OptiPlex 360 380 760 780 960 Xeon LGA 771 E0 1067A Microcode

[pieroeffe]

Given that I read the entire forum, I've already tried the modified firmware O360-A07 1067A-771.exe , which unfortunately does not work (my computer emits beep beep at startup and does not start)

Could someone help me to get the firmware for optiplex 360 bios that supports XEON E5320 SLAEL (G0) ?
the CPUID id 06FBh.

Alternatively, someone could explain me how to add the microcode to my bios?

I thank all for any support you can provide me

[Oldopti960]

Quick question. With this bios update, will I still have to mod Xeon?

[Oldopti960]

With the O960 bios update, will I still need to "modify" the Xeon CPU?

[friday769]

sooo, this mod is pretty cool, working on deciding which CPU to order to preform the mod and im kinda stuck in regards to "stepping" on this forum it refers to "e0 stepping" i have no problems finding cpus with "c0 stepping" the "e0 stepping" cpus are a bit more difficult to find, so my question is... 1, does the cpu HAVE to be a E0 version or can it be C0 also has anyone found out if the bios mod on the optiplex 330 along with an e5472 allows for utilization of ddr3 1600 or is it still locked to ddr3 1333?

[wanosd]

Hi,

Here's a long response to your seemingly simple questions.  The person who originally modded these BIOX said he "Removed LGA775 E0 (1067A Platform 0,4)" and "Added LGA771 E0 (1067A Platform 2,6)", meaning if this is literally what he did, then the answer would be yes, you would want to obtain an E0 stepping Xeon processor, especially if you want to run Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Consequently, that means any E0 stepping desktop processor using the LGA775 E0 (1067A Platform 0,4) microcode set will now trigger an error such as "Processor Not Supported/Strike F1", and Windows 8 and 10 won't boot with the desktop processor.  Linux should still continue to work because I understand Linux handles microcodes differently.  This is fine if you plan on using the Xeon though.

That is the problem with the Dell BIOS as it just does not have enough space in the BIOS file, and it does not have tools as those provided by AMI or AWARD BIOS to get the job done.  I suspect cerverappz used a Hex editor to basically overwrite the Hex codes pertaining to desktop microcodes with microcodes from the Xeon series.  I'm sure he had his reasons such as needing the replacement and the replaced code sizes to match each other.  Otherwise you end up with a corrupt file.

According to this Wikipedia site (scroll down a little over halfway), the E0 (1067A) desktop processors in this series should be affected https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core...hitecture).

As for the E5472 and RAM, it's actually dependent on your motherboard and they are not really related except for overclocking scenarios.  What determines what kind of RAM you can use is your motherboard.  Some motherboards can only do DDR2 and others can do DDR3.  Just getting an E5472 doesn't mean you'll now be able to magically use higher speed RAM.  In fact, if your motherboard only supports 1333 MHz FSB, it's a really bad idea to get the E5472 as a few things can happen:

• If your motherboard is built to overclock to 1600 MHz FSB (but is really built for 1333 MHz), the CPU pushes your motherboard to it's limit (with possibly some intermittent crashes etc. until you realize you have to add more voltage to your motherboard)
  
  
• If your motherboard isn't built to overclock and only goes to 1333 MHz FSB, your motherboard may cap the CPU down to 1333 MHz too (meaning the E5472 runs at 2.50 GHz instead of 3.0 GHz).  At that point, it's better to just get an E5440 as it runs at 1333 MHz and 2.83 GHz, or an E5450, X5450, X5460 or X5470.
  

Note: If your motherboard *is* capable of 1600 MHz FSB, it's a better option to get an E5440 or faster CPU so you can just overclock the E5440 by increasing the FSB, which pushes it from 2.83 GHz to 3.40 GHz.  The X5470 can get to 4.0 GHz or faster with a good motherboard.  At that speed, with a decent video card, it rivals older generation i5's and i7's.

[wanosd]

With the O960 bios update, will I still need to "modify" the Xeon CPU?

Answer is:  Yes.

The Xeon processor (socket 771) differs from the desktop processor (socket 775) by two pins being switched, and by Intel giving the two half circle notches on different edges.  This BIOS mod only allows the Dell models listed here to properly function (i.e. utilize all the instruction sets) with Xeon processors that have an E0 stepping, such as SLBBM, SLBBE, SLBBA, SLBBF, and so on.

You will still need to switch the two pins by way of the 771/775 adapter sticker or some other ingenious method.

You will still need to cut the motherboard CPU socket tabs to make the Xeon fit in the correct orientation (or you can cut notches in the CPU itself but that requires more work).

[wanosd]

can someone tell me, does  this enable you to use 5xxx cpus in an optiplex 780?

Answer is: No

There are two main chipset types: Those for dual processors and those for single processors.  I'm not talking dual cores or quad cores of any of that.  I'm talking physical processors as in a server motherboard has literally two CPU socket slots.

• The X and Q series chipsets, such as X38, X48, Q45, Q43 and so on can only work with the X3363, X3353, and X3323 Xeon processors.  The X3363 is the fastest possible and is equivalent to a Q9550.
  
• The G and P series chipsets, such as G31, G33, P35, P45, EP45 (for Gigabyte motherboards, which rocks btw) and so on can work with the E5000 series and X5000 series processors such as the E5450, X5470 and so on, *and* can also work with the X3000 series processors like the X3363 too.  Generally the 3000 series processors are more expensive and harder to get your hands on, so stick with the 5000 series if you can.
  

[yakka]

Hello guys,

Thanks for these files.
Could you tell me which SW do you use to update these bios ?
I would like to try to add LGA775 E0 for all the platforms.

Is it possible to have the HDR file of these bios?

Regards

[mgabi]

So,
After a week of searching for information, I finally got to mod my Optiplex 380 bios. Basically what I wanted was to update the microcode for 06FB xeon cpus (I have a E5335 G0).
So, quick and dirty.
Take the hdr file ( [censored].exe /writehdrfile will do it) and open it in a hex editor.
Search for the cpuid that you want to mod (I've only modded existing, not added/removed) but it could possibly work.
Pay attention to the header in the microcode file and paste it (overwrite) in the hdr : offset 30 in the microcode file .

And now the funny part, where nobody seems to care or won't say (thanks go to this guy : http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_65bb08ce0100gt5k.html)
how you need to calculate the correct checksum.

For the dell o380, the checksum is at 1f054 (found the adress by opening it with the phoenixtool).
you can safely delete anything beyond this point. I believe there are compression headers garbage after the 2 checksums.

So, first checksum : from 54h to 1f054h - crc32 - take the value, put it in a calculator (hex) and not (operation) the result. write the resulting four bytes in reverse order.

The second checksum : entire file (including the first checksum - 00h to 1f058h) - same procedure as for the first (crc32 - not - reverse bytes)

That's it.

You can take the resulting hdr file and add/mod slic to it using phoenixtool.
One thing that keeps puzzling me - in the bios, the data for the microcode seems much bigger and I still don't have speedstep enabled with the new bios. But, i could check the correct version in the bios (BC) and I gots ssse3 on top of the default b4 ancient version in the original bios. Funny thing, for the desktop 6fb parts, the microcode is the latest.

Here's the edited file if anyone cares

  o380-mod.zip (Size: 1.57 MB / Downloads: 159)

Please share your results ... I'm gonna go f... up my 975x intel next

[DeathBringer]

Why you didn't take whole microcode block from OptiPlex 755 BIOS?