NIX russian online store - often has the high resolution quality photos of their products. Open this link and close a pop-up window which says this motherboard is unavailable and offers some alternatives - https://www.nix.ru/autocatalog/motherboards_msi/MSI-X570-A-PRO-RTL-AM4-X570-2xPCI-E-HDMI-GbLAN-SATA-ATX-4DDR4_427748.html . Then click on a motherboard main picture and use a + magnifier / gallery.
MSI's own flashing methods - work only as long as its' installed BIOS is working - otherwise, there's no other option than the external flashing methods. And of course MSI's BIOS is far from being perfect and may have significant bugs + security issues. If you care about really controlling your computer, consider getting a motherboard supported by opensource coreboot BIOS - such as ASUS A88XM-E. Of course it's less powerful than Ryzen, but offers much more customization, great security and even possible to add floppy-based OS and run them right from a BIOS. And of course MBR is not a thing of the past: SeaBIOS coreboot's payload is a "modern legacy BIOS" and I've never had any problems with its' MBR. Pushing for new standards that are more and more complicated and closed - shouldn't be done just for the sake of new-ness. "One old friend is better than two new ones" пт, 18 сент. 2020 г. в 18:35, Miraz Shuvra <[email protected]>: > > > On Fri, Sep 18, 2020, 10:56 AM Clay Daniels <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Ivan, thanks so much for the valuable information! It seems to me you have >> found a more detailed picture of the motherboard than I have. All I can find >> is marketing pictures, and a 'quick start guide', but no real picture that >> shows stuff like you describe. Please do let me know the link to the picture >> you are looking at. >> >> The project is not really that urgent, and I have no trouble using the MSI >> flash routine in the bios. The board is new enough that there are regular >> updates to the bios, 10 versions (1 thru A) since I bought the motherboard & >> built the machine the summer of 2019. >> >> Another thing that MSI offers on the motherboard is a "flash button" and >> dedicated usb port for the source bios on the back of the board. I have not >> used this feature, but it may offer some direct flash route to the bios for >> all I know. >> >> The MSI bios is ok, and seems very advanced with a lot of graphics but >> actually is kind of primitive in how it deals with bootable disks and >> devices. Everything is an icon, and sometimes the icons don't match the >> device very well. I think it's geared to a gamer who has one big disk drive, >> and they really want you to use UEFI/GPT, and treat MBR as totally a thing >> of the past, which may or may not be true. I have NetBSD running on a MBR >> whole disk setup on my older 2014 HP Pavilion that originally came with >> Windows 8.1. It works fine using MBR & NetBSD. No icons in that bios. The >> machine is really nice for what it is, but is too slow for much action. The >> newer home-built machine is my main hobby, I suppose. >> >> Anyway, thanks for the info, and do send me a link to the detailed >> motherboard layout you found. >> >> Clay >> >> On Thu, Sep 17, 2020 at 4:46 AM Ivan Ivanov <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> CH341A are really overpriced at Newegg: you can get it from AliExpress >>> China for less than 2 dollars + free shipping, if this project isn't >>> urgent and you could wait about 1 month for it to arrive. From the >>> posts online it seems that CH341A with a green PCB is preferable - >>> less likely to have a hardware design bug causing it to output 5V >>> instead of 3.3V: I heard that some black PCB ones suffer from it >>> (although possible to fix with some soldering). >>> >>> The desktop boards used to have a DIP8 "shape" BIOS chip plugged into >>> a socket, from where you could easily remove it using a PLCC clip. >>> Sometimes they have a soldered SOIC-8 "shape" chip like many laptops, >>> but its' bearable since there are good SOIC-8 test clips available, >>> using which you can connect to SOIC-8 BIOS chip without soldering and >>> do the ISP (In-System Programming). However, in your case - your board >>> seems to have a WSON-8 "shape" chip, which really sucks as there are >>> no (good/cheap) test clip adapters last time I checked. But at least >>> there's a MSI JSPI1 header near this chip, so maybe you can use it for >>> flashing. Read more about it at flashrom wiki and elsewhere. So, you >>> may also need some 1.27mm 1P male - female or female-female cables to >>> connect a CH341A to this header (10 cm length is recommended, although >>> you can get longer cables and manually resolder them if it turns out >>> that a flashing operation isn't reliable). Additionally, USB extension >>> cable of ~1m length will make all this more convenient. And you'll use >>> another PC with some Linux loaded (either from HDD or LiveUSB) and >>> flashrom, to read from and write to a BIOS chip of this motherboard. >>> >>> Thank you for providing a lspci file, although I'm not skilled enough >>> to tell what exactly caused a flashrom's internal mode to fail - maybe >>> someone else can help you. >>> >>> ср, 16 сент. 2020 г. в 22:59, Clay Daniels <[email protected]>: >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > On Wed, Sep 16, 2020 at 11:43 AM Ivan Ivanov <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >> >>> >> While doing the internal flashrom operations, that BIOS chip is >>> >> situated behind a southbridge that you find by AMD FP4 name. Looks >>> >> like either its' support isn't good enough at flashrom or UEFI >>> >> firmware / EC controller somehow disturb the operation. Maybe try to >>> >> access a BIOS chip directly with the external programmer like usb >>> >> ch341a? >>> > >>> > >>> > Ivan, thanks for the useful info. Your explanation likely tells me why I >>> > can't see my bios chip. I just looked and the little usb devices are >>> > available from Newegg where I got the parts to build my Ryzen 7 machine. >>> > Before I order one, do you or anyone else on the list have suggestions on >>> > what to look for in a usb ch341a external programmer? Newegg has a wide >>> > variety. >>> > >>> > You may have noticed my https://paste.flashrom.org/ lspci file. I added >>> > a Ubuntu Linux disk as FreeBSD doesn't do lspci, just pciconf. I also >>> > tried (twice) to load a pciconf -lvb from FreeBSD, which is there but >>> > called lspci ;-( >>> > >>> > Anyway, thanks for your help, >>> > Clay >>> > >>> > >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> ср, 9 сент. 2020 г. в 10:52, Clay Daniels <[email protected]>: >>> >> > >>> >> > I'm just trying to read what bios info I can: >>> >> > >>> >> > MSI X570-A PRO (MS-7C37) >>> >> > AMD Ryzen 7 3700X >>> >> > FreeBSD fbsd13 13.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 13.0-CURRENT >>> >> > >>> >> > root@fbsd13:~ # flashrom -p internal >>> >> > flashrom v1.2 on FreeBSD 13.0-CURRENT (amd64) >>> >> > flashrom is free software, get the source code at https://flashrom.org >>> >> > >>> >> > Using clock_gettime for delay loops (clk_id: 4, resolution: 1ns). >>> >> > Found chipset "AMD FP4". >>> >> > Enabling flash write... FCH device found but SMBus revision 0x61 does >>> >> > not match known values. >>> >> > Please report this to [email protected] and include this log and >>> >> > the output of lspci -nnvx, thanks!. >>> >> > Could not determine chipset generation.PROBLEMS, continuing anyway >>> >> > No EEPROM/flash device found. >>> >> > Note: flashrom can never write if the flash chip isn't found >>> >> > automatically. >>> >> > >>> >> > pciconf -lvb output attached, as well as flashrom -V -p internal (the >>> >> > verbose version) >>> >> > >>> >> > My first question is: It looks to me that "AMD FP4" is just a BGA >>> >> > (FP4) Socket, not a chip. Newbie to flashrom & coreboot. >>> >> > >>> >> > Thanks, >>> >> > Clay >>> >> > >>> >> > _______________________________________________ >>> >> > flashrom mailing list -- [email protected] >>> >> > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] >> >> _______________________________________________ >> flashrom mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________ flashrom mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
