[MinnowBoard] repair minnowboard power supply

Wed May 3 22:07:28 UTC 2017

Hello Patrick,

Great news on getting your board back up!

The BIOS is actually a generic UEFI Firmware developed for the MinnowBoard MAX/Turbot.   The most recent version is 0.95, and is available for Download at: https://firmware.intel.com/projects/minnowboard-max, release notes are also available on the site, so you can see what you are getting.

Note: the firmware is available in both 32 and 64 bit versions, as the UEFI specification mandates that the Firmware and OS should be running in the same mode (32 vs 64 bit) on each platform.

More about the Firmware:
When the MinnowBoard MAX was under development, it was determined that a generic firmware, which could support a lot of standard Operating Systems should be provided, hence the generic UEFI firmware.  This is much like the BIOS found on most (more) recent PC like devices.  It can boot to Windows, most of the Linux distributions, and several other operating systems capable of UEFI boot.  The firmware also provides the UEFI Shell (a firmware based monitor/execution environment which allows users to experiment on their platform before OS boot), a hardware/device management (setup) capability, and boot device selection (more setup) capability.  So the firmware provided is a good solid boot image (tested and verified on platforms before distribution) developed for maximum flexibility and minimum fuss to the final user.

It should also be noted that the MinnowBoard MAX firmware is ‘open source’, though there are some binary packages (due to hardware IP considerations).  However a developer can get the sources and “roll their own” custom firmware based on those sources.

However, the MinnowBoard MAX was designed as an experimenter board, so there is an SPI header on the board, to allow owners to re-flash the firmware (via a SPI programmer) to any other firmware they desire (please recognize the risks associated in modifying a firmware on a platform).   So basically, developers can create other boot firmware images (CoreBoot, Uboot, whatever) and try them on their MinnowBoard.

Sincerely,

Michael Krau

From: elinux-MinnowBoard [mailto:elinux-minnowboard-bounces at lists.elinux.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Kryder
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2017 12:31 AM
To: MinnowBoard Development and Community Discussion <elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>
Subject: Re: [MinnowBoard] repair minnowboard power supply

Patrick,
That certainly is good news. Thanks for the info. Yes, there is firmware that supplies a BIOS of sorts. It is user flashable. I think .094 is the latest. That boots and then loads what you tell it to. I guess that is a holdover from Microsoft days, being an Intel product. I have a SATA drive that has Linux mint which is what I run.

On May 3, 2017 12:10 AM, "Patrick Mulder" <mulder.patrick at gmail.com<mailto:mulder.patrick at gmail.com>> wrote:
good news, the repair worked, and the minnowboard is running again.

I was wondering how the board boots actually from the SD card now. Does it have flash memory for the first level boot, e.g. where a bootloader looks for the sd card?

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 11:57 PM, Douglas Kryder <dkryder at gmail.com<mailto:dkryder at gmail.com>> wrote:
yes, it is U35 which goes bad. it takes some soldering skills to replace it.

On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 1:54 PM, Krau, Michael P <michael.p.krau at intel.com<mailto:michael.p.krau at intel.com>> wrote:
If I remember correctly, (from back in the early days, when this was a more common event):

The schematic page 22 is of more value.  I believe when 12vts is applied, the chip U35 was the first (and usually only) part to go south.

Though there should be some discussion of this in earlier threads (about 2 + years ago).

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 Patrick Mulder
Sent: Friday, March 24, 2017 1:04 PM
To: elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org<mailto:elinux-minnowboard at lists.elinux.org>
Subject: [MinnowBoard] repair minnowboard power supply

Hello,

unfortunately, I applied 12V instead of 5V on the DC jack.

Now, only 1 of 2 diodes is lightning up.

I am looking at:

http://wiki.minnowboard.org/images/b/bd/Minnowboard_Turbot_X205_Sch.pdf

p. 29:

5 V DC --> NMOS and Switching supply . Not sure where to look for the broken IC from this. What could I do to repair the board?

Thanks a lot!

Patrick

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