WindSLIC - PCI Replacement ROM for SLIC Injection

Sure thing. I'm not sure why the newer version isn't working. You said that with the newer version, the BIOS reported "BEV Device (not installed)". WindSLIC is definitely a BEV Device, so I'm not sure why it doesn't show up.

What does the BIOS show now with the working-version? (As in, how is the entry listed?)

 

Hi all,

I added a new version of WindSLIC.

The big change is that it now works with the Asus P8P67 Deluxe (original and B3-chipset revision) Sandy Bridge CPU / Cougar-Point Chipset motherboard, at least in Legacy (non-GPT/UEFI) boot mode.

(see the first post in this thread for download link)

Thanks,
-tij-

 

Ideas for WindSLIC future versions

I didn't do anything "New" with regards to making WindSLIC work with any new environments. All I did was take some of the settings you have to set to get it to work with VMWare or VBox and make a single config entry to set that makes/overrides the settings changes for you. Basically if you tell it to use vmware-ws-virtual, it will set the Vendor and Device ID to the default values that VMWare expects. VBox cares about the 4KB alignment, so I think that's the override I set if you pick vbox.

I didn't do any testing on vbox for this release, just vmware and qemu, though, so undoubtedly I forgot something. But, WindSLIC, if all the knobs are properly set, does work on VBox, if I remember correctly. I always have trouble getting/keeping VBox running correctly for testing. But, I'll try and remember to take a look at it tonight and see if I can put out a release that has all the knobs included in that single config option that need to be set for vbox.

My reason for release of what is, in many ways, a more-"BETA" release of WindSLIC is that the last version didn't work on Sandy-Bridge motherboards (at least the one I had access to). I think that the fix was probably the reserved-memory-clearing that nononsense added when he did his variants. I haven't really had enough focus to get back into WindSLIC development as of late.

Nononsense's versions took what I had figured out and ran with it, to great results, so part of what I have been doing is looking at his work and trying to put some of it back into WindSLIC original. But that takes a while. His stuff isn't as fully-commented as my stuff, but it does do a fair bit more in various areas than mine does currently.

I'm considering trying to switch to a "Pinczakko ASM/C-Based" development environment, hoping that would buy additional clarity and ease of creation/updates of code. But, that comes with the disadvantage of needing a more robust dev-environment to compile the code, instead of just needing FASM.

As for where I'd like to see WindSLIC go:

• Add/expand the chipset/memory-controller based "unlocking" of the write-protected areas of memory. Nononsense resurrected that in his versions from early versions of my code, and I've started adding it back as well, but there's no support for Gen1-i7s, or Gen2-i7s (Sandy Bridge) or anything at all for AMDs. AMDs don't have sufficient documentation PDFs available as far as I can find. Gen1-i7s are weird. They have memory controllers on PCI Bus 255 or PCI Bus 127 or PCI Bus 63 (there's a memory-size register that controls which of the three gets used, but it's confusing). Gen2-i7s (Sandy-Bridge) seem to have cleaned up all that mess, putting memory-controller back on PCI-Bus 0, but I haven't gotten quite far enough to test my code yet.
• Shrink the code using the C-based development or maybe just toss and rewrite my assembly to make it compact instead of easily understood. I want a sufficient WindSLIC to be able to fit in 4-5K, which is the amount of space that exists and at least some of the NVidia video card roms. I want WindSLIC to be able to prepend a video card ROM and act as part of it. I think I have the knowledge, but I'm short on focus. If I had a couple of folks that wanted to spearhead/work on that, I'd help out.

well, back to (real-life) work,
-tij-

 

Right, I worked on it for an hour or so last night. All that the vbox preset does is make sure the rom is 4K aligned. It doesn't set any of the PCI IDs, which would still need to be set before it would ever work. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get it to work in vbox last night. I will try to mess with it again at some point and see if I can get it working again.

-tij-

 

VirtualBox is a strange beast. I worked on it for another several hours, with no real luck. It boots to WindSLIC's first half (INIT), and that looks like it loads correctly, but it never loads the second half (BEV). The PXE ROM for the Intel Pro/1000 MT that Oracle includes in their "Extensions" Pack doesn't actually even have a PCIR header in the ROM, and looks like an ISA ROM with a $PNP header, yet somehow that ROM appears to work.

I have seen forum posts about gPXE vs the newer VirtualBoxes, and they say something about that Big Real Mode is not implemented correctly in VirtualBox. That would cause WindSLIC to fail for sure, but I would expect it to fail more spectacularly than just apparently skipping the BEV routine at all.

Very weird.
-tij-

 

In general, most of the Realtek cards I have seen have not supported PXE booting, meaning they have no ROM to flash. There's nothing in WindSLIC that's tied to it being an Intel card (other than the PCI Vendor and Device ID, which is something you will need to set based on whatever card you're using anyway), but so far as I have seen, only Intel cards tend to have the required Flash ROM on board. You can get Pro/100 cards on ebay, etc, relatively cheaply, or you can get at $30ish Intel gigabit card from lots of places. Note: if you buy a card, make sure it has PXE support. Not all do, but anything recent by Intel (and I think, all the Intel gigabit ones) will.

My recommendation is:

If you have an extra PCI slot, get an Intel Pro/100S. They usually have the needed FlashROM and are like $4 plus shipping on ebay, etc. That is by far the easiest way to use WindSLIC.

If you don't have an extra PCI slot, get an Intel Pro/1000MT or 1000GT or 1000PT. All have been tested and worked.

I wish RealTek cards included the PXE ROM, but most don't, even though they may have a socket for a DIP to be inserted.

Technically speaking, you don't even have to use a network card. An old PCI Promise RAID card probably works just as well. The first card they used for this sort of ROM trick was an Adaptec AHA-2940 SCSI card, tricked into pretending to be a network card by flashing a different ROM.

Good Luck,
-tij-

 

Hi all,

Just a note: No changes have been made to WindSLIC, but WindSLIC has now been successfully tested on a Z68 Chipset motherboard.

WindSLIC versions after v2011.01.22.01 are compatible with a: [ Asus P8Z68-V ] when flashed to an add-on PCI board (just like always).

Thanks,
-tij-