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#11
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
"Paul" schreef in bericht
... Linea Recta wrote: I assume that passwords are also in the CMOS backup? Yes, and you never know, they might be stored in plaintext. I never understood why the don't use some rechargeable battery connected to the mains (even when the system is down). I suppose it all about $$$. Someone brought this topic up a while back. There are devices that use a LR2032 instead of a CR2032. The two are not interchangeable. (You cannot charge a CR2032, and the motherboards uses low leakage diodes in that area of the circuit board.) http://www.batteryjunction.com/lir2032----.html The LR2032 is rechargeable lithium. The amp-hour rating is pretty low. If the product is unplugged for just a few days, the coin cell can run down to zero. The LR2032 is practical (in say a laptop), as long as the user doesn't leave the laptop with no main battery pack in it. If you have an electronics product that already uses one of those, then you can buy a similar type if it ever needs to be replaced. It just doesn't seem all that practical, to me. Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? -- |\ /| | \/ |@rk \../ \/os |
#12
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
Linea Recta wrote:
Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? Absolutely. The current practice is "barbaric" :-) ******* But consider that, they want to run a real time clock, even when the computer is not powered. So the computer always has a local time_of_day reference for stamping file system entries. The computer must "work properly", with no network connection to use NTP protocol. An RTC draws around 2 microamps, if implemented in the Southbridge. You need the battery, to power that clock time piece. The clock runs off a 32768 Hertz quartz crystal (just like your digital watch), and will drift a bit in terms of time keeping. (It's not "atomic clock" quality in any case.) Adding the 256 bytes of RAM, doesn't change things all that much. The total power is 10 microamps, with both RTC and CMOS RAM. Part of that is likely to be "CMOS well" transmission gate leakage, through the stuff that prevents the battery powered portion of the Southbridge, leaking into the larger part of the chip. If transmission gates were not used, for electrical isolation, current from the CR2032 would "leak" into the rest of the Southbridge, and the battery would drain in no time. The usage of transmission gates, helps make this "chip emulation" inside the Southbridge a practical possibility. Where the letter "T" is like a moat, they "lift the drawbridge" so the little island stays electrically isolated, when the computer is powered off. When the chip is fully powered, the OS reads the registers of the RTC, via some sort of transmission gate protected path. +--------------------------------------+ | Southbridge - SATA, PCI, LPC I/O etc | | | | | | | | The letter "T" is | T T T | where transmission gates | | | | | for I/O, are located. | +----------+ | | | RTC and |--------------------------- CR2032 3V power | | CMOS RAM |--------------------------- 32768Hz crystal | +----------+ | | | +--------------------------------------+ The end result, with a CR2032, is you can power that time piece (and the 256 byte RAM sitting next to it), for about three years with no AC power. So if we replaced the 256 byte RAM with 256 bytes or NOR flash, we still need a clock function, we still need a battery, and the battery lasts a bit longer. At one time, this function was a separate chip, and the emulation that puts it into the Southbridge, is intended to make PCs cheaper to build. You might have had a Dallas chip in really old PCs. And the problem with the old solution to this problem, is the entire Dallas chip needed to be replaced, when the internal battery in the chip went flat. At least the battery is easy to replace now. Dallas used to pot the whole thing in epoxy, so you couldn't repair it. It was "Dremel time", for the people who used to retrofit an external battery to their Dallas. http://classic-computers.org.nz/blog...ttery-chip.htm Paul |
#13
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:46:19 +0200, Linea Recta wrote:
"Paul" schreef in bericht ... Linea Recta wrote: I assume that passwords are also in the CMOS backup? Yes, and you never know, they might be stored in plaintext. I never understood why the don't use some rechargeable battery connected to the mains (even when the system is down). I suppose it all about $$$. Someone brought this topic up a while back. There are devices that use a LR2032 instead of a CR2032. The two are not interchangeable. (You cannot charge a CR2032, and the motherboards uses low leakage diodes in that area of the circuit board.) http://www.batteryjunction.com/lir2032----.html The LR2032 is rechargeable lithium. The amp-hour rating is pretty low. If the product is unplugged for just a few days, the coin cell can run down to zero. The LR2032 is practical (in say a laptop), as long as the user doesn't leave the laptop with no main battery pack in it. If you have an electronics product that already uses one of those, then you can buy a similar type if it ever needs to be replaced. It just doesn't seem all that practical, to me. Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? The BIOS code is in non-volatile memory. It *has* to be... -- Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch) |
#14
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:46:19 +0200, Linea Recta wrote: "Paul" schreef in bericht ... Linea Recta wrote: I assume that passwords are also in the CMOS backup? Yes, and you never know, they might be stored in plaintext. I never understood why the don't use some rechargeable battery connected to the mains (even when the system is down). I suppose it all about $$$. Someone brought this topic up a while back. There are devices that use a LR2032 instead of a CR2032. The two are not interchangeable. (You cannot charge a CR2032, and the motherboards uses low leakage diodes in that area of the circuit board.) http://www.batteryjunction.com/lir2032----.html The LR2032 is rechargeable lithium. The amp-hour rating is pretty low. If the product is unplugged for just a few days, the coin cell can run down to zero. The LR2032 is practical (in say a laptop), as long as the user doesn't leave the laptop with no main battery pack in it. If you have an electronics product that already uses one of those, then you can buy a similar type if it ever needs to be replaced. It just doesn't seem all that practical, to me. Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? The BIOS code is in non-volatile memory. It *has* to be... True in the most general sense. But there are details as to how the BIOS chip is used. It's not "read-only" in the way you might think. The DMI/ESCD area can be updated during POST. Paul |
#15
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:57:43 -0400, Paul wrote:
Gene E. Bloch wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:46:19 +0200, Linea Recta wrote: "Paul" schreef in bericht ... Linea Recta wrote: I assume that passwords are also in the CMOS backup? Yes, and you never know, they might be stored in plaintext. I never understood why the don't use some rechargeable battery connected to the mains (even when the system is down). I suppose it all about $$$. Someone brought this topic up a while back. There are devices that use a LR2032 instead of a CR2032. The two are not interchangeable. (You cannot charge a CR2032, and the motherboards uses low leakage diodes in that area of the circuit board.) http://www.batteryjunction.com/lir2032----.html The LR2032 is rechargeable lithium. The amp-hour rating is pretty low. If the product is unplugged for just a few days, the coin cell can run down to zero. The LR2032 is practical (in say a laptop), as long as the user doesn't leave the laptop with no main battery pack in it. If you have an electronics product that already uses one of those, then you can buy a similar type if it ever needs to be replaced. It just doesn't seem all that practical, to me. Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? The BIOS code is in non-volatile memory. It *has* to be... True in the most general sense. But there are details as to how the BIOS chip is used. It's not "read-only" in the way you might think. The DMI/ESCD area can be updated during POST. Paul I don't recall saying read-only...nor thinking it. In fact, in my post I intentionally didn't talk about BIOS updates, which, IIRC :-), involve *writing* to the BIOS's non-volatile memory, since I saw it as irrelevant to the remark I made. Many[1] BIOSes do have read-only portion(s) which contain, among other things, the firmware needed to update the BIOS firmware itself. [1] It's now 2014. That probably should read *all*, not *many*, BIOSes... -- Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch) |
#16
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 14:57:43 -0400, Paul wrote: Gene E. Bloch wrote: On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:46:19 +0200, Linea Recta wrote: "Paul" schreef in bericht ... Linea Recta wrote: I assume that passwords are also in the CMOS backup? Yes, and you never know, they might be stored in plaintext. I never understood why the don't use some rechargeable battery connected to the mains (even when the system is down). I suppose it all about $$$. Someone brought this topic up a while back. There are devices that use a LR2032 instead of a CR2032. The two are not interchangeable. (You cannot charge a CR2032, and the motherboards uses low leakage diodes in that area of the circuit board.) http://www.batteryjunction.com/lir2032----.html The LR2032 is rechargeable lithium. The amp-hour rating is pretty low. If the product is unplugged for just a few days, the coin cell can run down to zero. The LR2032 is practical (in say a laptop), as long as the user doesn't leave the laptop with no main battery pack in it. If you have an electronics product that already uses one of those, then you can buy a similar type if it ever needs to be replaced. It just doesn't seem all that practical, to me. Deaming further on about this while driving my car today, I wondered wouldn't it be better if they used a non-volatile memory, something like an SD card, for keeping all the settings, and perhaps also the BIOS code itself? No current of any sort needed to keep the information available? The BIOS code is in non-volatile memory. It *has* to be... True in the most general sense. But there are details as to how the BIOS chip is used. It's not "read-only" in the way you might think. The DMI/ESCD area can be updated during POST. Paul I don't recall saying read-only...nor thinking it. In fact, in my post I intentionally didn't talk about BIOS updates, which, IIRC :-), involve *writing* to the BIOS's non-volatile memory, since I saw it as irrelevant to the remark I made. Many[1] BIOSes do have read-only portion(s) which contain, among other things, the firmware needed to update the BIOS firmware itself. [1] It's now 2014. That probably should read *all*, not *many*, BIOSes... You could draw it like this. For a legacy BIOS. +-------------------------------------+ | Main BIOS code | Many separate code modules +-- | (Read Only, except on a BIOS update) +-- | Checksum protected +--------------------------------------+ | Microcode Cache | (Read Only, except when updated | by the insertion of a new processor) +--------------------------------------+ | DMI/ESCD | (Read/write, in the presence of | POST detected hardware changes, | or user updates with Intel utility) +--------------------------------------+ | Boot Block | (Should really be read-only, but | frequently gets updated on a BIOS | upgrade.) +--------------------------------------+ The BIOS main code, is mirrored in RAM. This allows updates to the Flash chip, without concern for whether the code is being used right now. The chip has erasable pages, so the whole device doesn't have to be erased, to update a small area. The size of the pages, helps define the boundaries of the smaller areas. Maybe the boot block is 8KB, the Microcode Cache 2KB, and so on. The bytes in the main code area are compressed. If you intended to disassemble the code, you need to decompress it first. It's a lot easier to read that way, and has give-away text strings in it. The boot block on the other hand, is less likely to be compressed. It's probably got a decompresser, or knows where to find one. I've never attempted to do anything with a boot block, so haven't a clue how it is structured. I've taken apart a number of main BIOS code blocks, for a quick look. The UEFI BIOS is much more complicated than this, and one article I was reading hinted at as many as 200 files being present inside. And the UEFI BIOS also offers some sort of access to the file system, when the OS is running. I haven't really found any good tutorial articles, on just how exposed to exploits a UEFI BIOS might be. It sounds complicated enough, to be a disaster area waiting to happen. Paul |
#17
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:28:37 -0400, Paul wrote:
The BIOS main code, is mirrored in RAM. This allows updates to the Flash chip, without concern for whether the code is being used right now. Interesting, thanks! I never realized that before. |
#18
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
Ken Blake wrote:
On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 17:28:37 -0400, Paul wrote: The BIOS main code, is mirrored in RAM. This allows updates to the Flash chip, without concern for whether the code is being used right now. Interesting, thanks! I never realized that before. https://web.archive.org/web/20000831...adowing-c.html "One problem with ROMs such as those used for the system BIOS and video BIOS, is that it is relatively slow." "I'm sure you can see where this is heading. Since there is RAM hiding underneath the ROMs anyway, most systems have the ability to "mirror" the ROM code into this RAM to improve performance. This is called ROM Shadowing, and is controlled using a set of BIOS parameters. There is normally a separate parameter to control the shadowing of the system BIOS, the video BIOS and adapter ROM areas." The details have likely changed with time. Partially, because the Flash chip is larger than it used to be. There is certainly lots of RAM to go around, but the archaic usage rules (and backward compatibility), kinda handcuff things. Maybe my first motherboard, is guaranteed to have that feature. And the comment about "relatively slow", still applies. The current generation of 8 pin serial flash chips, are no speed demons. Moving from a byte wide interface to a serial interface, did not help matters. One of the slowest flash ever put on a motherboard, was the Asus "bitching betty" vocal error reporter setup. It used a serial chip to hold canned vocal error messages. It would take somewhere around 20 minutes to half an hour to reprogram one of those. The BIOS Flash chip is faster than that, by quite a bit. Paul |
#19
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
In message , Paul
writes: [] But consider that, they want to run a real time clock, even when the computer is not powered. So the computer always has a local time_of_day reference for stamping file system entries. The computer must "work properly", with no network connection to use NTP protocol. An RTC draws around 2 microamps, if implemented in the Southbridge. You need the battery, to power that clock time piece. The clock runs off a 32768 Hertz quartz crystal (just like your digital watch), and will drift a bit in terms of time keeping. (It's not "atomic clock" quality in any case.) [] It certainly isn't; it is highly likely to use a 32768 hertz* crystal that was indeed designed for the digital watch market; such crystals are designed to run at a fairly constant temperature (strapped to your wrist!), so drift quite a bit in a cold PC case. Only relatively - I doubt more than a few seconds a day in practice - but more than when used in a wris****ch, and certainly more than the PC when it's turned on and getting reasonably regular timechecks over the 'net. * ISTR reading somewhere that the SI units, when written out in full (hertz, joule, newton, watt etc.) _don't_ take a capital letter; obviously if you're talking about the person they're named after, they do. Also, the SI _abbreviation_ - Hz, J, N, W - may be capitalised. (I'm trying to think of one where the abbreviation/symbol _isn't_, but the only one I can think of is gram[me] [symbol g], and I don't think that one's named after anyone.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf I'd be a middle-class hero if I had the time, but I've got to go to Waitrose first. - Tim Vine, RT 2014/2/15-21 |
#20
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Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit 2.0.exe
On Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:51:42 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote: I'm trying to think of one where the abbreviation/symbol _isn't_, but the only one I can think of is gram[me] [symbol g], and I don't think that one's named after anyone.) If you pronounce her name the way my wife does, perhaps it's named after Martha Graham. |
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