BIOS for UpCore 1GB (again)

stez_mind

Sorry for re-opening a new discussion thread,
but my previous one has been closed.

@Aling : thanks for your answer, but at the provided link there are no files available.

Thanks for your support!

Stefano

Aling

The download problem is fixed. Enjoy. :-)

nitin_mind

Hey guys,
I am trying to upgrade my Up Core with 1 GB board because the old BIOS doesn't support 1gb hence I can see the system memory is just 433 MB.
I followed the instructions as mentioned here.
Althigh those instructions are for UP Board and UP Squared I thought UP core might as well be similar, so I was able to find the option to launch the UEFI shell. Unfortunately that didn't work.
It threw a warning message "Not Found".

I think the Built-in UEFI shell is missing so I downloaded the x64 UEFI shell and put it inside the same USB which contains the BIOS package extracted.

I was able to run the GO.nsh batch and I think the BIOS upgraded but I can't see the system memory increased. It is still 422 MB. I can see the build date of BIOS changed from 11/01/2017 to 11/22/2017

and when I run the dmi utility for BIOS info dmidecode bios-version
I get UCR1BM12

So if someone has upgraded the Upcore please share what is the proper way to do this upgrade or is there a different BIOS upgrade.

regards,
Nitin

stez_mind

Thanks @Aling .
We still have issues regarding available RAM being 512MB instead than 1GB after BIOS update though. See this other thread.

Aling

Noted. I have asked @rogertsai(AAEON) to take a look. We will come back soon.

stez_mind

Thanks @Aling .

FYI, we just noticed that even the UpCore 2GB (upgraded with the latest BIOS and running UbiLinux 4.0), also shows less RAM available than 2GB.

The output of cat /proc/meminfo shows in this case:

MemTotal: 1437028 kB
MemFree: 110256 kB
MemAvailable: 1333136 kB

which looks roughly the same amount missing (around 512 MB). That's on all of the 3 boards that we are testing now.

We didn't have these issues on UpBoards.

rogertsai(AAEON)

Hello,
We can't see the 433 MB info from you post pictures, and your 2nd picture is correct.
Could you provide us with 433MB info?
BTW, please click the UEFI shell link below, try to re-upgrade your BIOS.
UEFI shell

stez_mind

Thanks @rogertsai(AAEON)

Sorry for the late reply, I missed your last message and have been on an business trip the last weeks.

We had success in upgrading the BIOS, but still the issue is that Linux doesn't recognize the proper amount of memory.

Could you provide us with 433MB info?

Just type

cat /proc/meminfo

in a Linux shell and you should be able to see the issue.

Actually, we noticed that also the 2GB boards have c.a. 500 MB missing from Linux. This is on all of the boards that we ordered, i.e. 4 models with 1GB and 6 models 2GB (both with 32 and 16GB eMMC).

Best regards,
Stefano

rogertsai(AAEON)

@stez_mind said:
Actually, we noticed that also the 2GB boards have c.a. 500 MB missing from Linux. This is on all of the boards that we ordered, i.e. 4 models with 1GB and 6 models 2GB (both with 32 and 16GB eMMC).

Did you mean like this?

2GB board have 500 MB missing in memory total?

DCleri

Hi stez_mind, the missing memory is pre-allocated by the BIOS to the integrated GPU.

You can change the amount reserved to the GPU from the BIOS menu.

stez_mind

Thanks @DCleri ,
that fixed it.

Just for reference, the precise option is:

Chipset -> North Bridge -> DVMT Preallocated

Since we are running our boards headless, is there any way to disable the GPU or reduce the size to 0?

Cheers,
Stefano

justin_miller

Looks like you can get down to 32M of memory from the bios. The solution above changing the size in the BIOS works, but is very manual. Is there a better way to automate that setting or request it on order?