rpi4 updated eeprom

Mark Millard marklmi at yahoo.com
Thu Sep 24 19:50:28 UTC 2020



On 2020-Sep-24, at 11:48, tech-lists <tech-lists at zyxst.net> wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 24, 2020 at 10:55:25AM -0700, Mark Millard wrote:
> 
>> I do not know if the following will be of help or not.
>> I'm not sure of the details of what you have set up.
>> But "it says that I need to upgrade the software" suggests
>> the following to me. (Booting off the microsd card does
>> not require as recent of software as I understand.)
>> 
>> Note: I have the USB3 SSD's msdosfs mounted on /usb_efi for
>> the below.
>> 
>> # ls -ldTt /usb_efi/*
>> drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     8192 Sep  7 22:48:50 2020 /usb_efi/OVERLAYS
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    47516 Sep  1 14:04:10 2020 /usb_efi/bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  2283936 Sep  1 14:04:08 2020 /usb_efi/start4.elf
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5422 Sep  1 14:04:04 2020 /usb_efi/fixup4.dat
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5252 Sep  1 13:59:48 2020 /usb_efi/Readme.md
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      206 Sep  1 13:59:48 2020 /usb_efi/config.txt.uefi_orig
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  2031616 Sep  1 07:08:54 2020 /usb_efi/RPI_EFI.fd
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      236 Jul 15 02:21:48 2020 /usb_efi/config.txt
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    18693 Nov 22 09:06:44 2019 /usb_efi/COPYING.linux
>> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     1594 Nov 22 09:06:44 2019 /usb_efi/LICENCE.broadcom
>> drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     8192 Sep 27 21:05:00 2018 /usb_efi/EFI
>> 
>> Note the "Sep 1" dates. What are the dates for yours (presuming that you
>> have handled things to preserve the original dates instead of showing
>> when you copied things)?
> 
> some appear to be different to yours. ignore those with prefix old-
> :
> 
> /mnt# ls -ldTt *
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  2224160 Sep 24 18:53:12 2020 start4.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5418 Sep 24 18:52:56 2020 fixup4.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      179 Sep 24 14:48:02 2020 config.txt
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      176 Sep  7 14:01:24 2020 orig.config_rpi4.txt
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      147 Sep  7 14:01:12 2020 orig.config.txt
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      176 Sep  5 00:09:06 2020 config_rpi4.txt
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  2277376 Sep  4 21:08:16 2020 old-start4.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5407 Sep  4 21:08:06 2020 old-fixup4.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   517160 Sep  4 21:07:58 2020 u-boot.bin
> drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     4096 Aug 27 10:57:24 2020 overlays
> drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     4096 Aug 27 10:57:14 2020 EFI
> drwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     4096 Aug 27 10:57:14 2020 dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5888 Aug 27 05:20:16 2020 armstub8-gic.bin
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     5888 Aug 27 05:20:16 2020 armstub8.bin
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel      124 Aug 27 05:02:24 2020 README
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     1594 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 LICENCE.broadcom
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    25265 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 bcm2709-rpi-2-b.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    27054 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019
> bcm2710-rpi-3-b-plus.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    26435 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 bcm2710-rpi-3-b.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    40659 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 bcm2711-rpi-4-b.dtb
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    52304 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 bootcode.bin
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     6744 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     3089 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup4cd.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     9181 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup4db.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     9183 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup4x.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     2655 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup_cd.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     9816 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup_db.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel     9816 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 fixup_x.dat
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  2880356 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   775872 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start4cd.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  4582664 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start4db.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  3536680 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start4x.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel   688068 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start_cd.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  4857160 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start_db.elf
> -rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  3794600 Nov 22 16:06:44 2019 start_x.elf
> 
> bear in mind I'm booting u-boot with sdcard. I do have a hd attached but it's
> not being booted from.

I've not tried the u-boot way of working in some time.
I do not know its status or what is a good combination
for it. Nor if it is allowing overclocking, including
if it allows some equivalent of over_voltage=6 .

Looks like your way of copying start4.elf and fixup4.dat did
not preserve the original dates.

>> https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/blob/master/firmware/release-notes.md
>> reports:
>> 
>> QUOTE
>> USB MSD boot also requires the firmware from Raspberry Pi OS 2020-08-20 or newer.
>> https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/bcm2711_bootloader_config.md
>> 
>> 2020-09-14 Promote the 2020-09-03 release to be the default EEPROM images.
>> 
>> 	• Promote the 2020-09-03 bootloader EEPROM and VLI 0138A1 as the default release (critical folder).
>> END QUOTE
>> 
>> The 2020-08-20 date was also present during the end of the BETA/stable
>> sequence as well.
>> 
>> (UEFI/ACPI may well require something not too old as well, although
>> it might tolerate older and MSD does.)
>> 
>> FreeBSD and its port sysutils/rpi-firmware are not yet up to
>> date for such things so to use the UEFI/ACPI and USB MSD together
>> you need to manage your own materials. I do not remember if:
>> 
>> https://github.com/pftf/RPi4/releases/download/v1.20/RPi4_UEFI_Firmware_v1.20.zip
>> 
>> supplies 2020-Aug-20 or later files or not. I've updated mine separately
>> at times and so I might have more recent materials than in the .zip file.
>> 
>> I expect that "it says that I need to upgrade the software" means
>> that you need to do something to update the relevant files on the
>> msdos file system on the USB SSD that you are trying to boot from.
> 
> I grabbed that zipfile and the files appear to be dated 1st September.

You also have the alternative of getting files from:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/1.20200902/boot/

(Currently, 1.20200902 is the most recent tag.) Or from:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/tree/master/boot/

(likely a testing software version, likely more recent than
the most recently tagged version.)

> In order to get => 2GHz speeds from the pi4, is UFEI a requirement?

Unsure. uefi is what I have been using. I"ll note that the
3072 MiByte limit should be enabled for reliable operation,
despite what some recent materials may say. (I've demonstrated
a failure today with the limit not imposed.) For uefi/ACPI I
use:

# more /usb_efi/config.txt
arm_64bit=1
enable_uart=1
uart_2ndstage=1
enable_gic=1
armstub=RPI_EFI.fd
disable_commandline_tags=1
disable_overscan=1
device_tree_address=0x1f0000
device_tree_end=0x200000
dtoverlay=disable-bt
over_voltage=6
arm_freq=2000

This context runs at 2 GHz all the time, not varying based on
use.

diable-bt.dtbo is not distributed with the uefi software. I got
it separately. It does not seem to update often.

# ls -ldT /usb_efi/OVERLAYS/*
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1073 Jul 14 18:43:14 2020 /usb_efi/OVERLAYS/disable-bt.dtbo
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  1819 Sep  1 14:04:10 2020 /usb_efi/OVERLAYS/miniuart-bt.dtbo

The uefi distribution has miniuart-bt.dtbo included.

I will note that back when I was trying u-boot I found various
things had case sensitive file handling and others did not.
The u-boot context tended to be case sensitive in at least some
parts of some file paths.

I ended up capitalizing to minimize/eliminate renaming for
capitalization when switching contexts. OVERLAYS was an example
of such: something required capitals and other things did not
care. (I do not know the current status for such issues overall.)

===
Mark Millard
marklmi at yahoo.com
( dsl-only.net went
away in early 2018-Mar)



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