Board:msi/ms7260

The MSI MS-7260 (K9N Neo), revision 1.0

This page describes how to use LinuxBIOS on the MSI MS-7260 (K9N Neo) mainboard. It is maintained by Uwe Hermann.

The mainboard

Some more information on the board is available in the mailing list archives.

So far we have verified that revision 1.0 of the mainboard has a socketed PLCC32 ROM chip (512KB).

If you have any other revision of the board, please contact us on the mailing list and let us know if it has a socketed (and PLCC-type) ROM chip.

Status

Device/functionality	Status	Comments
CPU	Works	I'm using an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 3600+, both cores work fine.
RAM	Works	It seems some combinations of DIMMs and RAM slots don't work. Using only one DIMM (in slot 1) works for me.
IDE	Works	—
IDE using CF-to-IDE adapter	Works	—
SATA	Works	Tested with a 40 GB SATA disk, connected to the "SATA1" connector of the board (there are four). Works with hde2:/vmlinuz initrd=/initrd.img root=/dev/sda2 in FILO (my Linux partition is /dev/sda2). Mounting the drive also works fine when you don't boot from SATA (e.g. from IDE or via etherboot).
USB	Works	Tested: USB thumb drive, USB keyboard, USB webcam, USB DVB-T adapter.
On-board ethernet	Works	—
On-board audio	Works	—
PCI add-on cards	Works	There were some problems with PCI add-on cards, but they're fixed as of svn revision 2807.
PCI Express add-on cards	Untested	—
Floppy	Untested	—
Serial port (COM1)	Works	—
Parallel port	Untested	—
PS/2 keyboard	Untested	—
PS/2 mouse	Untested	—
Mainboard sensors/fans	Works	The k8temp module loads fine, the sensors tool outputs the CPU temperature (both cores in my case) correctly.
CPU frequency scaling / powersave modes	Untested	Probably won't work as long as there's no ACPI implementation for this board(?)
Flashrom	Works	Currently Flashrom works fine with LinuxBIOS, but it does not yet work with the proprietary BIOS.
X11	Works	Tested using a VGA add-on card (PCI).

Building LinuxBIOS

Build a LinuxBIOS payload, e.g. FILO, and copy the resulting file to /tmp/filo.elf.

$ cp payload.file /tmp/filo.elf

Checkout LinuxBIOS:

$ svn co svn://linuxbios.org/repos/trunk/LinuxBIOSv2

Build the LinuxBIOS image, containing the payload.

$ cd LinuxBIOSv2/targets
$ ./buildtarget msi/ms7260
$ cd msi/ms7260/ms7260
$ make

Write the LinuxBIOS image onto your ROM chip using flashrom:

$ flashrom -wv linuxbios.rom

WARNING: This will overwrite your current BIOS! Make sure you know what you're doing! You should have a way to revert back to the original BIOS in case anything goes wrong. It's a good idea to have a spare ROM chip which contains the original proprietary BIOS. Read the FAQ for more information. If in doubt, contact the mailing list.

Note: At the moment flashrom does not work in the MS-7260 (when booted using the original BIOS). Thus, I'm flashing the ROM chip in a different mainboard where flashrom works. However, flashrom works just fine once the MS-7260 is booted using LinuxBIOS.

TODO

• Test the devices marked as "Untested" in the above status table.
• Fix flashrom to also work when the board is booted using the proprietary BIOS.

This work is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version. This work is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.