uefi News - Page 3 of 11 - CNX Software

March 5, 2022July 6, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 48 Comments

Firefly is working on a Rockchip RK3588 Mini-ITX motherboard (ITX3588J)

After Radxa ROCK5 Pico-ITX SBC and Banana Pi RK3588 SoM and devkit, Firefly ITX3588J mini-ITX motherboard is the third hardware platform we’ve seen with Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor. The board will be interesting to people wanting an Arm PC or workstation as the mini-ITX form factor will allow the board to be fitted to a standard enclosure, and there’s plenty of resources and I/Os with up to 32GB RAM, four SATA ports, multiple 8K/4K video outputs and inputs, dual Gigabit Ethernet, WiFI 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot, and more. Firefly ITX3588J mini-ITX motherboard specifications: SoC – Rockchip RK3588 octa-core processor with four Arm Cortex-A76 cores @ up to 2.4 GHz, four Arm Cortex-A55 cores, ArmMali-G610 MP4 quad-core GPU with support for OpenGL ES3.2, OpenCL 2.2, Vulkan1.1, 6 TOPS NPU, 48MP ISP, 8Kp60 video decoding, 8Kp30 video encoding System Memory – 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB […]

October 26, 2021October 27, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 20 Comments

AVA Developer Platform offers 32 64-bit Arm cores, 32GB RAM, 10GbE for $5,450

The AVA Developer Platform was announced together with ADLink COM-HPC Ampera Altra server module for embedded applications with up to 80 64-bit Arm cores, up to 768GB DDR4, 4x 10GbE, and 64x PCIe Gen4 lanes. The AVA Developer Platform is not fitted with the top-end COM-HPC module, but still, with a 32-core COM-HPC Ampere Altra module fitted with 32 GB DDR4 memory, plus a 128 GB NVMe M.2 SSD, and an Intel Quad X710 10GbE LAN card, it still makes an impressive workstation for native Arm development. We did not know the price the last time, but now we do as the workstation is available for pre-order for $5,450. AVA Developer Platform specifications: SoM – COM-HPC Ampere Altra module with Ampere Altra 32-core 64-bit Arm Neoverse N1 processor up to 3.3 GHz (TPD: 60W), 32 GB DDR4 memory Storage – 128 GB NVMe M.2 SSD (From photos see below: extra […]

October 16, 2021October 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

Raspberry Pi 4, Rockchip RK3399 SBC’s get Arm SystemReady IR certification

RockPro64 RK3399 Arm SystemReady IR certification

The first hardware platforms getting Arm SystemReady IR certification for IoT Edge applications were announced a few months ago with namely NXP i.MX 8 Mini evaluation kit and Compulab IOT-GATE-IMX8 gateway being able to run off-the-shelf operating system images such as Fedora IoT, OpenSuSE Leap 15.3, and Debian 11 thanks to UEFI firmware. But following PinePhone Pro Linux smartphone announcement, and Pine64 October update, we also learned that Rockchip RK3399 based RockPro64 was also Arm SystemReady IR certified, and check Arm’s website directly revealed it was joined by Lenovo Leez P710 “Gateway” SBC, as well as Raspberry Pi 4 and Pi 400 platforms. Let’s check the details and see what off-the-shelf images each board has been tested with. Pine64 RockPro64 RK3399 SBC achieved SystemReady IR v1.0 Level 1 certification meaning it complies with some waivers and workarounds found in the errata document. The board has been successfully tested with Fedora […]

September 16, 2021September 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Intel Seamless Update to enable BIOS/UEFI firmware updates without a reboot

Intel Seamless Update - MM Runtime Update System

Updating the BIOS/UEFI binary usually requires a reboot, but Intel is working on changing that, at least on Linux servers for now, with the Intel Seamless Update aiming to carry out system firmware updates (e.g. UEFI) at run-time without having to reboot, a bit like what Canonical does with the Ubuntu Livepatch service, but at a lower level in the software stack. Intel submitted a patch that “Introduces Platform Firmware Runtime Update and Telemetry drivers” to the Linux kernel mailing list a couple of days ago with the description reading in part: High Service Level Agreements (SLAs) requires that the system runs without service interruptions. Generally, system firmware provides runtime services such as RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) features, UEFI runtime services and ACPI services. Currently if there is any firmware code changes in these code area, the system firmware update and reboot is required. Example of bug fix could […]

September 2, 2021December 18, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 16 Comments

Windows 11 can run on Arm SystemReady ES platforms like Raspberry Pi 4, Solidrun SBC’s, etc…

While Windows 11 may have some problems running some x86 machines, I previously saw Windows 11 Arm on Raspberry Pi 4 with instructions telling you to download the images from UUP Dump and flash the ISO with Windows on Raspberry Pi Imager. At the time, I did not look into details, and it seemed was some hack involved, but I’ve just been told Windows 11 could also run without modification on some SolidRun’s single board computers, namely MacchiatoBin and CN913x CEx7 evaluation board. Marcin Wojtas explains Windows 11 Pro (version 22000.168) could be installed unmodified on an Arm computer based on MacchiatoBin mini-ITX board equipped with an NVIDIA Geforce GT630 GPU (using EFI Frame Buffer), a SATA SSD, connected through Ethernet (via USB2ETH), plus a mouse and keyboard. So what’s the trick, and what do Raspberry Pi 4 and a board like MacchiatoBin have in common? Answer: Arm SystemReady ES […]

August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments

SolidRun LX2162A SOM packs 16 Cortex-A72 cores, 32GB DDR4 onto a 58x48mm module

SolidRun LX2162A SOM is a compact (58x48mm) system-on-module based on NXP LX2162A 16-core Cortex-A72 networking processor and equipped with up to 32GB DDR4 RAM that’s 25% of the size of the company’s earlier COM Express Type 7 computer-on-module based on NXP LX2160A 16-core Arm Cortex A72 communication processor and found in ClearFog CX LX2K networking board. The much smaller size has been made possible by replacing the SO-DIMM sockets with soldered RAM, and switching from LX2160A to LX2162A SoC with similar features, but offered in a 23x23mm package that is nearly one quarter the size thanks to a reduction of the number of SerDes and PCIe interfaces, and manufacturing with a 16nm FinFET process technology. LX2162A SOM specifications: SoC – NXP Layerscape LX2162A communication processor with 16x Cortex A72 cores clocked at up to 2.0 GHz (option for the 12-core LX2122A, or 8-core LX2182A) Memory – Up to 32GB DDR4 […]

March 18, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 8 Comments

Updating the BIOS (System Firmware) from the Device Manager in Windows 10

Device Manager: Firmware->Acer Inc System Firmware

I recently started having problems playing YouTube videos in Firefox and Chrome in Ubuntu 18.04. The video would load, and I could see frames at any time, but it would just not play. I soon discovered that killing PulseAudio, and the video would play without audio. I also noticed I had Dummy Output in Sound settings. I tried all usual tricks to fix this, but still no luck. Then I discovered I had audio just after booting my computer, but after a while, there would be no audio at all. This seems to match the time by which the AMD GPU drives crashes (just warning), something that had happened ever since I installed Ubuntu on my Acer laptop. After more failed attempts, I decided to try to update the BIOS using Windows 10. A 10-minute task, right? I would just have to replace the hard drive with one pre-loaded with […]

March 17, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

DFI GHF51 Ryzen Embedded R1000 SBC is about the Size of a Raspberry Pi

We’ve seen a fair amount of AMD Ryzen Embedded boards over the last few months including 3.5″ Ryzen Embedded SBC‘s such as Kontron SBC-VR1000 and IBASE Technology IB918, as well as larger boards such as SAPPHIRE FS-FP5R 5×5 motherboard. The most compact Ryzen Embedded board we covered so far must have been the upcoming Sapphire NP-FP5 based on Ryzen R1305G processor with a 4″x4″ (10.16 x 10.16 cm) form factor. But DFI GHF51 1.8″ SBC takes the crown of the smallest Ryzen Embedded SBC, with the business card / Raspberry Pi sized board measuring just 84 x 55 mm, and featuring an AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000-series processor combined with up to 8GB RAM. DFI GHF51 specifications: SoC – AMD Ryzen Embedded R1000 Series with Radeon Vega 3 GPU; 12W CPU System Memory – 2GB/4GB/8GB single-channel DDR4 3200MHz Storage 1x 16GB/32GB/64GB eMMC flash 64Mbit SPI Flash for BIOS (supports UEFI boot […]