Arium Probes | SourcePoint™ Archives | Page 7 of 17

The MinnowBoard Chronicles eBook now available

Alan Sguigna

March 25, 2018
8:31 pm

For those who may have missed it, I've been blogging about my experiences with the MinnowBoard Turbot for the last 15 months. Now, finally, all the blogs have been combined into a 138-page compendium of my learnings about x86 architecture, UEFI, Yocto Linux, and many other technical topics. Check it out at The MinnowBoard Chronicles (note: requires registration).

Embedded Run-Control for Power-On Self Test

Alan Sguigna

March 18, 2018
5:07 pm

High-end, mission-critical systems often use a plethora of diagnostic routines for power-on self test (POST), data logging, operational measurements, Built-In Self Test (BIST), and platform audits. Embedded x86 JTAG run-control adds out-of-band services to this mix. This article describes one such use case for Power-On Self Test (POST) of PCI Express ports.

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 31: First attempts to debug the Linux kernel

Alan Sguigna

March 11, 2018
4:58 pm

In Episode 30, I finally succeeded in building a Yocto Linux image for the MinnowBoard. But, it won’t boot! Is it time to drag out a copy of SourcePoint to help?

Embedded API library for at-scale JTAG-based hardware-assisted debugging

Alan Sguigna

February 14, 2018
7:31 am

Out-of-band access between on-board BMCs and CPU JTAG chains is now a de facto implementation on hyperscale servers manufactured by the ODMs. This article describes the BMC firmware library within our ScanWorks Embedded Diagnostics (SED) product used to run diagnostics at-scale.

Spectre, Meltdown, and embedded MSR access

Alan Sguigna

February 5, 2018
6:52 am

In the article JTAG and run-control API in BMCs for at-scale debug, I described how embedding the Intel ITP run-control library down on a service processor provides for a rich set of target-based functions for debug forensics. How might this apply to reading MSRs, such as the ones created to address Spectre and Meltdown.

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 30: using all 16 threads on my Ryzen?

Alan Sguigna

January 14, 2018
5:34 pm

In my last blog, I observed that running Yocto Linux builds with all 16 threads of my new AMD Ryzen 7 1700X machine would always crash. Running under VirtualBox and only using one thread always worked; but it took seven hours. Could I achieve a compromise?

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 29: My new AMD Ryzen 7 CPU works, kind of

Alan Sguigna

December 25, 2017
11:46 am

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire: I beat the #&@! out of my new CPU from AMD, and the segmentation faults have gone away. But, now the new system is crashing!

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 28: Returning my AMD Ryzen 7 1700X CPU

Alan Sguigna

November 29, 2017
8:54 pm

Yes, I received an older AMD Ryzen 7 1700X CPU from Amazon. It’s RMA time!

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 25: Yocto builds for the MinnowBoard and the Portwell Neptune Alpha

Alan Sguigna

October 16, 2017
7:05 am

In Episode 24, I finished off my new build machine, successfully did a QEMU image build on it, and loaded an off-the-shelf Ubuntu image into my new MinnowBoard Turbot. This week, I tackled a MinnowBoard Linux image build using Yocto, loaded it into my MinnowBoard, and also set about doing a Yocto image build for the Portwell Neptune Alpha board. But I ran into some problems.

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 24: New MinnowBoard, New PC, and a nod to Netgate

Alan Sguigna

October 11, 2017
8:58 am

In Episode 23, I mentioned taking a short sabbatical, because my MinnowBoard USB ports stopped working, and my 7-year-old home PC build machine crashed. The good news is both of these issues are both fixed! Let the fun begin again.

Category: Arium Probes | SourcePoint™

The MinnowBoard Chronicles eBook now available

Embedded Run-Control for Power-On Self Test

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 31: First attempts to debug the Linux kernel

Embedded API library for at-scale JTAG-based hardware-assisted debugging

Spectre, Meltdown, and embedded MSR access

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 30: using all 16 threads on my Ryzen?

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 29: My new AMD Ryzen 7 CPU works, kind of

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 28: Returning my AMD Ryzen 7 1700X CPU

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 25: Yocto builds for the MinnowBoard and the Portwell Neptune Alpha

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 24: New MinnowBoard, New PC, and a nod to Netgate

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