e5 2678v3 + hp z440(c612/x99) - all cores turbo bios hack - help pls

Hey everyone

I recently put a e5 v3 26XX xeon into my hp z440 workstation

Ive spent the last few hours trying to find a guide specific to HPs and the enable turbo on all cores bios hack, but most of the tools linked from the threads don’t work

I cant use fptw because

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Platform: Intel(R) C610 Series Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid
 
--- Flash Devices Found ---
W25Q128BV ID:0xEF4018 Size: 16384KB (131072Kb)
 

 
Error 26: The host CPU does not have read access to the target flash area. To enable read access for this operation you must modify the descriptor settings to give host access to this region.
 


UBU gives a "unknown platform BIOS"

i have the .bin file from the hp updater + i've extracted it from the EFI system partition

the latest uefitool shows the microcode and dxe sections but doesnt let me save/replace/modify. The older uefi doesn't show the microcode sections. Plus it gives a bunch of warnings about how it'll destroy the non-empty pad files

i'm trying this with the M60_0256.BIN version available from hp here - <Your posts contains to many links. A maximum of links is allowed. New members need a minimum of 3 posts before posting external links>


Has anyone managed to get this working on the hp zX40 machines?

edit: i found some info about the ME lock jumper and the semi documented e14 BB ROM jumper so i'll try changing those tonight and trying the fpt dump again & post results

my dumped bios is too big to attach and i can’t post links yet…
this was the output

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FPTw.exe -bios -d biosreg.bin
 
Intel (R) Flash Programming Tool. Version: 9.1.10.1000
Copyright (c) 2007 - 2014, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.
 
Platform: Intel(R) C610 Series Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid
 
--- Flash Devices Found ---
W25Q128BV ID:0xEF4018 Size: 16384KB (131072Kb)
 

- Reading Flash [0x1000000] 10240KB of 10240KB - 100% complete.
Writing flash contents to file "biosreg.bin"...
 
Memory Dump Complete
FPT Operation Passed
 
 



my me version is 9.1.37.1002 if that matters?

zipped it. now it’s allowed…

biosreg.zip (4.84 MB)

no one?

sorry did i post this in the wrong section?

I tried following the steps here - [GUIDE] Haswell-E/EP Xeon CPUID:306F2 Turbo Unlock

but i cant use UBU, and the bios i created after modifying it with uefitool didn’t look right when i opened it up again in uefitool_ne - the various metadata didn’t exist anymore

I can see threads on here that there are successful edits of the HP zX20 bioses to add support for new xeons and nvme drives so it seems possible

Turbo is already enabled on all 12 cores.

Zitat von jkmelbs im Beitrag #1
Hey everyone

I recently put a e5 v3 26XX xeon into my hp z440 workstation

Ive spent the last few hours trying to find a guide specific to HPs and the enable turbo on all cores bios hack, but most of the tools linked from the threads don't work

I cant use fptw because

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
 
Platform: Intel(R) C610 Series Chipset
Reading HSFSTS register... Flash Descriptor: Valid
 
--- Flash Devices Found ---
W25Q128BV ID:0xEF4018 Size: 16384KB (131072Kb)
 

 
Error 26: The host CPU does not have read access to the target flash area. To enable read access for this operation you must modify the descriptor settings to give host access to this region.
 


UBU gives a "unknown platform BIOS"

i have the .bin file from the hp updater + i've extracted it from the EFI system partition

the latest uefitool shows the microcode and dxe sections but doesnt let me save/replace/modify. The older uefi doesn't show the microcode sections. Plus it gives a bunch of warnings about how it'll destroy the non-empty pad files

i'm trying this with the M60_0256.BIN version available from hp here - <Your posts contains to many links. A maximum of links is allowed. New members need a minimum of 3 posts before posting external links>


Has anyone managed to get this working on the hp zX40 machines?

edit: i found some info about the ME lock jumper and the semi documented e14 BB ROM jumper so i'll try changing those tonight and trying the fpt dump again & post results


Just found this - not your specific CPU but eratta possibly related.

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v3 Product Family Processor Specification Update

hey thanks for the reply
I guess i didn’t explain properly

what im trying to do is to enable the max turbo speed when all cores are running - a semi overclock

this cpu is the oem version of the 2680 which is a 12 core 2.5 (3.3max) cpu with the following turbo multipliers - 4/4/4/4/4/4/4/4/5/6/8/8

there’s a bios hack for this gen of cpus that enables the max turbo multiplier (x8) across all cores at once. This is what i’m trying to enable

I tried following this guide - [GUIDE] Haswell-E/EP Xeon CPUID:306F2 Turbo Unlock but those tools dont work with the HP bios. There’s also a bunch of youtubes etc where it works with this specific cpu but with prosumer x99 boards or cheapo chinese ones off aliexpress. Again because they all have a ami bios


I’ve seen other posts on here that have removed (or added) microcodes/cpu support and nvme boot drive support for HP z workstations, so it should be possible to do this mod

I also found out that HP accidentally bricked a bunch of workstations with a bad bios release and they wrote up an official unbricking guide.
turns out putting official bios on a fat32 usb stick, plugging it into a specific usb port and shorting the crisis recovery jumper will automatically do a pre-post bios flash off the usb, so i should be able to recover from a bad flash if something is messed up - https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05163478




I read the whole thread. That mod appears to be more of an edit than anything, also looking at the feedback it appears the guide is somewhat unreliable.

ASUS X99 is one of very few Intel boards that allows overclocking, it comes with full UEFI compliance and OP flashed the edited .CAP using USB Flashback.
USB FB is an SPI flasher unique to ASUS motherboards.

Z440 is a corporate grade workstation with locked down Insyde BIOS. If you’d like to try & unlock it, I suggest posting at MDF. They have a thread dedicated to Insyde BIOS mods.

What’s MDF?

yes my understanding is its an edit too

remove the microcodes from the bios + add the ffs info for the settings that the bios doesn’t expose. I have the .ffs file i want to load but im not quite sure where/how. I tried it in uefitool but it threw too many warnings & the edited version didnt look right so i wasn’t game to try flashing it on my mobo

I’ve gotten fpt to run on my machine to perform a full dump - i needed to flip 2 jumpers on the board, and the crisis recovery jumper sounds similar to the asus usb flashback


MDF is typo sorry. MDL - My Digital Life.

Insyde can be a PITA when it comes to flashing. Iirc the HP recovery jumper clears NVRAM it doesn’t allow flashing a modded BIOS.
I could be wrong tho, it’s been a while since I read the HPE docs.

Thanks i’ll try there.
I tried flashing it back both via the bios update menu and fptw, both failed
bios gave a checksum error and fptw threw error 7 hardware sequencing failed. Make sure that you have access to target flash area!