Dell Inspiron 530 / 530s v1.0.2 Experimental Unlocking & Upgrading Project

[macnb]

Those folks who have updated their 1.0.18 BIOS to the modded version, have you seen any performance benefits of using the AHCI mode (as opposed to RAID to achieve AHCI compatibility) ?

Any other performance benefits of the modded ROM ?

[macnb]

OK so I bit the bullet and applied the modded bios DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.BIN.
   

Summary: No great change in system behaviour/performance.

Except, with AHCI, Vista now boots a little faster as it no longer is trying to figure out the RAID mode.

Now, there's an additional AHCI drive selection mode setting (IDE or RAID or AHCI).
   

Bugs:

1. Though AHCI mode seems to work, the "Standard CMOS Features" menu screen does not list the attached HDD's. The HDD's are listed in IDE mode.
   
   

2. BUT...while AHCI mode selected, the HDD's ARE listed in the Hard Disk Boot Priority menu.
   

3. Smart Fan Control can be enabled or disabled BUT, when eabled, the Start, Slop, etc modifications are not persistent. That is, no matter what I set them to, on reboot they are back to default. Disabling smart fan control spins both the fans at MAXIMUM speeds permanently - sounds like a jet engine !.

On MAC OS, I did benchmark the HDD read/write performance before/after the mod.
No change.

Not tried SSD's yet.

[victorperez2911]

Flashed my mobo with Xeon.bat, and I am running RAID 0 perfectly on my Inspirion 530

[ultimate.junkie]

OK so I bit the bullet and applied the modded bios DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.BIN.


Summary: No great change in system behaviour/performance.

Except, with AHCI, Vista now boots a little faster as it no longer is trying to figure out the RAID mode.

Now, there's an additional AHCI drive selection mode setting (IDE or RAID or AHCI).


Bugs:

1. Though AHCI mode seems to work, the "Standard CMOS Features" menu screen does not list the attached HDD's. The HDD's are listed in IDE mode.



2. BUT...while AHCI mode selected, the HDD's ARE listed in the Hard Disk Boot Priority menu.


3. Smart Fan Control can be enabled or disabled BUT, when disabled, the Start, Slop, etc modifications are not persistent. That is, no matter what I set them to, on reboot they are back to default. Disabling smart fan control spins both the fans at MAXIMUM speeds permanently - sounds like a jet engine !.

On MAC OS, I did benchmark the HDD read/write performance before/after the mod.
No change.

Not tried SSD's yet.

MacNB, I bit the bullet and flashed the same modded BIOS after reading that you had done it.

I have a 530S and am running Mac OS 10.10.1. (BTW, thanks for DSDT edit suggestion on insanely to get wake from sleep working properly.)

A couple of benefits of using AHCI for me are: (1) I am one kext closer to vanilla (IOATAFamily), and (2) TRIM function for my SSD is now being reported by MacOS to be enabled.

Thanks everyone for making this happen!

[adrew]

I updated my BIOS and have successfully enabled AHCI on my Dell 530 with a Core 2 Quad. It is working great and is so much faster — getting 280± MBps. Thanks so much for the detailed info, everybody.

I had an existing installation of Win 8 64-bit installed, and after changing from IDE to AHCI in the BIOS, I had to tweak a couple of values in the Registry before Windows would start up. It is fine now but I am wondering about what will happen when Windows 10 comes out later this year. If I erase Win 8 and do a clean install of 10, will I have to tweak its Registry as well, or will it recognize that AHCI is in use and set itself up accordingly during the installation process?

[DarioPR]

Hi everyone!

I've recently flashed my mobo with "Xeon.bat" to upgrade my C2D E6750 to a Xeon E5450, after the flash process with the C2D in it all was working perfectly, with AHCI activated and an increase in RAM utilization (before flashing only was 2,7Gb useable, now I have all 4Gb), but unfortunately the mobo doesn't boot with the Xeon in it, it doesn't do anything, just keep the fans running at full speed. I try to reset bios using the jumpers before I change to Xeon but same result, any advice? Has anybody try this processor on this board?

My mobo is G33M02, RAM 2x2Gb @ 667MHz, and the splash screen is Not disabled.

Thank you very much in advance!

EDIT: Xeon processor has been tested in other mobo and it works OK

[Eugene74]

Hi everyone!

I've recently flashed my mobo with "Xeon.bat" to upgrade my C2D E6750 to a Xeon E5450, after the flash process with the C2D in it all was working perfectly, with AHCI activated and an increase in RAM utilization (before flashing only was 2,7Gb useable, now I have all 4Gb), but unfortunately the mobo doesn't boot with the Xeon in it, it doesn't do anything, just keep the fans running at full speed. I try to reset bios using the jumpers before I change to Xeon but same result, any advice? Has anybody try this processor on this board?

My mobo is G33M02, RAM 2x2Gb @ 667MHz, and the splash screen is Not disabled.

Thank you very much in advance!

EDIT: Xeon processor has been tested in other mobo and it works OK

mobo G33M02 does NOT support ANY QUAD CORE.
only G33M03 works with Quad Core (Including XEONs)

the difference between the two mobos (that looks the same) is only CPU POWER (Pins and Watts).

You can use Dual Core Xeon or C2D E8000 series on G33M02 mobo at best. 

[DarioPR]

Hi everyone!

I've recently flashed my mobo with "Xeon.bat" to upgrade my C2D E6750 to a Xeon E5450, after the flash process with the C2D in it all was working perfectly, with AHCI activated and an increase in RAM utilization (before flashing only was 2,7Gb useable, now I have all 4Gb), but unfortunately the mobo doesn't boot with the Xeon in it, it doesn't do anything, just keep the fans running at full speed. I try to reset bios using the jumpers before I change to Xeon but same result, any advice? Has anybody try this processor on this board?

My mobo is G33M02, RAM 2x2Gb @ 667MHz, and the splash screen is Not disabled.

Thank you very much in advance!

EDIT: Xeon processor has been tested in other mobo and it works OK

mobo G33M02 does NOT support ANY QUAD CORE.
only G33M03 works with Quad Core (Including XEONs)

the difference between the two mobos (that looks the same) is only CPU POWER (Pins and Watts).

You can use Dual Core Xeon or C2D E8000 series on G33M02 mobo at best. 

Ok! Now that I've read the posts again I see it Hope made me blind.

Thank you very much!

[Mr. Genius]

Wow!

This thread sure has gone somewhere very interesting since I last posted. I had absolutely no idea that they ever made any Inspiron 530(or Vostro 400) motherboards that supported quad-cores. None-the-less, it's been verified here(and elsewhere) to be 100% true. So if you've got an Inspiron 530(or Vostro 200) with a G33M02, you need to replace that with a DG33M03(Inspiron 530) or G33M03(Vostro 400) to run quad-cores. Just thought I'd add the bit about the Vostro 400 G33M03. Which I've found some official Dell documentation of. Though I can't find any for the Inspiron 530 DG33M03. And I'm guessing that there'll be slight differences between the 2 as far as bios compatibility too(since there usually is). Meaning, don't expect an Inspiron 530 DG33M03 bios to work with your Vostro 400 G33M03 either. Atleast you'll know that ahead of time though(because it's a "G33M03"). Which someone might need to mod a bios for to get the 8GB upgrade, but will probably run the latest quads(Xeons incl.) with the latest bios Dell offers. So far as I've gathered.

So here's the data I could find on the Vostro 400/G33M03:

Processor
Processor type Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor. FSB up to 1333MHz
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor
Level 2 (L2) cache At least 512 KB pipelined-burst, eight-way set associative, writeback SRAM

Memory
Type 667-MHz, 800-MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Memory connectors four
Memory capacities 512 MB, 1 GB or 2 GB
Minimum memory 1 GB
Maximum memory 4 GB

NOTE: Due to the unique architecture of the Intel Core 2 Quad processor, your system board and power supply must be included when upgrading processors.

Computer Information
Chipset ICH9 and Intel G33
RAID Support RAID 1 (Mirroring)
DMA channels seven
Interrupt levels 24
BIOS chip (NVRAM) 16 Mb
NIC Integrated network interface capable of 10/100 communication

And a link to a list of Dell mobos(and other brands) that support the LGA771 to LGA775 mod.
http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/#dell
Now I'm off to get me one of these "D/G33M03"s...while the gettin's good!!!

EDIT: I found a far more cost effective upgrade for my purposes actually. Why buy a(nother) used $35 DDR2 1333MHz FSB USB 2.0 PCI-E 1.0 Dell mobo(Inspiron 530/Vostro 400 G33) and a used $72 3.33GHz quad-core processor(X5470)? When I can buy a used $75 DDR3 1866MHz FSB USB 3.0 PCI-E 2.0 Dell mobo(Alienware Aurora R3 P67) and a new $50 3.1GHz quad-core processor(i5-2400) that will OBLITERATE it in terms of performance. For merely a few dollars more! All I really need is a Dell mobo to install my Dell Windows 7 Pro 64 DVD. Any old Dell will do. But I'm not looking to throw any more money away on antiquated technology just to accomplish that, if it can be avoided.

EDIT 2: Probably should have stuck with that idea...

[TPip]

Wow!

This thread sure has gone somewhere very interesting since I last posted. I had absolutely no idea that they ever made any Inspiron 530(or Vostro 400) motherboards that supported quad-cores. None-the-less, it's been verified here(and elsewhere) to be 100% true. So if you've got an Inspiron 530(or Vostro 200) with a G33M02, you need to replace that with a DG33M03(Inspiron 530) or G33M03(Vostro 400) to run quad-cores. Just thought I'd add the bit about the Vostro 400 G33M03. Which I've found some official Dell documentation of. Though I can't find any for the Inspiron 530 DG33M03. And I'm guessing that there'll be slight differences between the 2 as far as bios compatibility too(since there usually is). Meaning, don't expect an Inspiron 530 DG33M03 bios to work with your Vostro 400 G33M03 either. Atleast you'll know that ahead of time though(because it's a "G33M03"). Which someone might need to mod a bios for to get the 8GB upgrade, but will probably run the latest quads(Xeons incl.) with the latest bios Dell offers. So far as I've gathered.

So here's the data I could find on the Vostro 400/G33M03:

Processor
Processor type Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor. FSB up to 1333MHz
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor
Level 2 (L2) cache At least 512 KB pipelined-burst, eight-way set associative, writeback SRAM

Memory
Type 667-MHz, 800-MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Memory connectors four
Memory capacities 512 MB, 1 GB or 2 GB
Minimum memory 1 GB
Maximum memory 4 GB

NOTE: Due to the unique architecture of the Intel Core 2 Quad processor, your system board and power supply must be included when upgrading processors.

Computer Information
Chipset ICH9 and Intel G33
RAID Support RAID 1 (Mirroring)
DMA channels seven
Interrupt levels 24
BIOS chip (NVRAM) 16 Mb
NIC Integrated network interface capable of 10/100 communication

And a link to a list of Dell mobos(and other brands) that support the LGA771 to LGA775 mod.
http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/3/#dell
Now I'm off to get me one of these "D/G33M03"s...while the gettin's good!!!

EDIT: I found a far more cost effective upgrade for my purposes actually. Why buy a(nother) used $35 DDR2 1333MHz FSB USB 2.0 PCI-E 1.0 Dell mobo(Inspiron 530/Vostro 400 G33) and a used $72 3.33GHz quad-core processor(X5470)? When I can buy a used $75 DDR3 1866MHz FSB USB 3.0 PCI-E 2.0 Dell mobo(Alienware Aurora R3 P67) and a new $50 3.1GHz quad-core processor(i5-2400) that will OBLITERATE it in terms of performance. For merely a few dollars more! All I really need is a Dell mobo to install my Dell Windows 7 Pro 64 DVD. Any old Dell will do. But I'm not looking to throw any more money away on antiquated technology just to accomplish that, if it can be avoided.

Soooooo.......anybody that has modded their BIOS or is using the 1.0.18 for Inspiron 530s tell me if hardware vitualization (Intel VT-x) is provided as an option to enable it? All this assuming that there is a CPU installed that supports VT-x.

Any feedback would be very appreciated!!!!!