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Date:      Thu, 29 Jul 2004 16:52:17 -0700
From:      Nate Lawson <nate@root.org>
To:        Andre Oppermann <andre@freebsd.org>
Cc:        cvs-all@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/sys/dev/fdc fdc_acpi.c
Message-ID:  <41098DB1.8070500@root.org>
In-Reply-To: <41097F65.E12A75E1@freebsd.org>
References:  <200407282235.i6SMZfdU014440@repoman.freebsd.org> <4108C179.D4FF44B1@freebsd.org> <41094638.3020807@root.org> <41097F65.E12A75E1@freebsd.org>

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Andre Oppermann wrote:
> Nate Lawson wrote:
> 
>>Andre Oppermann wrote:
>>>Is there any kind of feedback chain towards the BIOS authors so they might
>>>fix it in the next release?
>>
>>A few people had success getting problems with a ServerWorks board fixed
>>in the next BIOS revision.  But most of the time, the chance is 0.  All
>>we can do is work around the issue (like here) or disable it for the
>>given board (Windows often does this also).
> 
> And feeding it back to Phoenix etc.?  Or don't they provide these parts of
> the BIOS?  I have no idea who does which parts of the BIOS.

The OEM (i.e. VIA, ASUS, IBM, COMPAL, etc.) is responsible for the BIOS 
for a specific board.  But they usually subcontract out a lot of this 
work and a lot of it is cut/pasted from reference BIOS implementations. 
  It's difficult to identify who did which parts of the actual work 
behind a given board.

Assuming you are a large enough customer (say, Yahoo), you find the 
problem and complain to your rep, who sometimes can get a fix rolled in. 
  For one laptop I have, IBM fixed some major embedded controller 
problems in later BIOS revisions (not my doing.)  However, another 
laptop I have (Sony) has never had a single BIOS revision issued.

So in general, there is little chance of us doing anything.

-Nate



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