[Request] How to insert Intel LAN I350 T4 EFI BIOS modules

[RaskaipikaFWR]

Hi mates, one month ago I purchased a genuine Dell Intel I350 T4 server adapter (original version, not the V2), and of course, not a chiniese counterfit (It’s from a Dell server [THGMP (Quad i350)]).

Two days ago, I’ve updated the firmware of the network card with the lastest version available of “Intel Ethernet Connections Boot Utility” (I’ve made a copy of the present firmware before flash the last version); after the flash procedure finished, I was able to check the EFI version flashed on the network card, that is 9.1.12.

Now, I want to add the UEFI driver to my ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 (AMD AM3+ motherboard) to be able to configure the I350 T-4 card from the UEFI-BIOS instead of have to use the Intel’s BOOT UTIL and don’t have to turn on the CSM mode because the lack of the UEFI driver; for this goal, I’ve searched and found an ASUS motherboard with an I350 AM2 network card (LOM variant with two cooper ports with the same Intel I350 chipset), that motherboard is the ASUS KNPA-U16.

The ASUS KNPA-U16 motherboard is equipped with an AMI Aptio V UEFI-BIOS (mine is an AMI Aptio IV version), I’ve extracted all the EFI BIOS modules “.FFS” (“extracted as is” option choosen and “saved as” with the same names) that I’ve seen related with the I350 AM2 network card in its lastest BIOS available with the lastest UEFI tool available and inserted them at my UEFI-BIOS without space problems, everything done thanks to the incredible guides posted in this fantastic forum, thanks people .

The EFI BIOS modules (.FFS) that I’ve extracted and inserted to my desktop motherboard BIOS are:
INTEL_LAN_I350.ffs with a size of 423 Bytes.
INTEL_LAN_I350_EFI_DRIVER_DXE.ffs with a size of 758 Bytes.
INTEL_LAN_I350_PEI.ffs with a size of 1.25 KB.
IntelLanI350EfiDriver.ffs with a size of 112 KB.

Important NOTE: The last EFI BIOS module (IntelLanI350EfiDriver.ffs) is which contains the Core of the EFI module (.EFI), and I’ve updated it to the lastest version available for my network card (UEFIx64 v9.1.12) with UEFI Tool too, and later, I’ve updated with UBU the rest of the UEFI-BIOS (OROMs, Realtek UENDI Driver and the AMD CPU microcodes) and flashed to the UEFI-BIOS chip with a CH341A programmer without problems (remember, AMI UEFI-BIOS).

Until here everything seems to be OK:
I’m able to configure the different options in UEFI-BIOS related to each port, iSCSI, PXE, turn ON/OFF the SR-IOV mode and WOL…

But I’ve a BIG problem:
If I set the CMS mode to disable (pure UEFI mode), when I turn ON the network stack in the UEFI-BIOS options (Advanced tab) and “Save and Reset”, at the next time that I access to the UEFI-BIOS, a message appears saying that I’ve to activate the CSM for the lack of the EFI driver of the I350 network card.

My questions are:
Do I have made wrong the extract/insert process at incorrect way???
Need I something more to be able to have my Hyper-V server working at pure UEFI mode???

I hope that you can help with this problem, and again, thank you so much for this incredible forum @Fernando and your fantastic tools @SoniX and @CodeRush , and thank you so much too to @Lost_N_BIOS because of to be ever there to help people.

Best Regards.

P.S.: Apologies for my english, is not my native language, I’m from Spain.

EDIT by Fernando: Thread title shortened
EDIT: I’ve uploaded the BIOS file that I’ve used to extract the I350 .FFs and the M5A99X EVO R2.0 BIOS modded by me.

M5A99X_EVO_R2.0_MOD.zip (3.18 MB)

KNPA-U16-ASUS-0901-S2019081401.zip (4.62 MB)

[Fernando]

@RaskaipikaFWR :
Although I am not an expert regarding your specific request, I doubt, that a modification of your mainboard BIOS will have any effect on the LAN Controller, which is part of your Intel add-on PCIe card.
Contrary to your mainboard the ASUS KNPA-U16 has an on-board Dual Port Intel I350-AM2 Gigabit LAN controller + 1 x Mgmt LAN.

[RaskaipikaFWR]

@Fernando

@RaskaipikaFWR:
Although I am not an expert regarding your specific request, I doubt, that a modification of your mainboard BIOS will have any effect on the LAN Controller, which is part of your Intel add-on PCIe card.
Contrary to your mainboard the ASUS KNPA-U16 has an on-board Dual Port Intel I350-AM2 Gigabit LAN controller + 1 x Mgmt LAN.

Well, my main goal as I said in the first post, is don’t have to TURN ON the CSM mode because of the lack of the EFI driver of the add-on network card, but I understand that you say, and I think that maybe, you’re right, but anyway, I’ve been able to find these FFSs files for this chip (Intel I350), only in this kind of UEFI-BIOS (server/workstations motherboards), because Intel uses a file called "BootIMG.FLB" that contains all the OROMs and EFI drivers for all the compatible network cards listed in the BootUtil program documentation.

I don’t know if there is a way or method to extract from a PCI-e add-on card the files required or a correct way to insert them into a motherboard UEFI-BIOS, or if I didn’t insert all the files required to made the MOD works, only the forum experts can say that, thanks anyway @Fernando.

[lfb6]

At least the bios asks for the corresponding efi- driver. Question is where it’s searching for the driver: Cards firmware of system bios- I’d say the card…

And why would one want to add an uefi driver in system bios if the card does have all the drivers in its firmware?

Implementing the modulse from Aptio V yo Aptio IV might be difficult in two ways:
1.) There’s a PEI module, that’s normally Pre-EFI Initialization. Afaik these modules can’t just be inserted, they have a defined address, and dependencies- open your bios file in Uefitool, check the PEI-dependency section.
2.) Unclear if Aptio V PEI modules cant be transferred to Aptio IV

I’d say this card should work like a video card- the card itself hould have the corresponding uefi drivers…

Do you have a bios setting which does specify which ‘option roms’ to load- ‘only efi’, or ‘only legacy’, or something close to this?

[RaskaipikaFWR]

@lfb6 :
Hi mate, yes, the motherboard UEFI-BIOS has, in the CSM mode section to establish Only OPROM, Only UEFI or Ignore for network devices and PCI-e devices, and you’re right, if my add-on card has the EFI driver, when I turn ON the pure UEFI mode (CSM turned OFF), the UEFI BIOS shouldn’t show the message that refers to the lack of the EFI driver. That message is present with the EFI driver inserted or not in the UEFI-BIOS.

Repeat, this only occurs when I turn OFF CSM.

Another thing, how can I check the PEI dependency that you comments at your first point???

Regards.

[lfb6]

@RaskaipikaFWR Since your bios complains about a missing efi-driver only when switching off CSM, it seems to load the legacy orom.

Since you never inserted the orom in your mainboard bios we can be quite sure that this orom is loaded from the network card itself. Then we should assume that also a Efi driver would be searched there- on the cards firmware.

I’m pretty sure that either your bios doesn’t load the efi-driver from the card correctly, or that the efi-modules/ the firmware on the card aren’t installed/ updated correctly.

The other quiestion is- why would you want to ‘turn ON the network stack in the UEFI-BIOS options’? Afaik this is only needed if you’d want to boot via PXE/ iSCSI? Since you wrote about a Hyper-V server- you normally don’t use network boot on a server?