Setup a MinnowBoard Max with Athens

Learn how to set up the MinnowBoard Max hardware and connect it to your computer.

Hook Up Your Board

  1. Connect a USB keyboard to one of the USB ports on the board.
  2. Connect an HDMI monitor to the microHDMI port on the board.
  3. Connect a network cable to the Ethernet port on the board.

Update your Firmware

  1. For the current release, only 32 bit Athens is supported. Download the latest x86 Release firmware from uefidk.com/content/minnowboard-max
  2. Unzip the downloaded file and copy the following files to a FAT32-formatted USB stick
    • FirmwareUpdate*.efi
    • MNW2MAX1.IA32.<version>.bin
  3. Power off your minnowboard
  4. Remove any SD cards and external hard drives
  5. Plug in the USB stick to the minnowboard
  6. Connect an HDMI/DVI monitor and USB keyboard
    • It is also possible to interact with UEFI and BIOS over a serial connection
  7. Power on your minnowboard
  8. You should see the UEFI prompt. Run the following commands at the UEFI prompt:
    • If your current firmware is 64 bit (this is how the Minnowboard ships)

        fs0:
        .\FirmwareUpdateX64.efi MNW2MAX1.IA32.<version>.bin

    • If your current firmware is 32 bit (if you have already modified the original firmware to be 32 bit)

        fs0:
        .\FirmwareUpdateIA32.efi MNW2MAX1.IA32.<version>.bin

  9. The system should shut down automatically after the firmware update is complete.

Set Required BIOS Settings

  1. Hook up a physical keyboard to the USB port on MBM. For display, you can either connect an HDMI monitor or use the serial port. To ensure that the SD card is the primary boot device, you must have an SD card inserted for this process.
  2. When you boot, press F2 to get to the BIOS settings.
  3. Navigate to Device Manager -> System Setup -> South Cluster Configuration -> LPSS & SCC Configuration
    1. Set "LPSS & SCC Device Mode" to "ACPI Mode"
    2. Set "DDR50 Capability Support for SDCard" to "Disable"
    3. Set "ACPI Reporting MMC/SD As" to "Nonremovable"
  4. Navigate back to top level and select Boot Mainenance Manager-> Boot Options > Change Boot Order
  5. Highlight the boot order list (when it is highlighted, you will see "Change the order" on the right side of the screen) and press enter
  6. Highlight "EFI Hard Drive" and press '+' to move it to the top of the list
  7. Commit these changes and exit.

Put the Athens Image on your Micro SD Card

We have provided a utility to provision your SD card with the Athens OS. If you don't have an SD card, we suggest this one or this other one

Follow these instructions to configure your SD card:

  1. Make sure you have a local copy of the Flash.ffu file (i.e. the Athens image).
  2. Make sure you have installed the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK), included in the zip file with this documentation.
  3. Insert an SD card into your SD card reader.
  4. Open an administrator command prompt and navigate to the folder containing your local Flash.ffu.
  5. Find the disk number that your SD card is on your computer. This will be used when the image is applied in the next step. To do this, you can use the diskpart utility. Run the following commands:

      diskpart
      list disk

  6. Using the administrator command prompt, apply the image to your SD card by running the following command (be sure to replace PhysicalDriveN with the value you found in the previous step, for example, if your SD card is disk number 3, use "/ApplyDrive:\\.\PhysicalDrive3" below):

      "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment Tools\x86\DISM\dism.exe" /Apply-Ffu /ImageFile:Flash.ffu /ApplyDrive:\\.\PhysicalDriveN /SkipPlatformCheck

  7. Open a command prompt with Administrator priviliges and cd to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft IoT.
  8. Figure out the name of SD card drive (for example, F:).
  9. From that command prompt, launch the DeployTools.cmd specifying the SD card drive name (F: in this example):

      DeployTools.cmd F:

  10. From the same command prompt, also copy the C/C++ RunTime binaries (always assuming the SD card drive is F:):

      copy /Y "%VS140COMNTOOLS%\..\..\VC\redist\onecore\x86\Microsoft.VC140.CRT\*" F:\Windows\System32

      copy /Y "%VS140COMNTOOLS%\..\..\VC\redist\onecore\debug_nonredist\x86\Microsoft.VC140.DebugCRT\*" F:\Windows\System32

  11. When imaging and copying complete, unplug the power for the MinnowBoard Max, insert the card into the MBM SD card slot and plug the power back into the MBM.
  12. The MBM should automatically boot to the card. If it does not, it will boot to the UEFI shell, and you will have to execute the following in the UEFI shell to boot Windows:

      fs1:
      efi\boot\bootia32.efi

  13. If all goes well, the board should finish booting and DefaultApp should come up, displaying its IP address.


  14. IMPORTANT: Do reboot your MBM at this point.
  15. Once the MBM has rebooted, you can Telnet into the MBM using the IP address or the device name.