08-26-2016, 01:13 PM
My dump of the BIOS chip:
Intel DG41RQ BIOS chip dump.bin (Size: 1 MB / Downloads: 67)
My Aida64 screenshot. This screenshot is from my current setup with a 775 CPU, so I'm not sure if it's of much use.
Current problems: I'm trying to use a 771 CPU with it. It POSTs fine, but 64-bit Windows will not boot. 32-bit Windows boots, and Linux seems fine. Also, if a "restart" command is issued from anywhere, either from Windows, Linux, or even the BIOS setup, it'll reboot into nothing, forcing me to do a hard reset.
CPU spec code: SLBBR (I also tested it with a SLBBM, same problems)
Potential donor BIOS: ASUS P5G41T-M LX2/GB (same chipset, and it has the latest 771 microcode)
I guess this is an issue of "CMPXCHG16b / CompareExchange128 not being supported". The microcode in the BIOS is from 2008, so I thought updating it to the latest stuff might help. Delidded's guide said that "Intel may be using a secure checksum to prevent people from modifying [their BIOSs]", but I gave it a shot anyway with donovan6000's Insyde BIOS guide.
I updated the microsode in Intel's provided BIO file as described in that guide, but as semi-expected, none of the official BIOS flashing utilities accepted my mod. So I bought a CH341A programmer and SOP-8 test clips to interface with the BIOS chip directly, to bypass the official tools. I quickly found that, whoops, the BIOS chip is a standrd 8 megabit/1 MB thing, but Intel's BIO file was over 3 MB--it had a bunch of other stuff going on with it. I was messing with the wrong file.
So I took the 1 MB dump and tried to modify that with the same procedure, but I guess the BIOS is all compressed? The microcodes are there, but where I was expecting headers like:
01 00 00 00 07 0A 00 00 08 20 09 04 7A 06 01 00
I instead found:
00 68 00 00 E0 00 EB 4C 81 7D F8 7A 06 01 00 72
Which is not obviously updatable, at least not with donovan6000's guide.
So that's where I am right now. We need some way to "decompress" my dump so the microcode can be easily updated, or we need an alternative way to update it directly. Don't know if that's possible, but I figured it was worth an ask! Thanks!

My Aida64 screenshot. This screenshot is from my current setup with a 775 CPU, so I'm not sure if it's of much use.
Current problems: I'm trying to use a 771 CPU with it. It POSTs fine, but 64-bit Windows will not boot. 32-bit Windows boots, and Linux seems fine. Also, if a "restart" command is issued from anywhere, either from Windows, Linux, or even the BIOS setup, it'll reboot into nothing, forcing me to do a hard reset.
CPU spec code: SLBBR (I also tested it with a SLBBM, same problems)
Potential donor BIOS: ASUS P5G41T-M LX2/GB (same chipset, and it has the latest 771 microcode)
I guess this is an issue of "CMPXCHG16b / CompareExchange128 not being supported". The microcode in the BIOS is from 2008, so I thought updating it to the latest stuff might help. Delidded's guide said that "Intel may be using a secure checksum to prevent people from modifying [their BIOSs]", but I gave it a shot anyway with donovan6000's Insyde BIOS guide.
I updated the microsode in Intel's provided BIO file as described in that guide, but as semi-expected, none of the official BIOS flashing utilities accepted my mod. So I bought a CH341A programmer and SOP-8 test clips to interface with the BIOS chip directly, to bypass the official tools. I quickly found that, whoops, the BIOS chip is a standrd 8 megabit/1 MB thing, but Intel's BIO file was over 3 MB--it had a bunch of other stuff going on with it. I was messing with the wrong file.
So I took the 1 MB dump and tried to modify that with the same procedure, but I guess the BIOS is all compressed? The microcodes are there, but where I was expecting headers like:
01 00 00 00 07 0A 00 00 08 20 09 04 7A 06 01 00
I instead found:
00 68 00 00 E0 00 EB 4C 81 7D F8 7A 06 01 00 72
Which is not obviously updatable, at least not with donovan6000's guide.
So that's where I am right now. We need some way to "decompress" my dump so the microcode can be easily updated, or we need an alternative way to update it directly. Don't know if that's possible, but I figured it was worth an ask! Thanks!