# ASRock H77 Pro4-M

The ASRock H77 Pro4-M is a microATX-sized desktop board for Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs.

## Technology

Northbridge | Intel Sandy Bridge-specific documentation
Southbridge | Intel H77 (bd82x6x)
CPU socket | LGA 1155
RAM | 4 x DDR3-1600
Super I/O | Nuvoton NCT6776
Audio | Realtek ALC892
Network | Realtek RTL8111E
Serial | Internal header (RS-232)

## Status

Tests were done with SeaBIOS 1.14.0 and slackware64-live from 2019-07-12 (linux-4.19.50).

### Working

- Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs (tested: i5-2500, Pentium G2120)

- Native RAM initialization with four DIMMs

- PS/2 combined port (mouse or keyboard)

- Integrated GPU by libgfxinit on all monitor ports (DVI-D, HDMI, D-Sub)

- PCIe graphics in the PEG slot

- All three additional PCIe slots

- All rear and internal USB2 ports

- All rear and internal USB3 ports

- All six SATA ports from the PCH (two 6 Gb/s, four 3 Gb/s)

- All two SATA ports from the ASM1061 PCIe-to-SATA bridge (6 Gb/s)

- Rear eSATA connector (multiplexed with one ASM1061 port)

- Gigabit Ethernet

- Console output on the serial port

- EDK II (MrChromebox’s fork, at origin/uefipayload_202207) to boot Windows 10 (22H2) and Linux (5.19.17) via GRUB 2

- SeaBIOS 1.16.1 to boot Windows 10 (needs VGA BIOS) and Linux via extlinux

- Internal flashing with flashrom-1.2, see Internal Programming

- External flashing with flashrom-1.2 and a Raspberry Pi 1

- S3 suspend/resume from either Linux or Windows 10

- Poweroff

### Not working

- Booting from the two SATA ports provided by the ASM1061

- Automatic fan control with the NCT6776D Super I/O

### Untested

- EHCI debug

- S/PDIF audio

- Other audio jacks than the green one, and the front panel header

- Parallel port

- Infrared/CIR

- Wakeup from anything but the power button

## Flashing coreboot

Type | Value
--- | ---
Socketed flash | yes
Model | W25Q64.V
Size | 8 MiB
Package | DIP-8
Write protection | no
Dual BIOS feature | no
Internal flashing | yes

The flash is divided into the following regions, as obtained with `ifdtool -f rom.layout backup.rom`:

    00000000:00000fff fd
    00200000:007fffff bios
    00001000:001fffff me

### Internal programming

The main SPI flash can be accessed using flashrom. By default, only the BIOS region of the flash is writable. If you wish to change any other region (Management Engine or flash descriptor), then an external programmer is required.

The following command may be used to flash coreboot:

    $ sudo flashrom --noverify-all --ifd -i bios -p internal -w coreboot.rom

The use of `--noverify-all` is required since the Management Engine region is not readable even by the host.

In addition to the information here, please see the Flashing firmware tutorial.

## Hardware monitoring and fan control

There are two fan headers for the CPU cooler, CPU_FAN1 and CPU_FAN2. They share a single fan tachometer input on the Super I/O while some dedicated logic selects which one is allowed to reach it. Two GPIO pins on the Super I/O are used to control that logic. The firmware has to set them; coreboot selects CPU_FAN1 by default, but the user can change that setting if it was built with CONFIG_USE_OPTION_TABLE:

    $ sudo nvramtool -e cpu_fan_header
    [..]
    $ sudo nvramtool -w cpu_fan_header=CPU_FAN2
    $ sudo nvramtool -w cpu_fan_header=None
    $ sudo nvramtool -w cpu_fan_header=Both

The setting will take effect after a reboot. Selecting and connecting both fan headers is possible but the Super I/O will report wrong fan speeds.

Currently there is no automatic, OS-independent fan control, but a software like `fancontrol` from the lm-sensors package can be used instead.

## Serial port header

Serial port 1, provided by the Super I/O, is exposed on a pin header. The RS-232 signals are assigned to the header so that its pin numbers map directly to the pin numbers of a DE-9 connector. If your serial port doesn’t seem to work, check if your bracket expects a different assignment. Also don’t try to connect it directly to a device that operates at TTL levels - it would need a level converter like a MAX232.

Here is a top view of the serial port header found on this board:

                 +---+---+
             N/C |   | 9 | RI  -> pin 9
                 +---+---+
    Pin 8 <- CTS | 8 | 7 | RTS -> pin 7
                 +---+---+
    Pin 6 <- DSR | 6 | 5 | GND -> pin 5
                 +---+---+
    Pin 4 <- DTR | 4 | 3 | TxD -> pin 3
                 +---+---+
    Pin 2 <- RxD | 2 | 1 | DCD -> pin 1
                 +---+---+

## eSATA

The eSATA port on the rear I/O panel and the internal connector SATA3_A1 share the same controller port on the ASM1061. Attaching an eSATA drive causes a multiplexer chip to disconnect the internal port from the SATA controller and connect the eSATA port instead. This can be seen on GP23 of the Super I/O GPIOs: it is ‘0’ when something is connected to the eSATA port and ‘1’ otherwise.