CPU Microcode BIOS modding questions/problems

Did it use to boot in the past? What CPUID are we talking about?

This CPU boot with Maximus hero vi witch have bricked bios chip and shutdown at 30min. I have new mobo Z97-A but he cant boot with this cpu. Cpu is “ES qde8” or here its the same cpu model http://valid.canardpc.com/0hnrh6
Im new with this forum. I was used a UBU tool, updated the z97-a microcodes and after that i was extract them as with MMTool… successfully flashed trough DOS but after CPU slap QDE8 still not working

The CPUID is 306C2 based on that validation picture. Both motherboards have microcodes for that CPUID so it should work. If it doesn’t at Z97-A then the OEM might have implemented a measure to block ES/QS processors at the BIOS level. In that case, I doubt you can do anything to bypass it. Maybe google searching.



Is there a link you can share that will shed more light on what exactly needed to be fixed on the Westmere microcode please? Curious to find out if anyone is having any Overclocking issues using this newer Intel Xeon Microcode. Thanks

Also, has anyone tried using this microcode within their Rampage III Extreme board using a Xeon X5650, or any other Westmere-EP for that matter? Curious what your results were. Thanks again.

asus p6t bios 1408 with last microcode version 1D (06c2) for xeon x5600 tested with my computer view screen with xeon x5650


DOWNLOAD
https://www.4shared.com/file/0-oReNFkei/…crocode_1d.html

p6t rev1d.rar (849 KB)

Yeah, I’ve been using the 1D microcode for my X5650 as well for a while. But I wonder if we will get even a newer one soon which will mitigate the Intel security flaw which made the news yesterday. :wink: By the way, the just released Windows 10 fix does not use the PCID optimization on my Westmere CPU even though Westmere introduced this feature. :frowning: Let’s hope that Intel will deal with older systems als well, but this all makes me more likely to switch back to AMD for my next build.

Unfortunately no microcode update will fix that fiasco… only a software fix… and AMD isn’t in the clear either.

From what I’ve read so far on different mailing lists and articles, for some attack vectors a microcode update is even a prerequisite to be safe (but of course won’t fix it by itself, it needs further OS fixes and in some cases even new software). There is even hectic development in GCC and LLVM going on, Firefox and Chrome as well. The official statement from AMD implied that only one Spectre attack vector could be used (Bounds Check Bypass) which can be resolved by software / OS updates to be made available by system vendors and manufacturers. Hence I think they are far better off from this than Intel. Only a negligible performance impact is expected. Intel on the other hand is exposed on a wider front. And only new unreleased CPUs can solve it adequatly…

… which is not a concern for me as a home user, but I guess AMD will claim some market share in business and enterprise systems this year.

For more performance numbers, this report from the Red Hat Performance Engineering team describes their research into the performance impact of various microcode and kernel patch combinations in a server environment: https://access.redhat.com/articles/3307751

You can easily skip to implement the “new” haswell binary
cpu000306c3_plat00000032_ver00000023_date20171120.bin
which is identical to
cpu306C3_plat32_ver00000023_2017-11-20_PRD_16535FE4.bin
and causes IRQ (CPU, WHEA) errors.
My 960 NVMe performance dropped from ~2.200MB/s to 1.500 and while an AS SSD benchmark you’ll get massive stuttering and CPU erros in HWinfo.

more about the instabilities here > http://www.overclock.net/t/1645289/haswe…ity-differences

I hope Intel manages to release some microcodes as far back as Westmere-EP at least. But even that far back seems inefficient of a response.

After a decade of near exclusively using Intel in my builds I think it’s time once again to jump ship for a few years. I been wanting to support AMD somehow and the Ryzen refresh seems like the perfect opportunity to do just that. My 1st generation Intel Xeon system is too old anyway.

Let there be microcodes, lol

Outdated AMD MC.
http://rgho.st/6K7SXc84B

SoniX
Microcode cpu00800F12 replaced cpu00800F10 & cpu00800F11 ? I cannot search the document cpuid AMD. (
And whether it is necessary to replace sections when changing a microcode: AmdVersionDxe, AmiAgesaDxe, AmdVersionPei, AmiAgesaPei, CpuPei, CpuSetAgesaPcd ?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VxOHCX…YT6hu6DvdoUag8t

cpu00660F00_ver06006012_2014-10-14_5FF7FE99.bin
cpu00660F01_ver06006118_2016-02-18_9718EBEF.bin
cpu00800F00_ver0800002A_2016-10-06_A3C03341.bin
cpu00800F10_ver0800100C_2017-01-31_72EA2E9B.bin
cpu00800F11_ver08001129_2017-07-14_4F426450.bin
cpu00800F12_ver08001207_2017-06-20_32DF1D11.bin
cpu00800F82_ver08008202_2017-10-03_B95D2272.bin
cpu00810F00_ver08100004_2016-11-20_70D8F43B.bin
cpu00810F10_ver08101007_2017-12-12_FACD50F0.bin

@ Prodif

Unfortunately, for AMD microcodes I can not say anything.

SoniX
To derive updated sections from the new version of Bios? Just I do not know on how many it correctly …
It is necessary to update old firmware of Asrock, ASUS will be a donor.

quick question:

for example, CPUID : 306A9 - what actual Intel CPU does this correspond to? Is it an coreI3, corei5 etc… thanks.

This might help? https://newsroom.intel.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/02/microcode-update-guidance.pdf

I tried to read as much as possible but it seems I’m missing some info I desperately need.

Want to update and add microcode for non supported cpu on my mobo MSI x58 platinum.

I open the bios.rom in mmtool v3.26 then go to CPU PATCH tab, and for non existent Xeon cpu I insert patch data with downloaded file. Then save rom.

What happens now is some of modules RomLoc change and I don’t know if that is allowed or not.

Should RomLoc for modules always be exactly the same after making any changes?
If yes, what is the usual procedure to keep RomLocs the same? I guess I can delete one of older CPU patches with exact size. What if there is no other cpu patch with exact same size? Creating some dummy bin file or something?

EDIT: essentially i’m upgrading i7 920 to Xeon X5670, downloaded Xeon X5670 206C2_v_1D_Microcode FIX and will even update microcode for i7 920. Also I will probably update realtek orom and intel raid orom. So really need to know if RomLoc can change or not. Thanks for quick replies, I’m itching to put new chip into this mobo :smiley: Everything is ready, just need to mod bios.

EDIT 2: I proceeded with flashing bios even though RomLoc were different. Installed Xeon and after CMOS reset, everything seems to be working. Yay!

EDIT 3: The only issue I seem to have is high DPC latency that wasn’t there before with i7 920. It happens when I run programs like CPU-Z or OCCT (without even running stability test, only starting it up) Latencies go into 4000-5000s and should be in 1000s https://i.imgur.com/KMSRgJF.png

…continuation of previous post

After realizing my MSI x58 platinum has locked x20 uncore multiplier for Xeon X5670 I’m wondering is there any way to unlock it? I’ve read it might be unlocked in microcode update but I doubt it since I tried few suggested microcodes and flashed bios like that and verified they are being used and still uncore is locked at x20.

Maybe I’m wrong, any idea about unlocking uncore multi?

Maybe this method will be a bit easier, but one has to be sure it is for them

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help…crocode-updates