PCEngines alix2c3 (Substitute for WRAP) boot failes

luma · Nov 8, 2007, 4:35 PM

Which errors messages?

If they are :

route: writing to routing socket: No such process

plug your WAN port! Example : with no battery on Alix, pfSense tries to sync date/time on Internet.

Regards

Clown · Nov 8, 2007, 6:25 PM

Yes, that was it :-\ - stupid me…

Anyone knows whats wrong with the 0.98b bios together with pfsense? m0n0wall and AskoziaPBX are working fine together with the 0.98b firmware.

Changelog of the alix bios:

ALIX tinyBIOS revision history
------------------------------

v0.98b	11/1/07

	- fix UART initialization

v0.98	10/31/07

	- skip DLL status check

v0.97	10/26/07

	- back to 400 MHz DRAM clock for ALIX.3*2

v0.96	10/25/07

	- always do HDD wait if enabled

v0.95	10/24/07

	- use 333 MHz DRAM clock for ALIX.3*2

v0.94	10/23/07

	- force MFGPT timer reset (undocumented MSR 5140002B per
	  workaround in AMD Linux driver)

	- fixed a bug in PCI BIOS find device function

	- auto detect DRAM clock to set correct refresh interval

v0.93	10/21/07

	- added port 92 reset support

	- added 19200 baud option

v0.92	10/3/07

	- added HDD wait option, adds some delay to allow detection of
	  conventional HDDs.

	- disable CS5536 diverse device power management to avoid MFGPT /
	  interrupt issues.

	- MFGPT issues: please observe AMD CS5536 data book section 5.16.3,
	  incorrect initialization sequence can HANG the system.

v0.90	9/25/07

	- Remapped audio and USB interrupts to offload regular PCI interrupts.

	- IRQ7 is no longer directed to the LPC bus, used as a default
	  interrupt for MFGPT high resolution timer.

	- Implemented BIOS setup. Press S during memory test to enter.

	- Added UMB (upper memory block) support.

ALIX / tinyBIOS quirks
----------------------

A20 gate

	A20 gate is always "open", prefer performance over support for
	broken legacy code.

HDD master / slave

	To reduce boot time, slave drives are not detected by default.
	Change the option in setup if required.

HDD wait

	Hard disk drives need more time to wake up, enable HDD wait in
	setup if necessary.

LPT IRQ

	IRQ7 is intentionally unmapped to allow use for MFGPT high speed
	timer.

RTC wake-up

	One customer reported strange behavior on ALIX.1C, set wake-up
	time to 999999 if problems occur.

UMB

	To support UMB (upper memory block), unused shadow RAM between
	C000 and E000 is left read/writeable.

Open issues
-----------

Boot device selection

	nice to have...

HDD support

	tinyBIOS does not include large HDD support (> about 40 GB) yet.

PCI boot ROMs

	Not handled correctly by tinyBIOS.

PCI bridges

	tinyBIOS bridge support is questionable, if in doubt send PCI dump +
	maybe sample hardware to PC Engines.

Port 92 restart

	Needs SMI emulation.

PXE boot

	Module added, but interferes with "S" setup key. Be persistent
	to enter setup. Shift-Tab cannot be entered through serial console,
	need to change to different PXE module without menu.

VGA

	ALIX.1C tinyBIOS does not support video.

Flash layout for ALIX						pd 070921
---------------------

The layout is controlled by the batch files used to build the BIOS,
for example lx3.bat.

00000 - 0FFFF	Config block (only first few bytes used, but the flash device
		has 64KB erase blocks)

10000 - 3FFFF	unused

40000 - 47FFF	unused / video BIOS (future use)

48000 - 5FFFF	unused

60000 - 6FFFF	PXE BIOS

70000 - 77FFF	SMI module

78000 - 78FFF	unused, space for runtime copy of config block

79000 - 7FFFF	tinyBIOS core

Memory layout for ALIX
----------------------

00000 - 9FFFF	RW	base 640K RAM

A0000 - BFFFF	-	unused / VGA memory

C0000 - C7FFF	RO	unused / video BIOS

C8000 - DFFFF	-	unused

E0000 - EFFFF	RW	PXE BIOS

F0000 - F7FFF	RW	SMI module

F8000 - F8FFF	RO	runtime copy of config block

F9000 - FFFFF	RO	tinyBIOS core

PCI Interrupt map
-----------------

Please note that ALIX.2A / ALIX.3A boards have a different mapping, please
use the correct files for these boards.

PCI dev	AD line	Int map		Description

00	..	-		unused

08	AD11	INTA		Geode LX host bridge (crypto)

10..40	12..18 	-		unused

48	AD19	INTB		LAN1 (right)

50	AD20	INTC		LAN2 (middle)

58	AD21	INTD		LAN3 (left)

60	AD22	INTA, INTB	miniPCI 1

68	AD23	-		unused

70	AD24	INTC, INTD	miniPCI2

78	AD25	INTA .. INTD	Geode CS5536

80..F8	..	-		unused

Interrupt map
-------------

IRQ0	timer
IRQ1	KBD (LPC)
IRQ2	cascade
IRQ3	COM1 serial (internal / LPC)
IRQ4	COM2 serial (LPC)
IRQ5	audio (CS5536)
IRQ6	FDC (LPC)
IRQ7	spare, used for MFGPT high resolution timer

IRQ8	RTC
IRQ9	PCI INTA
IRQ10	PCI INTB
IRQ11	PCI INTC
IRQ12	PCI INTD
IRQ13	floating point
IRQ14	IDE HDD
IRQ15	USB (CS5536)

dirom · Nov 9, 2007, 8:08 AM

Hello,

Can anyone explain me how to downgrade the bios to 0.92 ?
Can i use the freedos image from pcengines.ch on any 128mb compact flash or does only the cf128al have a geometry of 1002/8/32? ???

i have many 128mb cf cards here, but will they work with the freedos image without any modifications?

Thanks in advance

EarlBacid · Nov 9, 2007, 4:09 PM

ok, now I have the problem that I don't have a CF Card with this phys.

Does anybody know how I can use this FreeDOS (or another) image with a larger CF Card?

Everytime I tried to boot from my 512 MB CF Card I got the error "Invalid or damaged Bootable partition".
Th CF card itsels seems to work with the image, it readable with windows so I can put the BIOS file on it.

luma · Nov 9, 2007, 4:14 PM

Please try with WinImage. I add success with it. But I don't have any howto ready. And I don't really remember :) Sorry

cmb · Nov 15, 2007, 3:37 AM

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3?

vangual · Nov 15, 2007, 8:01 AM

@cmb:

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3?

embedded snapshot dated "2007-Nov-14 11:11:50" still does not get past "Starting DHCP service…done." with ALIX bios 0.98b

Clown · Nov 15, 2007, 2:53 PM

@cmb:

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3?

Same here with 0.98b Bios, Boot until DHCP (even with connected network cables).

fab · Nov 16, 2007, 11:57 AM

@Clown:

@cmb:

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3?

Same here with 0.98b Bios, Boot until DHCP

exactly the same with my installation.

Fabian

covex · Nov 20, 2007, 7:43 AM

just got mine… i don't know what version of bios it is running on but it booted up right out of the box with 1.2rc3
in putty i can't see the begining of the boot as it is all jebberish and clears out only when kernel starts.

vangual · Nov 20, 2007, 8:02 AM

@covex:

just got mine… i don't know what version of bios it is running on but it booted up right out of the box with 1.2rc3
in putty i can't see the begining of the boot as it is all jebberish and clears out only when kernel starts.

This is because your terminal settings only match kernel output but the bios is set to something else. (Default would be the 38400)

Set your terminal to 38400 speed, boot it up again. You will see the bios output normally but the kernel gibberish now. At that point you can 1) see what BIOS yours has come with 2) go into bios options and set the bios serial speed to the same that the kernel uses (9600) and then change your terminal speed back to 9600 and you should see both bios and kernel output.

Also I'm curious did you boot a completely fresh embedded snapshot or one that already had a previous configuration?

covex · Nov 20, 2007, 5:35 PM

thnx! i'll try it tonight. setup is clean 1024 embedded image on 2gig cf.

covex · Nov 21, 2007, 2:13 AM

ok. mine says 0.98

vangual · Nov 21, 2007, 7:04 AM

@covex:

ok. mine says 0.98

Thank you for checking.

I've just tried the 1024mb image (from http://snapshots.pfsense.com/FreeBSD6/RELENG_1_2/embedded/1024/pfSense-1024MB.img.gz) dated "2007-Oct-14 13:06:02" and surprisingly it does seem to work! Makes it seem like that post-DHCP freeze bug must have made it into the normal (non-1024) embedded image snapshots somewhen after the above date.

covex · Nov 21, 2007, 7:33 AM

pls! be carefull!

mine died after few reboots. now it wont boot saying there is an error on password file :-
i reapplied an image(1024 one) and it boots again…

i can't downgrade the bios... i can't even get into bios... del key wont work... anybody knows how to create freedos image on 256mb cf? i tried msdos5 but it didn't work.

vangual · Nov 21, 2007, 7:41 AM

@covex:

i can't downgrade the bios… i can't even get into bios... del key wont work... anybody knows how to create freedos image on 256mb cf? i tried msdos5 but it didn't work.

To get into the bios you need to press "S" while it's counting memory. (Make sure to set the terminal speed as shown in the posts above or the keypress likely won't be registered.)

As for the freedos image, I haven't tried personally but I'd fetch the freedos image available on the pcengines alix page, mount the image, try to inject the wanted bios firmware file, unmount it and dd it onto the cf card.

I'm not doing it myself because so far I didn't find the current version 0.98b downloadable anywhere. And I'm not downgrading when I can't go back to the newest release.

covex · Nov 21, 2007, 7:57 AM

As for the freedos image, I haven't tried personally but I'd fetch the freedos image available on the pcengines alix page, mount the image, try to inject the wanted bios firmware file, unmount it and dd it onto the cf card.

dd doesn't work because of the geometry of my cf. it reqires 1002/8/32 and mine is 695/15/48

what do you mean by "mount the image"?

btw my bios says 0.98 not 0.98b

Clown · Nov 21, 2007, 8:02 AM

@vangual:

I'm not doing it myself because so far I didn't find the current version 0.98b downloadable anywhere. And I'm not downgrading when I can't go back to the newest release.

You can write Pascal Dornier (the man behind PCengines), he will mail you the newest bios after you write him.

As I don't know if it's ok for PCEngines I don't post the 0.98b bios here…

vangual · Nov 21, 2007, 1:27 PM

Mr. Dornier has promptly put up the most recent (at the time of writing this) bios on the pcengines website. The most recent version is 0.98d which apparently has one of the fixes that happened between 0.92 and 0.98 as a toggle option in the bios now. (Full changelog is in the zip file.)
I'm trying to get this bios update applied but getting freedos to boot off my cf is indeed much more of a hassle than I had imagined. If anyone has any hints on how to properly adjust the freedos bootloader to new CHS values, or generally how to apply a bootable freedos image to a cf disk connected to an usb reader I'd appreciate it.

fridaynoon · Nov 21, 2007, 7:58 PM

I just received Alix boards from PCEngines. I did not have the chance to put my hand on these, for working problems, but I thint that what I made can help you in creating a boot CF image. I did not work with freedos, as I had an old floppy bootdisk from W98, but if freedos uses the same file names…
I work with Windows XP
I put the DOS floppy on A: and a CF (8MB) on my USB writer
Downloaded SP27608.exe from HP and executed it (it is a USB format tool from HP)
The resulting CF sometimes is only readable when you dismount&mount.
When I see at the CF in exlorer everything looks good.
Tomorrow I hope I can try it.

Hope that helps.