #AUTOBOOT_FILE = "uda1:/vmlinuz.elf" #AUTOBOOT_FILE = "flashb@0x00400000,0x154a00 console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200" # Time in second before booting AUTOBOOT_FILE AUTOBOOT_DELAY = 2 # Driver for hard disk, CompactFlash, and CD-ROM on IDE bus IDE_DISK = 1 # Add a short delay when polling status registers # (required on some broken SATA controllers) # NOTE: Slows down access significantly, so disable # whenever possible. #IDE_DISK_POLL_DELAY = 1 # SATA drives seem to have problems reporting their spinup. # This will delay FILO start by 5s so the disks have some time to settle. # (required on some broken SATA controllers) # NOTE: Slows down access significantly, so disable # whenever possible. #SLOW_SATA = 1 # Use PCMCIA compact flash on Via Epia MII10000 and MII6000E # This device is referred to as hde. #PCMCIA_CF = 1 # Driver for USB Storage #USB_DISK = 1 # Driver for NAND flash storage #FLASH_DISK = 1 # VGA text console VGA_CONSOLE = 1 PC_KEYBOARD = 1 # Serial console SERIAL_CONSOLE = 1 SERIAL_IOBASE = 0x3f8 # if SERIAL_SPEED is commented out, the speed will not be changed. #SERIAL_SPEED = 115200 # Filesystems FSYS_EXT2FS = 1 #FSYS_FAT = 1 #FSYS_JFS = 1 #FSYS_MINIX = 1 #FSYS_REISERFS = 1 #FSYS_XFS = 1 FSYS_ISO9660 = 1 #FSYS_CRAMFS = 1 #FSYS_SQUASHFS = 1 # Support for boot disk image in bootable CD-ROM (El Torito) ELTORITO = 1 # PCI support SUPPORT_PCI = 1 # Enable this to scan PCI busses above bus 0 # AMD64 based boards do need this. PCI_BRUTE_SCAN = 1 # Sound support (needs SUPPORT_PCI) #SUPPORT_SOUND = 1 # Sound drivers #VIA_SOUND = 1 # Debugging #DEBUG_ALL = 1 #DEBUG_ELFBOOT = 1 #DEBUG_ELFNOTE = 1 #DEBUG_LINUXBIOS = 1 #DEBUG_MALLOC = 1 #DEBUG_MULTIBOOT = 1 #DEBUG_SEGMENT = 1 #DEBUG_SYS_INFO = 1 #DEBUG_TIMER = 1 #DEBUG_BLOCKDEV = 1 #DEBUG_PCI = 1 #DEBUG_VIA_SOUND = 1 #DEBUG_LINUXLOAD = 1 #DEBUG_IDE = 1 #DEBUG_USB = 1 #DEBUG_ELTORITO = 1 #DEBUG_FLASH = 1 #DEBUG_ARTECBOOT = 1 # i386 options # Loader for standard Linux kernel image, a.k.a. /vmlinuz LINUX_LOADER = 1 # Loader for Windows CE image # Leave disabled for now. Not supported. #WINCE_LOADER = 1 # Artecboot loader support #ARTEC_BOOT = 1 # Boot FILO from Multiboot loader (eg. GRUB) MULTIBOOT_IMAGE = 1
The only ones that I changed are the MULTOBOOT_IMAGE-1. This makes filo build a bootable filo.elf
And MENULST_FILE = "hda1:/filo/menu.lst", you set up this file above; this is what will be used when you use coreboot.
Build your filo.elf and copy it into /boot. Boot it via the grub command line and make sure it works.
Null Modem Cable
If you have two machines you can see the output from coreboot. Get a good quality Null Modem cable and test it by running minicom on both machines. The only change that I made was to use ttyS0, instead of minicom's default of ttyS1.
Just for information the settings are:
Serial Device : /dev/ttyS0 | Lockfile Location : /var/lock | Callin Program : | Callout Program : | Bps/Par/Bits : 115200 8N1 | Hardware Flow Control : No | Software Flow Control : No
The BIOS chip
This motherboard has a socketed BIOS chip, so, first buy half a dozen empty Pm49FL004 chips. Build flashrom and do something like:
sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004
Your output should contain the lines
Probing for PMC Pm49FL004, 512 KB: probe_jedec: id1 0x9d, id2 0x6e Found chip "PMC Pm49FL004" (512 KB) at physical address 0xfff80000. No operations were specified.
You can now take a copy of the factory BIOS
sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -r -o factory sudo flashrom -V -c Pm49FL004 -V factory
You have read and verified a copy of your BIOS.
BIOS | Power up — OS loader | Linux — shell | Summary |
---|---|---|---|
Vendor BIOS (boot from SATA disk) | 24s | 24s | 48s |
coreboot (boot from SATA disk) | 9s | 24s | 33s |
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