foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H and E7500 support

[ziggatron]

Hi

I would like to modify the bios to support the wolfdale E7500 cpu.

I have been doing a bit of reading (well a lot actually..)

This is the general idea I have got..

Please correct me where needed..

The board is a 775 socket utilising the G965 chipset.

I have opened the bios using CBROM198 and the output looks like this..

http://bitshare.com/image/nie7pvn6/fox-bin-file.PNG

cbrom198 fox.bin /cpucode extract

processes, but gives no output.

As i understand it the NCPUCODE cannot be extracted as it is written into the system bios.

the system bios can be edited with a hex editor by extracting and copying the updated code from a donor 775 socket G965 chipset bios that already supports the wolfdale chip

Am i getting there...

[edwin]

You missed a minor detail which is: the G/Q/P965 board with support for the E7500 does not exist.

This line of northbridge chips supports Merom/Penryn at best, not the Wolfdale 45nm E7500.

[ziggatron]

Hi thanks for your reply..

Well after reading through this thread..

http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-P ... cSHo5zVXGg

I came to the conclusion that although Intel does not officially recognize support of the E7500 by the G965 chipset, unofficially it is still possible to successfully update the micro code and have the CPU work.

What do you think?

I have the E7500 (fsb 1066) at hand and I have the board and spare bios chips if things go wrong,

Either way, I would like to try it as it's not just the end result I am looking for but also gaining a working knowledge of how to do it.

So please, your help in understanding the process would be very useful.

Also, I have the option for this site to automatically send out email notification upon any replies to my post, but this does not seem to be working

Sorry for any delay there has been in responding.

[ziggatron]

was hoping to get a

Basically through more research I have got to here..

there are some specific questions if any one can help.

I have sourced intels cpu microcodes list and extracted it with microdecoder.exe

As I understand it I need to find out which codes apply to the E7500 ((1st issue)which at the moment I can't... supposed to be able to do it with info from cpu-z but I cannot see any info relating to cpuid, platform, version and date - which is the format of the microcode updates??) and delete the ones I don't need, making sure I keep the latest version of any duplicates.

I then need to create a new NCPUCODE.BIN file by running copy /b *.bin ncpucode

Delete the existing ncpucode..

make the new NCPUCODE.BIN read only via properties..

And insert it back in to the bios..

2nd issue is I don't get any official output when running the following..

cbrom fox.bin /nc_cpucode release

I havn't tried re-inserting ncpucode using the following yet, but I am about to..

cbrom fox.bin /nc_cpucode NCPUCODE.BIN

See what happens..

I have also read that the NCPUCODE is actually written into the system bios rom, and that you need to copy from a donor bios with the updated microcodes in already, and paste that block of hex into your bios, using hex editor, making sure the size of the block is not smaller, if so over write any of the residual bits at the end with a hex value (can't remember what it was now.. some thing like FF - i can check again though)

wondering how you identify the hex which represents the NCPUCODE within hex editor?

Wanted to look at the system bios in hex editor out of interest, but again I am not sure what command will extract this using cbrom..

cbrom fox.bin / system bios extract cbrom fox.bin / bios extract cbrom fox.bin / original.temp extract don't work..

Would be very grateful for answers to these questions or guidance what is the best way forward..

Please bear in mind that as well as an end result, part of my goal is to learn the correct way to do this myself.

Thanks for your help.

[edwin]

I have read the entire thread.

1) the code you're looking for is mentioned in there
2) seeing the amount of botched-up fixes they need to run the E7xxx series in that board after updating the microcde makes me think there's nothing wrong with that update (works fine for other boards), nothing wrong with the HP bios (runs fine with other CPUs) but with the combo of this line of chipsets (965 series) and the E7xxx because they were never _designed_ to work together on the hardware level.

There's only so much you can fix with software. Even after reading that single post I advise _against_ pursuing this upgrade.