Bios Mods -The Best BIOS Update and Modification Source

Full Version: MSI K9ND CPU support upgrade
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I've got a Speedster 1 that doesn't seem to recognize 2384 processors properly. It's clocking them at 2.17G and isn't behaving quite right.

Reality is I probably just need to buy a new board...But I figured I'd give this a shot.

The Tyan S2915 appears to have the same type of BIOS and chipset and supports the CPU I want to use...

http://www.tyan.com/support_download_bio...el=S.S2915

The MSI board I have is the K9ND with V2.20 BIOS...

http://www.msi.com/product/server/K9ND-S...#?div=BIOS

Hopefully this can be done.

Thanks!
Okay...I'll start with this....I'm somewhat technically proficient...And have MANY years of PC experience...But hacking up a BIOS is new to me.

My primitive understanding of my issue is simply the BIOS not recognizing and knowing what to do with the new 2384 CPUs. My primitive understanding also says that this is due to the AGESA code in the current BIOS.

In the above referenced BIOS files, the MSI is using AGESA 3.1.7 and the Tyan is using 3.3.0 as confirmed by a quick scan through the BIOS with a HEX editor.

Sooo...I've got a HEX editor...I've got the Phoenix BIOS editor....And I've pulled out the contents of each BIOS and saved into their own directory (so now I have all the modules for each BIOS seperately).

Both the Tyan and the MSI BIOS have the "AMD!GESA" code in the BIOSCOD1 (or 01 for the Tyan) location.

Is this potentially as simple as swapping out that BIOSCOD file, recompiling and then flashing? Seems too easy and I'm sure I'm missing something major here.
Alright, I have an interesting one for whomever is willing to give me a hand here--
K9ND-Speedster 1, dual Socket F-1207 motherboard. I need the AGESA code (which I assume is the microcode block?) in the BIOS updated to 3.3.0.0.

Link to BIOS: http://download.msi.com/archive/server/bos_exe/9652P220.zip
Microcode to replace existing AGESA code with is included in this BIOS: ftp://ftp.tyan.com/bios/S3992_v205.zip from a Tyan S3992 according to forum posts on here as I've searched through, before making this thread.

This is a Phoenix BIOS. I just got this and will not be able to quickly test it out, as I do not have a BIOS chip in the motherboard. I'm going to buy one for $12 on eBay with the latest 2.20 BIOS on it which will allow me to use 65nm quadcores, but I want to be able to use the 45nm "Shanghai" quad-core Opterons instead as they have 6MB of cache compared to 2MB-- AGESA microcode 3.3.0.0 enables this, apparently.

I have no idea how any of this is supposed to work as modifying AMD motherboards is completely foreign to me, and I'm too afraid of bricking the board on my own-- I'd rather have someone who is skilled in this sort of thing to have a go at this instead that has modified Phoenix BIOSes in AMD motherboards before and knows what to look for.

if you attempt this for me, once again note that I will not be able to confirm the modification's success immediately due to lack of the proper 8Mbit BIOS chip for the quadcore BIOS I so desperately need to get the system to even boot.
Thank you very much for your time, as I'm sure you are very busy otherwise.