Mod (and backup) DELL GX280 BIOS
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 11:08 pm
Got a few Dell GX280 desktop computers used as test environment. I use free VMware ESXi server on them to test various pieces of software/OSs.
The annoying part is that ESXi keeps displaying error message that allude to CPUIDLimit is being limited. And recommends to disable this feature in BIOS. However Dell bios has no such settings.
Q1. Is there a way to add this CPUID Limit setting to BIOS?
Here's the latest bios from Dell:
ftp . us . dell . com/bios/GX280A08.EXE
Also these machines support upto 4Gb (4x 1Gb) of RAM (according to DELL), which they are equipped with. However none of the OSs I've tried, including Win XP/Vista 32bit (with and without PAE), XP/Vista x64, Ubuntu 32bit/x64 can see all 4gb. Regardless of what OS tried, they only see 3.1Gb of it. BIOS reports that it sees full 4GB.
After doing some research, Memory Hole (aka memory remap, memory hoist) setting may need to be enabled to let them OS's see the memory above 4gb. However, Dell BIOS once again does not have this option.
Q2. Can memory remapping feature be added via bios hack?
I've tried playing with modbin. However Dell does not provide .bin of their BIOS. I've tried extracting the .rom file from the above exe via
GX280A08.EXE -writeromfile
But modbin can't open it saying it isn't version 6.0.
Q3. Is there a way to back up current GX280 bios? From DOS?
I have tried awdflash but it compains that bios is not right or something like that.
Any suggestions would be most welcome!
The annoying part is that ESXi keeps displaying error message that allude to CPUIDLimit is being limited. And recommends to disable this feature in BIOS. However Dell bios has no such settings.
Q1. Is there a way to add this CPUID Limit setting to BIOS?
Here's the latest bios from Dell:
ftp . us . dell . com/bios/GX280A08.EXE
Also these machines support upto 4Gb (4x 1Gb) of RAM (according to DELL), which they are equipped with. However none of the OSs I've tried, including Win XP/Vista 32bit (with and without PAE), XP/Vista x64, Ubuntu 32bit/x64 can see all 4gb. Regardless of what OS tried, they only see 3.1Gb of it. BIOS reports that it sees full 4GB.
After doing some research, Memory Hole (aka memory remap, memory hoist) setting may need to be enabled to let them OS's see the memory above 4gb. However, Dell BIOS once again does not have this option.
Q2. Can memory remapping feature be added via bios hack?
I've tried playing with modbin. However Dell does not provide .bin of their BIOS. I've tried extracting the .rom file from the above exe via
GX280A08.EXE -writeromfile
But modbin can't open it saying it isn't version 6.0.
Q3. Is there a way to back up current GX280 bios? From DOS?
I have tried awdflash but it compains that bios is not right or something like that.
Any suggestions would be most welcome!