Gigabyte MA770-DS3 rev 1.0

[Misko78]

Hello everyone this is my first post here,

Is it possible to update AGESA version for this board, as GB won't do it . Board doesn't support AM3 CPUs officially but with latest beta BIOS F8F all AM3 CPUs work without problem. C3 revisions are not recognized properly. Rev. 2.0 board officialy supports all Phenoms II even X6.

BIOS F8F AGESA is v3.5.3.0

Link to F8F BIOS for rev 1.0 board
Link to FDE BIOS for rev 2.0 board

Thanks

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Is it enough to replace NCPUCODE.bin and AGESACPU.rom with CBROM with ones from board that supports newer CPUs, or there is more to it.

[Misko78]

Ok, 30K NCPUCODE.bin wont fit so I'll use one from GB board it has 26K

Something else bother me. When i try to update AGESACPU.ROM it doesn't go back where it was, it goes back to the end of BIOS after MEMINIT.rom, HT.DLL and HT32GATE.bin and before NCPUCODE.bin. How can i check if something is corrupted, after BIOS editing.

[Misko78]

When i use CBROM 1.95 or 1.98 it changes compressed size of modules after AGESACPU.rom . With version 1.15 it just replaces AGESACPU.rom. I'll flash it tonight and post results.

[Misko78]

BIOS flash failed with above BIOS. Board is bricked now and i'll have to do some soldering. I'll remove chip and will do a piggyback flashing.

[Misko78]

I made Rayers simple SPI Parallel programmer, desoldered chip and flashed back F8F BIOS, as well as several other modded bios images which gave no result.

[Misko78]

Sorry for some harsh words. I was frustrated as i desoldered, soldered and programmed BIOS for at least 10 times. Ićm still waiting for help from pro modders.

[Misko78]

Hmmm, MEMINIT.BIN is different. It is much larger and with it it can fit into 512KB BIOS. Is it possible to edit rev2.0 bios which is 1024KB and to replace its compressed modules with modules from rev1.0? If it is possible than replacement of BIOS chip with larger will give this board full AM3 support.

[TheWiz]

Hi Misko,

There are some very tricky modules that this BIOS has for sure. I would be interested to see if you had a spare 1024KB chip and directly flashed the V2 to it and resoldered it if that would work alright. From my initial analysis, I do not think you will be able to directly use the AGESA ROM or MEMINIT modules from the rev 2.0 because they are tied to the HT.DLL which there is no chance of fitting into your V1 BIOS. The only reason they probably didn't update the V1 board was because the V1 board shipped with a smaller bios chip then the V2 did. I also checked the UD3 model to see if it was more of the same as the V2 of this model and indeed it is. I will have to do some digging on ASUS and other sites so see if there are any compatible modules that could fix this.

TheWiz

[Misko78]

Thanks for the answer. I will buy this chip next few days as it is very cheap, only 3$. And will try. But I'm designing a solution to remove SOIC chip and to replace it with DIP package for much less frustrating reprogramming.

What about SB600 module, these boards have different southbridge? My idea was to extract all modules from V1 and V2 bios and to recombine all modules from V1 bios into V2 bios except sensitive ones which will be of course from V2 bios, and than to flash it to 8Mbit chip.

I've found 4Mbit bios that supports all Phenom CPUs but it is ASROCK with Nvidia chipset. You can take it from here.

[TheWiz]

Hi Misko,

Here is a "really" interesting test for you as well so we can collect more information. This motherboard has your exact same chipset and southbridge, and the latest beta BIOS ABIT published had Phenom II support written in. Firstly, if you can flash it cold being sure to overwrite your bootblock and clear the CMOS and see if you can post, that will tell us a great deal. Additionally, we can use this BIOS for CPU code donation for the Gigabyte BIOS if the cold flash doesn't P.O.S.T.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1525839/Bios/AX78bios14.rar

Chris