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[luma]

Which errors messages?

If they are :

Code:

route: writing to routing socket: No such process

plug your WAN port! Example : with no battery on Alix, pfSense tries to sync date/time on Internet.

Regards

[Clown]

Yes, that was it  - stupid me...

Anyone knows whats wrong with the 0.98b bios together with pfsense? m0n0wall and AskoziaPBX are working fine together with the 0.98b firmware.

Changelog of the alix bios:

Code:

ALIX tinyBIOS revision history
------------------------------

v0.98b 11/1/07

- fix UART initialization

v0.98 10/31/07

- skip DLL status check

v0.97 10/26/07

- back to 400 MHz DRAM clock for ALIX.3*2

v0.96 10/25/07

- always do HDD wait if enabled

v0.95 10/24/07

- use 333 MHz DRAM clock for ALIX.3*2

v0.94 10/23/07

- force MFGPT timer reset (undocumented MSR 5140002B per
  workaround in AMD Linux driver)

- fixed a bug in PCI BIOS find device function

- auto detect DRAM clock to set correct refresh interval

v0.93 10/21/07

- added port 92 reset support

- added 19200 baud option

v0.92 10/3/07

- added HDD wait option, adds some delay to allow detection of
  conventional HDDs.

- disable CS5536 diverse device power management to avoid MFGPT /
  interrupt issues.

- MFGPT issues: please observe AMD CS5536 data book section 5.16.3,
  incorrect initialization sequence can HANG the system.

v0.90 9/25/07

- Remapped audio and USB interrupts to offload regular PCI interrupts.

- IRQ7 is no longer directed to the LPC bus, used as a default
  interrupt for MFGPT high resolution timer.

- Implemented BIOS setup. Press S during memory test to enter.

- Added UMB (upper memory block) support.

ALIX / tinyBIOS quirks
----------------------

A20 gate

A20 gate is always "open", prefer performance over support for
broken legacy code.

HDD master / slave

To reduce boot time, slave drives are not detected by default.
Change the option in setup if required.

HDD wait

Hard disk drives need more time to wake up, enable HDD wait in
setup if necessary.

LPT IRQ

IRQ7 is intentionally unmapped to allow use for MFGPT high speed
timer.

RTC wake-up

One customer reported strange behavior on ALIX.1C, set wake-up
time to 999999 if problems occur.

UMB

To support UMB (upper memory block), unused shadow RAM between
C000 and E000 is left read/writeable.

Open issues
-----------

Boot device selection

nice to have...

HDD support

tinyBIOS does not include large HDD support (> about 40 GB) yet.

PCI boot ROMs

Not handled correctly by tinyBIOS.

PCI bridges

tinyBIOS bridge support is questionable, if in doubt send PCI dump +
maybe sample hardware to PC Engines.

Port 92 restart

Needs SMI emulation.

PXE boot

Module added, but interferes with "S" setup key. Be persistent
to enter setup. Shift-Tab cannot be entered through serial console,
need to change to different PXE module without menu.

VGA

ALIX.1C tinyBIOS does not support video.

Flash layout for ALIX pd 070921
---------------------

The layout is controlled by the batch files used to build the BIOS,
for example lx3.bat.

00000 - 0FFFF Config block (only first few bytes used, but the flash device
has 64KB erase blocks)

10000 - 3FFFF unused

40000 - 47FFF unused / video BIOS (future use)

48000 - 5FFFF unused

60000 - 6FFFF PXE BIOS

70000 - 77FFF SMI module

78000 - 78FFF unused, space for runtime copy of config block

79000 - 7FFFF tinyBIOS core

Memory layout for ALIX
----------------------

00000 - 9FFFF RW base 640K RAM

A0000 - BFFFF - unused / VGA memory

C0000 - C7FFF RO unused / video BIOS

C8000 - DFFFF - unused

E0000 - EFFFF RW PXE BIOS

F0000 - F7FFF RW SMI module

F8000 - F8FFF RO runtime copy of config block

F9000 - FFFFF RO tinyBIOS core

PCI Interrupt map
-----------------

Please note that ALIX.2A / ALIX.3A boards have a different mapping, please
use the correct files for these boards.

PCI dev AD line Int map Description

00 .. - unused

08 AD11 INTA Geode LX host bridge (crypto)

10..40 12..18 - unused

48 AD19 INTB LAN1 (right)

50 AD20 INTC LAN2 (middle)

58 AD21 INTD LAN3 (left)

60 AD22 INTA, INTB miniPCI 1

68 AD23 - unused

70 AD24 INTC, INTD miniPCI2

78 AD25 INTA .. INTD Geode CS5536

80..F8 .. - unused

Interrupt map
-------------

IRQ0 timer
IRQ1 KBD (LPC)
IRQ2 cascade
IRQ3 COM1 serial (internal / LPC)
IRQ4 COM2 serial (LPC)
IRQ5 audio (CS5536)
IRQ6 FDC (LPC)
IRQ7 spare, used for MFGPT high resolution timer

IRQ8 RTC
IRQ9 PCI INTA
IRQ10 PCI INTB
IRQ11 PCI INTC
IRQ12 PCI INTD
IRQ13 floating point
IRQ14 IDE HDD
IRQ15 USB (CS5536)

[dirom]

Hello,

Can anyone explain me how to downgrade the bios to 0.92 ?
Can i use the freedos image from pcengines.ch on any 128mb compact flash or does only the cf128al have a geometry of 1002/8/32? 

i have many 128mb cf cards here, but will they work with the freedos image without any modifications?

Thanks in advance

[EarlBacid]

ok, now I have the problem that I don't have a CF Card with this phys.

Does anybody know how I can use this FreeDOS (or another) image with a larger CF Card?

Everytime I tried to boot from my 512 MB CF Card I got the error "Invalid or damaged Bootable partition".
Th CF card itsels seems to work with the image, it readable with windows so I can put the BIOS file on it.

[luma]

Please try with WinImage. I add success with it. But I don't have any howto ready. And I don't really remember Sorry

[cmb]

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3? 

[vangual]

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3? 

embedded snapshot dated "2007-Nov-14 11:11:50"  still does not get past "Starting DHCP service...done." with ALIX bios 0.98b

[Clown]

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3? 

Same here with 0.98b Bios, Boot until DHCP (even with connected network cables).

[fab]

I believe the boot should be working with the newest BIOS now, can someone please verify with RC3? 

Same here with 0.98b Bios, Boot until DHCP

exactly the same with my installation.

Fabian

[covex]

just got mine... i don't know what version of bios it is running on but it booted up right out of the box with 1.2rc3
in putty i can't see the begining of the boot as it is all jebberish and clears out only when kernel starts.

[vangual]

just got mine... i don't know what version of bios it is running on but it booted up right out of the box with 1.2rc3
in putty i can't see the begining of the boot as it is all jebberish and clears out only when kernel starts.

This is because your terminal settings only match kernel output but the bios is set to something else. (Default would be the 38400)

Set your terminal to 38400 speed, boot it up again. You will see the bios output normally but the kernel gibberish now. At that point you can 1) see what BIOS yours has come with 2) go into bios options and set the bios serial speed to the same that the kernel uses (9600) and then change your terminal speed back to 9600 and you should see both bios and kernel output.

Also I'm curious did you boot a completely fresh embedded snapshot or one that already had a previous configuration?

[covex]

thnx! i'll try it tonight. setup is clean 1024 embedded image on 2gig cf.

[covex]

ok. mine says 0.98

[vangual]

ok. mine says 0.98

Thank you for checking.

I've just tried the 1024mb image (from http://snapshots.pfsense.com/FreeBSD6/RELENG_1_2/embedded/1024/pfSense-1024MB.img.gz) dated "2007-Oct-14 13:06:02" and surprisingly it does seem to work! Makes it seem like that post-DHCP freeze bug must have made it into the normal (non-1024) embedded image snapshots somewhen after the above date.

[covex]

pls! be carefull!

mine died after few reboots. now it wont boot saying there is an error on password file 
i reapplied an image(1024 one) and it boots again...

i can't downgrade the bios... i can't even get into bios... del key wont work... anybody knows how to create freedos image on 256mb cf? i tried msdos5 but it didn't work.