3.4 Ghz Prescott support for IBM Thinkcentre motherboard

[Biscuits]

Hi Everyone,

I’m upgrading my CPU to a 3.4 Hz Prescott in IBM Thinkcentre machine. The problem I’m having is that the Bios reports “error 0167 no processor update found” Then gives me an option to hit F1 to enter setup or F2 to continue. The Bios clearly recognizes the CPU and reports the correct speed and multipliers. If I hit F2 the operating system loads as normal and recognizes the CPU speed and multi cores. I have the latest Bios from IBM flashed into the system, see link below. (2ajt51a.exe)

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-51058

My question here is, firstly can the CPU microcode be added to the bios (I believe they stopped at 3.2 GHz) or is there a modification that can be done to stop this annoying error message. I would not worry about this too much but sometimes I start my machine automatically and run some programs before I get to them, with this error it will not start until I hit F2.

Many thanks in advance to all that reply !!!

B..

[Biscuits]

Sorry everyone ! Below is a link to what I believe is the donor Bios for the request above.. ( 2ejt46a.exe )

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-60626

[Biscuits]

Update - not sure if this will help but below is the CPUID

CPU type = 0f49
microcode update revision = 3

If this is too difficult then I understand, i just ask that someone lets me know and I'll deal with it.

Many Thanks !

[Biscuits]

I've done further research and believe the attached files are better suited as donor's to my cause above. These file are from motherboards that use the same Intel 865PE chipset. (Albatron PX865PE)

I hope this helps !

[1234s282]

Sorry for the delay , lots been going on!

You are right , this error is because theres no microcode for your CPU loaded. I took the microcode entry that matches the CPUID and revision you posted and inserted it into your BIOS.
I didn't end up using the donor bioses but can try that if this mod doesnt work.

Try at your own risk!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/747181/Lenovo%20...34s282.zip

Regards
Admin

[Biscuits]

Admin,

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I'm currently away on business and will be home early next week, will test the bios as so as I get home, I'll post the results here as well...

Again, Thanks a bunch !!

[Biscuits]

Admin,

Just tried to update the BIOS and unfortunately I had no success. Below are the procedure I adopted and the error reported ?

1.Extracted the ZIP file and ran winphlash.exe. Error reported “cannot open HSH file”

2.Copied HSH file from original bios download into modified extracted folder. Error reported “Bios update failed”

3.Copied the modified Bios.rom file into the original bios directory. Error reported “Bios update failed”

4.Copied and renamed modified Bios.rom ($image2A.usf the default file name) to a bootable floppy and tried to update using that method. Error reported “ The specified Mod file is larger than the size allocated in the Rom”

I appreciated all your efforts and if this is something that easily fixed then I am sincerely gratefully, however if requires a lot of time and effort then I completely understand and I can deal with the annoying F2 switch.

Again, thank you for your time and effort…

[Biscuits]

Admin,

Just tried to update the BIOS and unfortunately I had no success. Below are the procedure I adopted and the error reported ?

1.Extracted the ZIP file and ran winphlash.exe. Error reported “cannot open HSH file”

2.Copied HSH file from original bios download into modified extracted folder. Error reported “Bios update failed”

3.Copied the modified Bios.rom file into the original bios directory. Error reported “Bios update failed”

4.Copied and renamed modified Bios.rom ($image2A.usf the default file name) to a bootable floppy and tried to update using that method. Error reported “ The specified Mod file is larger than the size allocated in the Rom”

I appreciated all your efforts and if this is something that easily fixed then I am sincerely gratefully, however if requires a lot of time and effort then I completely understand and I can deal with the annoying F2 switch.

Again, thank you for your time and effort…

[ppuskari]

Believe it or not, I have also just run into this issue on a Lenovo ThinkCentre M50 8189-FCU machine. Same processor specs and all. It looks like we just need to mod that rom somehow without changing the rom size perhaps? I'll give this solution a try and see what comes of it as well.

Is there a process that I can try to mod my own rom for this perhaps? IE is there a microcode table located at some offset in the file that that I can matchup and then just overlay the new info on to that and still maintain byte sizing and alignment of the entire rom? I'm new to the rom modding but not new to pc hacking, performance tuning, and low level coding.

It appears the last STOCK cpu supported by this platform is the 0F41 version of the P4 3.4ghz 800mhz 1meg cache cpu. I have that in another identical machine and it detects just fine. Since this was the last of the series of cpus, and IBM never supported it in this machine at this rev and stepping that they probably will never update the bios to handle this.

Any ideas on this? I'll be scouring the Google land and this board to see what I can come up with.

Thanks!

[ppuskari]

SOLVED!

Turns out for the IBM/LENOVO CPU patch updates all we need to do is find a bios on the Lenovo support site that has the proper .pat and .hsh files already inside the bios release.

In my case I used 2gjy23usa bios set from the M51/A51 latest bios release. Download the bios. Right click extract to a folder with WinRAR. copy over 0f49.pat and 0f49.hsh files to your 2AJY51US folder. Then run the WinPhlash.exe app. Go into advanced options and UNcheck everything except "Verify Block after Programming" say okay then flash. It will reflash and apply all the microcode updates including the new one we just added. Reboot. Everything works great now!

Hopefully this helps somebody out there. In this case it's rather a simple fix, but it's just not easy to find in Google yet.

First bios is current as of 12/4/2011 for the M50 ThinkCentre line
Seond bios is the donor bios to copy the two 0f49.* files from the extracted contents from the M51 ThinkCentre line

http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/...y51usa.exe
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/...y23usa.exe

P.S. Also note that you cannot update your bios at all once you have the new unsupported processor in place that first time until you uncheck at LEAST the first three boxes in that advanced tab. Otherwise it fails out and does nothing.

So either do the microcode update above BEFORE you put the new chip in, OR just remember to uncheck the boxes and you will be fine.