[MinnowBoard] MinnowBoard MAX 0.93 64-Bit & network lost

Krau, Michael P michael.p.krau at intel.com
Fri Sep 9 19:44:18 UTC 2016


Hello Doug,

The link you provided below is for the older original MinnowBoard (not the MAX).   The original MinnowBoard was a different device, using a different processor and a completely different design.  The Original was not a bad product, but the lessons learned in developing the original were applied to make the MAX a better product.


However, those firmware images would not work on the MAX.

Glad to be of help.


Michael Krau

From: elinux-MinnowBoard [mailto:elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Kryder
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2016 12:34 PM
To: MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion <elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>
Subject: Re: [MinnowBoard] MinnowBoard MAX 0.93 64-Bit & network lost

Michael,
thanks for that link. i think now i was getting the wrong package although i am sure that it was from a link on a wiki. the package i was getting was
MinnowBoard UEFI Firmware from this page,
https://firmware.intel.com/content/minnowboard-uefi-firmware-download

i think i was confused by the package titles, also not for sure if the one i got was correct. anyway, your link
provides the .bin. i'm all set. thanks!

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Krau, Michael P <michael.p.krau at intel.com<mailto:michael.p.krau at intel.com>> wrote:
The .fd extension stands for Firmware Device, while .bin is a binary image.   To be honest, both files are binary format, and can be loaded directly into the flash part.

However, when I pulled down the release x64 versions of the MinnowBoard MAX 0.91, 0.92, and 0.93 (along with a few other debug or 32 bit versions) I received the release notes, the update utility, and the image as a .bin file.  I pulled them down form the official download site at: https://firmware.intel.com/projects/minnowboard-max

You may want to pull the packages again.

Sincerely,


Michael Krau

From: elinux-MinnowBoard [mailto:elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org<mailto:elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org>] On Behalf Of Douglas Kryder
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2016 11:27 AM
To: MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion <elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org<mailto:elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>>
Subject: Re: [MinnowBoard] MinnowBoard MAX 0.93 64-Bit & network lost

hello all, i have been following this thread from start and would like to test the firmware myself. i have some questions about flashing that i'm hoping someone can answer. both my turbot boards currently have .090 firmware. in the past i have used a piece of hardware called SPI Hook by tincantools and the software "flashrom" to flash my boards. i know the flash utlity is available but i just enjoyed using the mentioned combo. up to and including firmware 0.90 the file provided had extension .bin. since 0.90 all the compressed packages use file with extension .fd my questions are 1. is the .fd file flashable with flashrom like .bin file are.?   2. i've read i can open .fd file in hex editor and save as .bin and flash that, is this possible to do without damage to board?   thanks for any help. also if anyone has other suggestions on flashing the current file from intel using flashrom i would like to hear.. thanks again. if it turns out there is no path to using flashrom with the .fd files i plan to use provided utility to flash and then join these tests. thank you.

On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 10:39 AM, David Scully <dscully at sbimagingsystems.com<mailto:dscully at sbimagingsystems.com>> wrote:
Michael,

"Either happens only 1 out of every n (n possibly being variable as well)
runs, or happens in a wildly variable time frame (takes as little as 2
seconds and as long as 12 hours) to failure, regardless of environmental
issues."

That's consistent with what I'm seeing. Sometimes its near immediately,
other times I have to run it for ~30 minutes.

"But also note #1, enabling the PCIe port 1, could this contribute to PCIe
disconnects in the custom hardware?"

Even on 0.92 firmware, I enable this port because our board uses it for the
main Ethernet NIC.

---

I tested 0.92 firmware with Spread Spectrum On and was unable to lose PCIe
connection on the i211 on Port 1 (Port 2 in the FW).

I was hoping to test 0.93 firmware where spread spectrum is off but the
option appears to have vanished. I'm wondering if there were more changes in
that two month window to the PCIe system that might have motivated turning
it on permanently in 0.93. There aren't many commits to bisect on the edk2
minnowboard-max-udk2015 branch, but I have no idea how much the binary
objects have changed.

I might try to build a version that reverts this commit, so I'm able to
disable spread spectrum on 0.93 firmware:
https://github.com/tianocore/edk2-platforms/commit/110b549d870c5851991b3479785a828b3287f2a6

Our board leaves PCIe 0 disconnected while 1, 2, and 3 are connected to
separate i211 NICs. I did discover today that it appears that on 0.93 I'm
not seeing any PCIe disconnects on port 2 (Port 3 in FW). It looks like it's
pointing to some potential signal integrity issues on our board that are
exacerbated by the PCI change in the firmware.

This might not be important, but one thing I noticed in the setup screen is
that it doesn't show a IFWI Version or BIOS Version on my board, while it
does appear on a Minnowboard Max. Our BOM_OP[X] pins (for HW ID) are
strapped to mimic the Turbot X205.



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