# Firmwares and Motherboard for Desktop AMD4



## fscorrea (May 5, 2020)

I'm considering to buy a new machine up to the end of the year. Monthly, slowly, piece by piece. Of all of then, the motherboard is of special concern to me.

UEFI seems to have open a precedent to give OEM manufacturers more power and control. The same can be said of the firmware now present in every MOBO running but a small SMIBIOS within it.

Couple of years ago there were plenty of issues with a certain firmware. It apparently had, in a menu, an option so to select boot on Legacy Mode through CSM. The weird part being, it could be selected but had no effect. Plus, it was grey-ish colored, as if showing it were "unavailable" from the very start. I still ask myself so why to put it there in the first place if so.

Many people complained at the time, targeting Lenovo, which had apparently purchased that firmware to employ in a variety of notebook models, oblivious to its problems. Lenovo seemed to be majority but far from all. A friend of mine met such a firmware on his Acer notebook. Worked well so fine for a month or two, as he was using Win10 which came pre-installed. When, however, tried to install Arch Linux, no sign of wireless was to be met not even right beside the antenna. I suggested him to test an Ubuntu LiveUSB and he told be, in that same conditions of proximity with the antenna, he was barely getting a figment of a signal. Translating to usual displaying of them on systray, "a single bar (out of normally 4 to 6)".

I wouldn't have the same problem since always relying on cable connection. Nevertheless, couple of months later, it was found that firmware was made by a company called "Insyde". Moreover, they've openly stated "having ignored the UEFI Standards". Period (!).

Therefore, a new problem arrived: what's running on this or that EEPROM at the MOBO?

Favoring OSes one over the other is just as wrong as is a fact but locking you up is an entirely different level. Since I'm about to purchase a new motherboard, I'd like to hear suggestions of both "do and donts". In other words, what's safe to buy regarding FreeBSD but, perhaps more importantly, what NOT TO.

AFAIK EFI allows for communication regarding every single piece of hardware but there seem to be a limit regarding everything except the main one (the motherboard firmware). For example: Currently, I don't have an SSD. Just purchased one and it'll be here at the end of the week. Will it work with FreeBSD? From my experience, it maybe show a bad performance or worse than it should, require fine-tuning about "trimming" and whatnot's, but in the very end it'll probably be doable once a couple of things is read and done. As for the motherboard/firmware, however, the closest thing to a solution would be programming a new EEPROM whereas ripping out from the board the original one. That's not possible with my current knowledge on micro programming. Therefore, this, and only this, must be chosen carefully. The only precondition is having an AM4 socket, as I've decided to stick with AMD a little longer.

Should be anyone aware of anything regarding said matter, please let me know immediately.

Thanks in advance.

P.S.: The best performance, the better, and same for lesser bugs. However, my primary concern is it being able to *work*. World is no longer that where I'd nitpick little things first because the basics were taken for granted.


----------



## unitrunker (May 5, 2020)

Take a look at trousers and TPM.





__





						FreshPorts -- security/tpm-tools: Provides a basic set of TPM tools
					

tpm-tools package provides a basic TPM management suite.  WWW: http://trousers.sourceforge.net




					www.freshports.org


----------

