Another Older ASUS Board Now Works With Coreboot, Can Be Found Refurbished $50~70

[schmidtbag]

Intel develops TianoCore on GitHub.
My next computer will be an Intel, it will not be an AMD.

AMD need to step up their game. Get rid of proprietary firmware and binary blobs, and make more open source and publish more documentation.

You do realize that even if you get Coreboot, you're still not getting a fully open-source system, right? Unless you actually have a good reason to want 100% open-source (and I'm confident you don't, because every time I bring it up you have yet to come up with one) you might as well just get what actually suits your needs, because neither company will satisfy your principles. Otherwise, you ought to just give up on x86 and move to another architecture. Seeing as you want a complete FLOSS platform, that should be no problem to you, since you can just re-compile whatever doesn't exist.

[slalomsk8er]

Don't forget to stand on and be clipped into the anti-static mat. And a clean room bunny suit might come in handy, along with a clean room air filter that can get down to 100 or less ppm.

Wrong article? We are talking about flash chips not transferring platters from one HDD to an other.

[starshipeleven]

Don't forget to stand on and be clipped into the anti-static mat. And a clean room bunny suit might come in handy, along with a clean room air filter that can get down to 100 or less ppm.

Doing any kind of board firmware modifications can end badly, modding the ME increases the chance. Not being prepared for that is foolish.
If the PC does not boot or boots in a broken state, the only sure way to recover it is to flash manually a backup of the stock firmware.

But if you like to risk throwing away a board (plus the downtime of the PC) just because you don't want to invest 100$ in reusable tools (and I'm including a chinese hot air rework station here, the hardware flashers and the 1.8v adapters and the clips are cheap, you can get quality ones with 25$), be my guest. The first time something goes wrong it repays itself, and given how it's going in the x86 world, you will need to use the me_cleaner in any new Intel PC you will buy for the rest of your life.

It's not my fault if many board manufacturers do tricks that keep the chip in reset or read only mode if you try to program it in-circuit.

[andyprough]

If you go the Intel route make sure you got a SPI flash programmer and possibly a 1.8V adapter to work with it on low-power SPI chips (in case the one on your board is low-power).

Also having hot air smd rework station does not hurt, as in many cases you can't flash them while soldered on the board with just a SOIC clip.

Don't forget to stand on and be clipped into the anti-static mat. And a clean room bunny suit might come in handy, along with a clean room air filter that can get down to 100 or less ppm.

[flubba86]

There's usually a list of caveats on an article like this.

"This 11 year old board now works with Coreboot! How progressive! However you cannot boot from a USB drive, if you increase the audio volume greater than 1% it only comes out of the left channel, the PCI-E 16x slot operates at 1x, it you use the sleep function it wipes the CMOS, the onboard video output displays inverted colours."

This article seems devoid of these however.

[eydee]

Intel develops TianoCore on GitHub.
My next computer will be an Intel, it will not be an AMD.

AMD need to step up their game. Get rid of proprietary firmware and binary blobs, and make more open source and publish more documentation.

Or they can ignore the 0.0000000000000001% open source elitist customer base and get a lot of money from the rest. I wonder which one they'd choose.

[CTown]

This is amazing news. I remember Ars Technica doing a piece that Intel's last major generation (compared to the previous) was Ivy Bridge (the generation right after Sandy Bridge). Unfortunately, I cannot find the article. So, I consider the next Intel coreboot milestone, which will be supporting Ivy Bridge, to be a MASSIVE and extremely useful one. Way to go coreboot team!

[numacross]

Enjoy your PSP. At least with Intel ME, its partially removable, and there is a kill bit as ordered by the US Government. AMD PSP on die, and cannot be disabled as it is needed to enable the x86 cores.

So I think I am going with intel, specifically a motherboard and chip I've researched that works with me_cleaner.

You seem to be under impression that I'm suggesting AMD as a solution for ME and that's not the case.

While me_cleaner is a useful tool it might void your warranty (depending on your location - whether the EU protections against such warranty terms apply to you) and it is a solution for a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. AMD refusing open-souring PSP firmware is one of the gripes I have with them too.

There still is a semi-competitive third player for x86 designs in the form of Zhaoxin. While the details of their platform are scarce they might be interesting to watch especially if they hit their targets for upcoming generations. Intel seems to have ran out of steam while constantly rehashing Skylake, or Sandy Bridge depending how you look at it, and AMD has only recently caught up to them. The situation is looking interesting especially considering ARM cores slowly trying to compete in this space as well.

[starshipeleven]

Enjoy your PSP. At least with Intel ME, its partially removable, and there is a kill bit as ordered by the US Government.

AMD PSP can be isolated by using a UEFI option.

AMD PSP on die, and cannot be disabled as it is needed to enable the x86 cores.

Intel ME is in the chipset, and cannot be truly disabled either for the same reason. You can at most isolate it by removing its modules, or using that switch.

So I think I am going with intel, specifically a motherboard and chip I've researched that works with me_cleaner.

This is a case of "pick your poison" I guess as there is no clear winner.

If you go the Intel route make sure you got a SPI flash programmer and possibly a 1.8V adapter to work with it on low-power SPI chips (in case the one on your board is low-power).

Also having hot air smd rework station does not hurt, as in many cases you can't flash them while soldered on the board with just a SOIC clip.

[GI_Jack]

Enjoy your Management Engine

Enjoy your PSP. At least with Intel ME, its partially removable, and there is a kill bit as ordered by the US Government. AMD PSP on die, and cannot be disabled as it is needed to enable the x86 cores.

So I think I am going with intel, specifically a motherboard and chip I've researched that works with me_cleaner.