Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L rev 1.1¶
This page describes how to use coreboot on the Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L rev 1.1 mainboard.
This motherboard also works with Libreboot.
Technology¶
| Type | Value |
|---|---|
| BIOS flash chips | 2 x SST25VF080B (8 Mbit SPI) (DUAL BIOS) |
| Northbridge | Intel G41 |
| Southbridge | Intel ICH7 |
| CPU socket | LGA775 |
| RAM | 2 x DDR2 800, max. 8 GiB |
| SuperIO | ITE IT8718F-S |
| Audio | Realtek ALC888B |
| Network | Realtek RTL8111C PCIe Gigabit Ethernet |
Preparation¶
For more datails how to get sources and build the toolchain, see Tutorial, part 1: Starting from scratch.
Devuan 4 Chimaera¶
This probably works also for any fresh Debian/Ubuntu-based distros.
Install tools and libraries needed for coreboot:
sudo apt-get -V install bison build-essential curl flex git gnat libncurses5-dev m4 zlib1g-dev wget python2 python-is-python2 flashrom
Get sources¶
You need about 700 MB disk space for sources only and ~2GB disk space for sources + build results
git clone --recursive https://review.coreboot.org/coreboot.git
Build toolchain¶
Your system compilers can be different with versions, tested by coreboot developers. So, it is recommended to build cross-compilers with special versions, which were tested with coreboot.
It is possible to skip this time-consuming part and use ANY_TOOLCHAIN=y, but this not recommended.
You can build them for all platforms: make crossgcc CPUS=2 but this takes ~2 hours with Intel core2duo E8400.
The best way, probably, is to build cross-compilers for your platform (this takes ~20 minutes with Intel core2duo E8400):
make crossgcc-i386 CPUS=2
Save MAC-address of internal LAN¶
Run ip -c link show, you will find MAC-address like 6c:f0:49:xx:xx:xx
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 6c:f0:49:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
Configure¶
Create file payloads/external/SeaBIOS/.config_seabios:
CONFIG_COREBOOT=y
CONFIG_ATA_DMA=y
CONFIG_VGA_COREBOOT=y
Edit file configs/config.gigabyte_ga-g41m-es2l, replace CONFIG_REALTEK_8168_MACADDRESS value with your MAC-address.
Run
make defconfig KBUILD_DEFCONFIG="configs/config.gigabyte_ga-g41m-es2l"
Build¶
Just execute:
make
It takes ~2 minutes with Intel core2duo E8400.
Example of last part in the output:
CBFSPRINT coreboot.rom
FMAP REGION: COREBOOT
Name Offset Type Size Comp
cbfs master header 0x0 cbfs header 32 none
fallback/romstage 0x80 stage 62316 none
cpu_microcode_blob.bin 0xf480 microcode 180224 none
fallback/ramstage 0x3b500 stage 98745 none
vgaroms/seavgabios.bin 0x53700 raw 28672 none
config 0x5a740 raw 301 none
revision 0x5a8c0 raw 675 none
build_info 0x5abc0 raw 103 none
fallback/dsdt.aml 0x5ac80 raw 8447 none
rt8168-macaddress 0x5cdc0 raw 17 none
vbt.bin 0x5ce40 raw 802 LZMA (1899 decompressed)
cmos.default 0x5d1c0 cmos_default 256 none
cmos_layout.bin 0x5d300 cmos_layout 1040 none
fallback/postcar 0x5d740 stage 20844 none
fallback/payload 0x62900 simple elf 70270 none
payload_config 0x73bc0 raw 1699 none
payload_revision 0x742c0 raw 237 none
(empty) 0x74400 null 482904 none
bootblock 0xea280 bootblock 23360 none
HOSTCC cbfstool/ifwitool.o
HOSTCC cbfstool/ifwitool (link)
Built gigabyte/ga-g41m-es2l (GA-G41M-ES2L)
Flashing coreboot¶
In addition to the information here, please see the Flashing firmware tutorial.
Do backup¶
The above commands read the SPI flash chip(s), write into file and then verify content again with the chip:
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=0 -r m_bios.rom
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=0 -v m_bios.rom
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=1 -r b_bios.rom
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=1 -v b_bios.rom
If access error appeared, then add iomem=relaxed to Linux kernel parameters and restart your Linux system.
You can also repeat backup and compare checksums manually.
Backup file should be stored elsewhere, so that in case the coreboot build is faulty, some external procedure can be used without having to extract the backup from the target device first.
Write new flash image¶
Let’s write new image into SPI flash chip, verify checksum again and erase second flash chip:
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=0 -w build/coreboot.rom
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=0 -v build/coreboot.rom
sudo flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=1 -E
Set text mode for GRUB¶
Update your /etc/default/grub with:
GRUB_TERMINAL=console
And recreate GRUB configuration /boot/grub/grub.cfg by command
sudo update-grub
Boot with new firmware¶
Restart your system:
sudo shutdown -r now
If it is needed, use Esc key to choose boot device.
Remove iomem=relaxed from Linux kernel parameters.
Enjoy!
Status¶
+-----------------------+--------------------------+--------+-------------------------------+
| coreboot version | Date of sources checkout | Status | Comment |
+-----------------------+--------------------------+--------+-------------------------------+
| 4.13-1531-g2fae1c0494 | 2021-01-28 | Good | |
+-----------------------+--------------------------+--------+-------------------------------+
| 4.13-2182-g6410a0002f | 2021-02-18 | Good | |
+-----------------------+--------------------------+--------+-------------------------------+
Known issues¶
Lm-sensors shows wrong values from it87:
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +27.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +31.0°C (high = +80.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
it8718-isa-0290
Adapter: ISA adapter
in0: 1.06 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
in1: 1.90 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
in2: 3.34 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
+5V: 2.96 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
in4: 224.00 mV (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
in5: 4.08 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) ALARM
in6: 4.08 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V) ALARM
in7: 3.09 V (min = +0.00 V, max = +4.08 V)
Vbat: 2.82 V
fan1: 1290 RPM (min = 0 RPM)
fan2: 0 RPM (min = 0 RPM)
temp1: -54.0°C (low = +0.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
temp2: -1.0°C (low = +0.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermistor
temp3: +44.0°C (low = +0.0°C, high = +127.0°C) sensor = thermal diode
cpu0_vid: +1.100 V
intrusion0: ALARM
Working¶
- RAM 1,2x1GiB DDR2 PC2-6400 Kingston KTC1G-UDIMM (1.8V, 2Rx8 ?)
- RAM 1x1GiB DDR2 PC2-5300 Brooktree AU1G08E32-667P005 / Apogee AU1G082-667P005 CL6 (1.8V, 2Rx8 ?)
- CPU E8400
- ACPI
- CPU frequency scaling
- flashrom under coreboot
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Hardware monitoring
- Integrated graphics
- SATA
- PCI POST card
Not working¶
- SuperIO based fan control: PWM fan speed is not changing in depend of CPU temperature
- RAM 1,2x4GiB DDR2 PC2-6400 Samsung M378T5263AZ3-CF7 (2Rx4 PC2-6400U-666-12-E3)
Not tested¶
- KVM virtualization
- Onboard audio
- PCI
- PCIe
- PS/2 keyboard mouse (during payload, bootloader)
- Serial port
- USB (disabling XHCI controller makes to work as fallback USB2.0 ports)
- IOMMU
Interesting facts¶
lshw output is different for BIOS and coreboot.
diff --side-by-side --ignore-all-space --strip-trailing-cr \
Documentation/mainboard/gigabyte/ga-g41m-es2l_lshw_before_coreboot.txt \
Documentation/mainboard/gigabyte/ga-g41m-es2l_lshw_after_coreboot.txt