Checking BIOS Rev. of Alix.2D3 from within pfSense.

blewis

Is there a way to see if I am running ALIX 0.99h BIOS without connecting via serial? Somewhere from within pfSense?

thanx..

kubo999

ssh to your pfsense/ALIX box and then issue this command:

$ dmesg | grep -i bios

pnpbios: Bad PnP BIOS data checksum
Geode LX: PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.99h tinyBIOS V1.4a (C)1997-2007

blewis

It didn't work, just showed "pnpbios: Bad PnP BIOS data checksum". I bought this board about 6 months ago, is yours a 2d3. I was told their 2c3 were slightly different.

kubo999

No, I have a 2C2. One potential reason why the BIOS version is not showing on your dmesg is probably the BIOS is older than .99h. I would need to look up my first dmesg copy (if I've saved it) before I upgraded to .99h.

Edit: Found my old dmesg log before upgrading BIOS to v.99h and the version is already showing up.
Geode LX: PC Engines ALIX.2 v0.98 tinyBIOS V1.4a (C)1997-2007

jimp

You must be running 1.2.3 to see that information, as in 1.2.2 (and very early 1.2.3 builds) there was no support for the chipset in the ALIX in the kernel. It worked, but it didn't know enough to print that line and make the LEDs work, etc.

Without that, it's a bit harder to figure out. You'd probably have to follow this:
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Remount_embedded_filesystem_as_read-write

And add the dmidecode package:
pkg_add -r dmidecode
rehash
dmidecode | more

That should show you information about the system's BIOS