lbwww/site/docs/hardware/dell9020.md

7.5 KiB

On current lbmk master, graphics cards do work. The option to hide PEG devices from MRC was disabled. Now when you insert a graphics card, the onboard Intel GPU is disabled and the graphics card is used instead.

NOTE: You must set iommu=off in your linux cmdline. For instance, set this in /etc/default/grub and regenerate your GRUB config. With the IOMMU turned off, graphics cards work fine. Otherwise, with IOMMU turned on, you might get this error:

https://av.vimuser.org/error.jpg

NOTE2: You can use the onboard Intel GPU (without a graphics card inserted), and leave IOMMU turned on. You only need to disable the IOMMU when a graphics card is inserted.

7020 compatibility

7020/9020 MT each have the same motherboard. Flash the 9020 ROM from Libreboot on your 7020, and it will work.

Ditto 7020/9020 SFF, it's the same motherboard. However, Libreboot provides separate targets for MT and SFF.

Build ROM image from source

For the MT variant (7020 MT and 9020 SFF):

./build roms dell9020mt_12mb

For the SFF variant (7020 MT and 7020 SFF):

./build roms dell9020sff_12mb

It is important that you choose the right one. The MT variant is the full MTX tower.

Installation

Insert binary files

If you're using a release ROM, please ensure that you've inserted extra firmware required refer to the guide for that. (failure to adhere to this advice will result in a bricked machine)

Libreboot's build system automatically downloads and processes these files if you build Libreboot from source, but the same logic that it uses must be re-run if you're using a release image.

Set MAC address

This platform uses an Intel Flash Descriptor, and defines an Intel GbE NVM region. As such, release/build ROMs will contain the same MAC address. To change the MAC address, please read nvmutil documentation.

Flash a ROM image (software)

If you're already running Libreboot, and you don't have flash protection turned on, internal flashing is possible.

Flash a ROM image (hardware)

REMOVE all power sources and connectors from the machine, before doing this. This is to prevent short circuiting and power surges while flashing.

For general information, please refer to 25xx NOR flash instructions - that page refers to use of socketed flash.

This machine is somewhat cumbersome to flash, because it has a SOIC-16 flash for the first 8MB part, and 4MB SOIC8. You can split up your 12MB ROM image like so:

dd if=libreboot.rom of=4mb.rom bs=1M skip=8
dd if=libreboot.rom of=8mb.rom bs=1M count=8

The side cover comes off easily, and you can find the flash ICs next to the RAM.

Here's the SOIC8 ICs being flashed:

SOIC8 flash IC on 9020 SFF SOIC8 flash IC on 9020 SFF

Enjoy!