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Or a remote access card. or the IBM machines, they are called RSA cards, on the dell machines they are called a DRAC. There is an equivalent for HP called iLO, and every other large brand. I also know that supermicro sells them for some of their server boards too. I think these may be generic: http://www.ami.com/serviceprocessors/

My guess is that Apple will use EFI in their x86 based offerings as both Quanta and Asustek (see the press releases) have recently announced that they will use the AMI EFI implementation (Aptio) in their products. If my memory serves me correct, both these companies have manufactured, or are currently manufacturing Apple hardware.

The best bet is a single user/single server KVM over IP unit, which is essentially a bridge between Ethernet and a Keyboard/Video/Mouse set. Here's one example. Here's another.

AMIDiag from American Megatrends has been around for a long time. It has Windows and DOS versions. The DOS version will run on DRDOS. I used to use it when I was building servers for a former employer.

I only discovered this by running 'strings' on the firmware and found references to uClinux and a variety of other GPL stuff.

There is NO mention of the GPL in the product manual or on the packaging which contains the CD with a backup copy of the firmware.

I asked for copies of any GPL sources (and associated changes) which the MegaRAC G2 used - to their credit, I received a very nice diff which only covered changes to files which already exist in the uClinux distribution.

Unfortunately, those changes include the addition of header files which the modified kernel relies on - header files which I wasn't given and further requests for them have been ignored. So, even with the 'source' which I was given, I can't use it to produce an identical binary as to that contained in the firmware image which was supplied to me.

For those readers who are interested in purchasing one or more MegaRAC G2s, I suggest you ask your AMI dealer why it took them over eight weeks to patch a vulnerability which allowed *any* remote user to gain full access to the system console and also why the product is prone to frequent hangs which are not recoverable unless you unplug all power from the server and card until the onboard battery drains.

The vulnerability is so simple to exploit - start up the GTK+ remote console utility that came on the CD and point it to the IP address of any MegaRAC G2 card.... that's it. No prompt for a username or password. Nothing. Instant console access.

... then again, I suppose it just goes to show the quality of the code which their engineers are kicking out to the end-users :-(

I only discovered this by running 'strings' on the firmware and found references to uClinux and a variety of other GPL stuff.

There is NO mention of the GPL in the product manual or on the packaging which contains the CD with a backup copy of the firmware.

I asked for copies of any GPL sources (and associated changes) which the MegaRAC G2 used - to their credit, I received a very nice diff which only covered changes to files which already exist in the uClinux distribution.

Unfortunately, those changes include the addition of header files which the modified kernel relies on - header files which I wasn't given and further requests for them have been ignored. So, even with the 'source' which I was given, I can't use it to produce an identical binary as to that contained in the firmware image which was supplied to me.

For those readers who are interested in purchasing one or more MegaRAC G2s, I suggest you ask your AMI dealer why it took them over eight weeks to patch a vulnerability which allowed *any* remote user to gain full access to the system console and also why the product is prone to frequent hangs which are not recoverable unless you unplug all power from the server and card until the onboard battery drains.

The vulnerability is so simple to exploit - start up the GTK+ remote console utility that came on the CD and point it to the IP address of any MegaRAC G2 card.... that's it. No prompt for a username or password. Nothing. Instant console access.

... then again, I suppose it just goes to show the quality of the code which their engineers are kicking out to the end-users :-(

Didn't anyone notice the white paper referenced in AMI's press release? I think a lot of the paranoia coming out on this issue is there because unless you load that white-paper and look for the word "disabled" you might miss the fact that the TCPA feature can be turned off.
Believe me, I was as concerned as the next nerd that two or three computer purchases down the line from now would no longer be able to run Linux, but as I read it, backwards compatibility (something hardware and firmware wonks live and die on) dictates that it must be as easy to turn OFF as ON. If we're adults, let not panic, for goodness' sake! Big Brother may be watching, but he won't be preventing us from loading goodthinkful OS's of our choice on our own boxes even after TCPA arrives. At least not before we're forced to visit Room 101 (still under construction apparently).

One quick comment... AMI recently sold their hardware RAID business to LSI Logic. See this page for LSI's RAID information.

Tom's Hardware is also using the wrong tools for the job. Even other overclockers know better. There are pens for writing PC board traces with conductive ink. Using conductive paint and tape is doing it the hard way.

Oops. Sorry about that. Proper link here.

New and experienced users alike face some tough hurdles when trying to get running on a new computer. From connecting to the Internet to learning about and managing their PC. How do they get started? What do they need? How can they get these essential tools? Usually, it takes a computer expert to navigate the Internet and locate, access and install the latest Internet technologies for communication, entertainment, education and business. Most users don't even know what they're missing.

automatically packaged and installed

There are lots of things that the CPU can do wrong that won't cause a crash. Floating point errors, for example. MMX problems. Trouble in 3D extensions. Those are features that generally don't affect the control path in system software. You need to run diagnostics, 3D renders that check that the output matches a standard image bit for bit, and such. For that matter, when they run the "Linux recompilation test", do they check that the generated code matches some known-good reference? Probably not. Like the overclocking types, if the whole system doesn't crash, they're probably happy; all they wanted was to see the CPU benchmark run anyway.

However, from what they wrote, it looks like Intel reached 1.13MHz by narrowing the temperature margins, not by actually making it faster. That's a desperation move.

I'd be more impressed with the overclocking community if they reported uptime. "It works" does not mean "it stayed up long enough to run the CPU speed meter program". "It works" means "we ran the AMI CPU diagnostics for 72 hours with the machine in the burn-in oven at the max rated system temperature and there were no errors".

If they worked on cars, the overclocking crowd would be at the side of the freeway waiting for a tow truck.

Yeah. There are CPU diagnostic programs for PCs, such as AMIDiag, but few users have them.

The situation is much worse than the summary implied. Advertisements would occur not just at boot time. According to the ZDnet article, "an Internet Service Provider like AOL could theoretically put its sign up icon directly on the desktop of any PC that uses the Phoenix start-up software." In other words, the message would not just be at boot-up. While Linux users would presumably not get such an icon, the situation for MS users is scarier than other posters have realized. I've already sent a complaint to Phoenix and praise to AMI.

AMI Dual and Quad boards