[flashrom] Writing BIOS to General Electric CR11 single board computer

[Razee, Robert G (DS-1)]

Designation: Non-SSA/Finmeccanica 

The only GE contact that was any help is based in Germany. Following is an excerpt from one of his e-mails:

 

regarding the bios programming issue we found an idea, which may be a good starting point for further evaluation at your side:

 

An alternative may be checking the Linux flashrom project, which is developed under GPL licensee and thus the source code has to be published if used. Please refer to the web-page: http://flashrom.org/flashrom . The             current flashrom.org version is 0.9.3, which should contain all source code parts needed for accessing the CR11 bios. 

Please be aware that this web-page is an external non GE web-page and thus we are not responsible for this web-page and for the content of this web-page at all.

 

Next as I explained the AMI bios contains the SMI mechanism preventing any flash program accessing the bios flash. This includes determining the correct flash chip, reading, erasing and writing. However I tested with our very first bios prototype bios not containing this specific SMI mechanism and with this prototype bios the flashrom-SW worked well. We tested successfully, determining the flash chip, reading out the old bios code and           writing the current bios. 

Please understand that this prototype bios was never delivered to any customer and only used for the very first board bring up in the design phase. So it is impossible delivering it to any customer.

In case you are writing new bios from the scratch the flashrom – tool may be a good help understanding the flash accessing mechanism. With the current bios releases from the CR11 it will not work.

 

Some information to the CR11:

 

-           Bios chip connected to the LPC bus of the ESB6300 Hence Rapid from Intel

-           Bios chip has so called FWH bus (firmware hub bus), which could be seen as specific LPC bus

-           Bios chip is the Silicon Storage SST49FL008A, which is supported by flashrom  flashchips.c

 

However please consider that regarding the Flash programming mechanism AMI may be the correct contact, since we do not have the details of the AMI tools (afudos.exe and so on), too. Regarding the ESB6300 from Intel, Intel may be the correct contact.

 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen - Best Regards

 

Dipl.-Ing.  Johannes Liegl

Technical Customer Service

 

Tel:         +49 821 5034 181

Fax:       +49 821 5034 119              

 

Johannes.Liegl at ge.com     

 

 

 

 

Robert G. Razee

Senior Software Engineer

DRS Consolidated Controls Inc.

21 South Street

Danbury, CT  06810

Tel: (203) 730-6808

Email: RRazee at DRS-DS.com

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Idwer Vollering [mailto:vidwer at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 1:21 PM
To: Razee, Robert G (DS-1)
Cc: flashrom at flashrom.org
Subject: Re: [flashrom] Writing BIOS to General Electric CR11 single board computer

 

2011/4/19 Razee, Robert G (DS-1) <RRazee at drs-ds.com>:

> Designation:  Non-SSA/Finmeccanica

> 

> This e-mail is basically a re-submittal with different subject.

> 

> I am currently working with an Intel based controller that is not supported by FLASHROM.

> The controller was purchased with AMI BIOS which configures the South Bridge BIOS_CNTL register to only allow SMI code to update the BIOS.

> 

> 

> I have attached log files from the following:

> 

> flashrom -V > flashrom.log                      "FlashRom was extracted from svn on 4/19/2011 and built with no changes."

> lspci -nnvvxxx > lspci.log

> superiotool -deV > superiotool.log

> 

> biosdecode > biosdecode.log

> hwinfo --bios > hwinfo-bios.log

> dmidecode --type bios  > dmidecode-bios.log lshw > lshw.log

> 

> 

> The controller (CR11) is manufactured by GE and uses the following chipset:

 

Do you have a contact at GE, that can help you with this controller ?

 

> 

> Intel Celeron Processor

> Intel E7520 North Bridge

> Intel 6300ESB South Bridge

> SST49LF008A Firmware Hub

> 

> With minor tweaks to flashrom, it was able to see the following:

> 

> Found chip "SST SST49LF008A" (1024 KB, FWH) at physical address 0xfff00000

 

Can we have a look at your modification/patch, if you are (legally)

allowed to disclose your work ?

 

> 

> The FWH ID was found at 0xfffc0000 and 0xfffc0001.

> 

> Any help will be greatly appreciated. We are in need of a reflash utility other than the one supplied by AMI .

> 

> 

> Thanks,

> 

> 

> Robert G. Razee

> Senior Software Engineer

> DRS Consolidated Controls Inc.

> 21 South Street

> Danbury, CT  06810

> Tel: (203) 730-6808

> Email: RRazee at DRS-DS.com

> 

> 3.1.1001

> _______________________________________________

> flashrom mailing list

> flashrom at flashrom.org

> http://www.flashrom.org/mailman/listinfo/flashrom

> 

3.1.1001

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