02-24-2017, 09:12 PM
Attached is the last update to the BIOS for the WYSE Sx0 series thin clients. I don't know what make it is or if it's a total custom job.
The CPU used is an AMD Geode GX500 with the Geode Companion CS5536 chip which handles video and north/south bridge duties.
Network in these is a Realtek RTL8100 (not the 8139) and audio is handled by a Realtek ALC655. Operating systems were WYSE ThinOS (installed in an extra large BIOS chip in the S10 or onto IDE flash in other versions), Windows CE 5.0 or 6.0 (S30), WYSE Linux V6 (S50), or Windows XP Embedded (S90). Tinycore Linux and others have been installed on them, so has FreeDOS.
Max RAM is one 512 meg PC2700 SODIMM. The IDE interface is a standard 44 pin 2.5" male header and supports some level of UDMA. Hard drives, SSDs, SD card and Compact Flash adapters all work, but the boot partition should be kept to 2 gig or less. Booting from USB devices over 1 gig yields weird results, especially with the official flash updaters.
What I'd like to know is if there's any functions that are hidden which can be unlocked. The available settings are very limited, just setting the boot order among IDE, USB and PXE, and the video RAM size. The default boot order is IDE, USB, PXE and a successful boot to IDE after changing it resets the order back to default.
One quirk that would be nice to eliminate is when booted from USB the BIOS "disables" the IDE controller. It's not actually disabled, the OS booted from USB has to employ special tricks to find it. If that's the only mod that can be done, it would make it much easier to install alternate OSes. Here is how it's done with Linux, at the bottom of that page.
With a 256K unpacked size I don't have much hope of any hidden extras, but it would be nice if there are. A modded version would need to be adjusted so the flash updater will see it as newer than any already installed.
The CPU used is an AMD Geode GX500 with the Geode Companion CS5536 chip which handles video and north/south bridge duties.
Network in these is a Realtek RTL8100 (not the 8139) and audio is handled by a Realtek ALC655. Operating systems were WYSE ThinOS (installed in an extra large BIOS chip in the S10 or onto IDE flash in other versions), Windows CE 5.0 or 6.0 (S30), WYSE Linux V6 (S50), or Windows XP Embedded (S90). Tinycore Linux and others have been installed on them, so has FreeDOS.
Max RAM is one 512 meg PC2700 SODIMM. The IDE interface is a standard 44 pin 2.5" male header and supports some level of UDMA. Hard drives, SSDs, SD card and Compact Flash adapters all work, but the boot partition should be kept to 2 gig or less. Booting from USB devices over 1 gig yields weird results, especially with the official flash updaters.
What I'd like to know is if there's any functions that are hidden which can be unlocked. The available settings are very limited, just setting the boot order among IDE, USB and PXE, and the video RAM size. The default boot order is IDE, USB, PXE and a successful boot to IDE after changing it resets the order back to default.
One quirk that would be nice to eliminate is when booted from USB the BIOS "disables" the IDE controller. It's not actually disabled, the OS booted from USB has to employ special tricks to find it. If that's the only mod that can be done, it would make it much easier to install alternate OSes. Here is how it's done with Linux, at the bottom of that page.
With a 256K unpacked size I don't have much hope of any hidden extras, but it would be nice if there are. A modded version would need to be adjusted so the flash updater will see it as newer than any already installed.