APU1 NIC LEDs unusual configuration

[TimelessNL]

Hi,

The APU1 has an unusual configuration for its ethernet LEDs.
There have been some reports of other people about this misfeature.

OpenWrt wiki

LED for the NIC apparently not working as expected (1G/100M indication)

OpenWrt Forum post

On my PC Engines APU1d it´s lit when the speed is 100Mb/s.

Current situation:

• 100Mb/s
  Orange = on
  Green = normally off, blink on activity
• 1000Mb/s
  Orange = off
  Green = normally off, blink on activity

This configuration seems odd to me, according to this old topic it can either be solved in the RTL8111E driver or EEPROM, preferably the latter. Is there anything we can solve in the APU1's BIOS?

[miczyg1]

I wouldn't say putting such a workaround would "solve" the issue. Firmware is often considered a place for bugs workarounds and hacks, but on the other hand, such an approach degrades its quality. Fixing the EEPROM (if at fault) seems like a much better choice. Still putting it in coreboot is doable.

@michaelsteinmann let me know do you plan to resolve it.

[macpijan]

We are trying to utilize the customized_led feature from: https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/blob/cb772e54a3bdd95da1e86750baacbb92275bbbda/src/drivers/net/r8168.c#L263

The current code changes are here: https://github.com/pcengines/coreboot/commits/apu1_nic_leds

We enabled it, but at least for now, it does not work as expected.