Dell OptiPlex 780 MT/USFF

Libreboot is compatible with the Dell OptiPlex 780, of variants: MT and USFF. SFF and DT may be supported in a future revision. These instructions are identical both the MT and USFF variants.

W+: Works without vendor firmware; 
N: Doesn't work; 
W*: Works with vendor firmware; 
U: Untested; 
P+: Partially works; 
P*: Partially works with vendor firmware
?: UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME

Processor specification

Build ROM image from source

The build target, when building from source, is thus:

./mk -b coreboot dell780mt_truncate_8mb
./mk -b coreboot dell780mt_8mb
./mk -b coreboot dell780usff_truncate_8mb
./mk -b coreboot dell780usff_8mb

The _truncate image is needed if you’re flashing Libreboot internally from the original Dell firmware. Otherwise, you only need the regular images that lack _truncate in the file name.

100% FREE

This motherboard is entirely free software in the main boot flash. It is using the Intel X4X / ICH10 platform, same as on the already supported Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L motherboard.

Installation

Set MAC address

This platform uses an Intel Flash Descriptor, and defines an Intel GbE NVM region. As such, release/build ROMs will contain the same MAC address. To change the MAC address, please read nvmutil documentation.

WARNING about CPU/GPU compatibility

Coreboot has libre initialisation code for Intel graphics, but libre initialisation code is not available for most graphics cards. This machine can take any graphics card that fits in the PCI-E slot. When a graphics card is used, SeaBIOS executes its VGA ROM which provides video init, instead of coreboot’s native Intel video init. GRUB piggybacks off of what SeaBIOS did, so the GRUB payload will also work.

Flash a ROM image (software)

Always make sure to dump a copy of the current flash first. ALSO: make sure /dev/mem protection is disabled for the flashing to work!

If you’re already running Libreboot, and you don’t have flash protection turned on, internal flashing is possible.

If you have factory firmware (Dell), you can short the service jumper. It’s a 2-pin header located somewhere on the board (no photos available yet).

With the service jumper set, all flash protections are disabled on the first 6MB of the flash; the latter 2MB part is restricted. Because we are using an Intel Flash Descriptor on this board, the flash will be divided into these parts:

• Intel Flash Descriptor (basic machine configuration)
• Intel Gigabit Ethernet region (e.g. MAC address configuration)
• BIOS region (contains coreboot)

Before you can use the flash commands, please note that the _truncate images are 6MB in size, but they must be padded to 8MB. Normally a blank part of flash should ideally be all 0xFF, but here we do:

dd if=/dev/zero of=2mb.bin bs=2M count=1
cat libreboot6mb.rom 2mb.bin > libreboot.rom

If you’re not using the truncate images, you can ignore the above steps.

The Flash Descriptor can be thought of more like a partition table for the flash, at least in our use-case scenario. The _truncate images configure the flash such that only the first 6MB is used, with the BIOS region ending at that limit; the upper 2MB is specified as the platform data region, in Libreboot’s configuration. To flash it, do this:

./flashprog -p internal --ifd -i fd -w libreboot.rom
./flashprog -p internal --ifd -i gbe -w libreboot.rom
./flashprog -p internal --ifd -i bios -w libreboot.rom

It’s very important to do this in the exact order as above, because the --ifd option references the flashed IFD, not the one in your image, so you must flash the IFD first.

If you already have Libreboot running, and you don’t have flash protection enabled, you can omit --ifd -i REGION from the flashprog command, and flash the full image; the one without _truncate in the file name uses all of the flash, with the BIOS region ending at the 8MB limit, so the BIOS region is therefore 2MB larger on those images.

Flash a ROM image (hardware)

For general information, please refer to 25xx NOR flash instructions - that page refers to use of socketed flash.

No photos yet available.