Wow! The NIX Russian online store link to my motherboard really lets you see the layout. Much better than anything I had gotten from MSI directly. When I built my computer I bought a large case for an ATX motherboard that has an open side covered by a clear plastic window that shows the face of the motherboard. Most of the time I don't see it because I have limited room on my computer bench, but just now I dug out my flashlight (it's night here in Ft. Worth Texas) and moved the monitor back, and without opening the case at all, I can see JSPI1 just exactly where the picture from NIX shows.
Apparently JSPI1 is a special pin-out for MSI's bios, and can be used like you say to flash the bios. One thing that confuses me a little is that the page at flashrom: https://www.flashrom.org/MSI_JSPI1 shows a 10 pin layout and the picture shows 2x6=12 pin layout, and in fact my own mb has 12 pins at the JSPI1 header. Your picture seems to show a little "block" thing on the left end, maybe to keep these two pins from connecting? Anyway, it's clear I have a lot of options. It may be tricky to get in between my video card & cpu cooler, but I can see JSPI1. Thanks so much for your help, Clay On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 10:43 AM Ivan Ivanov <[email protected]> wrote: > 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] >
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