Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 CPU Support Upgrade

[TheWiz]

yes, and sometimes #3. I find it odd you have both NCPUCODE.BIN and CPU Microcode, normally you have either one or the other. 92KB is PLENTLY, for all the neccesary mods.

TheWiz

[2LTime]

@TheWiz:
Can you explain what the modules #2/#3/#15/(SP) of the M59 BIOS are there for? I just want to understand how it works.
By the way which tools are you using to extract/replace modules of the Award BIOS?
I am curious, because what I have done so far is just adding/changing Boot- and EPA-Logos. But when it came to the above mentionend modules cbrom couldn't extract or change them.
Cheers.

[2LTime]

Hi Guys,
there have been a few weeks now since my last posting. Any chance this is going to work or any progress so far?

2LTime

[TheWiz]

Thank you for bumping this, I have been so busy with work that I forgot about it, which I am most sincerely sorry about.

I used the support from the m570 as requested. I have two bioses for you to try, as you have dual bios so why not. Please make sure you try them in the order posted.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1525839/Bios/m59slis5cpu1.bin
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1525839/Bios/m59slis5cpu2.bin

UPDATE: Please read blog, we had a whole nother discovery all over again, and more changes are being made. (But seeming as how you have dual bios, you are still free to try., and please do)
Thanks,
Chris

[2LTime]

I just testet the two BIOS ROMs you posted.
If I boot with BIOS 1 or 2 and use my Athlon X2 6400+ BE the POST and afterwards the different BIOS screens work normally, but Windows (7 x64) is either freezing or reseting the computer at the "Windows is starting" screen.
Maybe to get it working at this point, I have to reinstall windows, since the new BIOS (1 and 2) add a "Patch ID" that is not there with the latest original BIOS.
Now to the more interesting part:
If I use a Phenom II X4 955, C2-Stepping (thanks to my brother who was willing to share his CPU for "scientific purposes") the screen stays blank and the POST is not going through. (I can see the post state on the leds mounted to the back of my Radeon 4850 graphics card.)

[TheWiz]

Seems your bios is unique, as it has two seprate microcode roms compressed and uncompressed, so let me try to work out a new version.

TheWiz

[Ellhead]

Hey guys!
I just bought one of these boards the other day as a budget sli/physx system assuming that gigabyte would be competent enough to have updated the bios to accept at least a handfull of newer processors. unfortunately i was horribly mistaken.
I'm currently running a 5600+ @ 3.3Ghz and it is choking my 9800gt as it is. (playing batman i actually get lower fps if i have the eye candy turned off).

I was hoping to fit a AMD Athlon II X3 425/435 2.7/2.9ghz in there as they are SO cheap atm (£65/75).

what really bugs me is why would gigabyte bother making a mobo with 3 pci-e slots when there aren't any reasonable processors at the time which would be able to run it (i think the 6400 only makes it to 3.5/6 with a huge lecky bill) and not bother updating the processor support later on.

Anyway, i will be observing this thread very closely.

Thank you "the wiz" for your time on this. i can only imagine ow tedious it is modifying a bios.

[migo]

here's the log for giga:

Code:

********        1.bin BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name         Original-Size   Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
  0. System BIOS       20000h(128.00K)  14EB3h(83.67K)  m59slis5.BIN
  1. XGROUP CODE       0FD70h(63.36K)   0ADC7h(43.44K)  awardext.rom
  2. CPU micro code    02000h(8.00K)    003EFh(0.98K)   CPUCODE.BIN
  3. ACPI table        053BFh(20.94K)   01CF8h(7.24K)   ACPITBL.BIN
  4. EPA LOGO          0168Ch(5.64K)    0030Dh(0.76K)   AwardBmp.bmp
  5. GROUP ROM[18]     01480h(5.13K)    00FCCh(3.95K)   ggroup.bin
  6. YGROUP ROM        073A0h(28.91K)   04ABBh(18.68K)  awardeyt.rom
  7. GROUP ROM[ 0]     079B0h(30.42K)   0307Ch(12.12K)  _EN_CODE.BIN
  8. OEM2 CODE         0BE30h(47.55K)   006D4h(1.71K)   BSMICODE.ROM
  9. PCI ROM[A]        0E000h(56.00K)   07519h(29.27K)  NVPXES.NIC
10. PCI ROM[B]        0B800h(46.00K)   06F5Bh(27.84K)  NVRAID.ROM
11. PCI ROM[C]        07600h(29.50K)   041BAh(16.43K)  jmb363_10655.bin
12. LOGO1 ROM         00B64h(2.85K)    00520h(1.28K)   dbios.bmp
13. OEM5 CODE         010D1h(4.20K)    009DEh(2.47K)   TPMMPDRV.ROM
14. OEM0 CODE         02F0Ch(11.76K)   021B9h(8.43K)   DBF.BIN
15. GV3                040A6h(16.16K)  010CEh(4.20K)   AGESACPU.ROM
(SP) NCPUCODE          003EFh(0.98K)    003EFh(0.98K)   NCPUCODE.BIN

  Total compress code space  = 59000h(356.00K)
  Total compressed code size = 41E07h(263.51K)
  Remain compress code space = 17219h(92.52K)

*** NVMM 4.073.3709/10/07 ◄♥ * Start Offset => 0, End Offset => 4b00 ***

                          ** Micro Code Information **
    Bridge ID                          |     Bridge ID
North    South     Update ID  CPUID   |  North    South     Update ID  CPUID
---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
    C0012102   00000401                 |     0062   00000414|     0068   000004
0A

and asus m2n32-sli deluxe

Code:

********        2.bin BIOS component ********

No. Item-Name         Original-Size   Compressed-Size Original-File-Name
================================================================================
  0. System BIOS       20000h(128.00K)  1558Ah(85.38K)  m2n32sli.BIN
  1. XGROUP CODE       0FD70h(63.36K)   0A7B8h(41.93K)  awardext.rom
  2. ACPI table        08376h(32.87K)   0310Dh(12.26K)  ACPITBL.BIN
  3. EPA LOGO          0168Ch(5.64K)    002AAh(0.67K)   AwardBmp.bmp
  4. YGROUP ROM        0D0A0h(52.16K)   064D8h(25.21K)  awardeyt.rom
  5. FNT1 ROM          05368h(20.85K)   03B9Dh(14.90K)  font1.awd
  6. FNT2 ROM          05522h(21.28K)   02A21h(10.53K)  font2.awd
  7. FNT3 ROM          03AD6h(14.71K)   0223Eh(8.56K)   font3.awd
  8. GROUP ROM[ 0]     0A750h(41.83K)   03FA0h(15.91K)  _EN_CODE.BIN
  9. GROUP ROM[ 1]     0C020h(48.03K)   045BFh(17.44K)  _FR_CODE.BIN
10. GROUP ROM[ 3]     0BF00h(47.75K)   04722h(17.78K)  _GR_CODE.BIN
11. GROUP ROM[ 8]     09F70h(39.86K)   03EF5h(15.74K)  _B5_CODE.BIN
12. GROUP ROM[10]     09E80h(39.63K)   03F3Ch(15.81K)  _GB_CODE.BIN
13. GROUP ROM[11]     0BCE0h(47.22K)   0465Bh(17.59K)  _JP_CODE.BIN
14. BIOSF0              02450h(9.08K)  017FEh(6.00K)   _DMI.BIN
15. BIOSF9             0F3E0h(60.97K)  0062Eh(1.54K)   _RT.BIN
16. BIOSF7             008B0h(2.17K)   006BCh(1.68K)   _Xsetup.BIN
17. OEM0 CODE         0C380h(48.88K)   009E7h(2.48K)   BGROUP.BIN
18. PCI ROM[A]        0BC00h(47.00K)   07190h(28.39K)  NVRAID.ROM
19. PCI ROM[B]        0E000h(56.00K)   07519h(29.27K)  NVPXES.NIC
20. PCI ROM[C]        0C800h(50.00K)   06067h(24.10K)  7313.BIN
21. OEM7 CODE         01F95h(7.90K)    016AEh(5.67K)   AUDIODJ.BIN
22. GV3                08EBCh(35.68K)  02918h(10.27K)  AGESACPU.ROM
23. LOGO BitMap       36A1Dh(218.53K)  36A08h(218.51K) M2N32SLI.GIF
24. BIOSF6             0E32Eh(56.79K)  079E4h(30.47K)  EZFLASH.EXE
25. MINIT             0E8AFh(58.17K)   0E8D6h(58.21K)  MEMINIT.BIN
(SP) NCPUCODE          06800h(26.00K)   06800h(26.00K)  NCPUCODE.BIN

  Total compress code space  = C5000h(788.00K)
  Total compressed code size = B9961h(742.34K)
  Remain compress code space = 0B6BFh(45.69K)

*** NVMM 4.091.4603/12/09 ‼♥ * Start Offset => 0, End Offset => 2b00 ***

                          ** Micro Code Information **
    Bridge ID                          |     Bridge ID
North    South     Patch  ID  CPUID   |  North    South     Patch  ID  CPUID
---------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
00000000 00000000   00000062 00000414  | 00000000 00000000   00000068 0000040A
00000000 00000000   0000006D 0000041B  | 00000000 00000000   00000083 00000680
00000000 00000000   0000007A 00000413  | 00000000 00000000   0000007B 00000433
00000000 00000000   01000002 00000000  | 00000000 00000000   01000020 00001000
00000000 00000000   01000085 00001040  | 00000000 00000000   01000086 00001041
00000000 00000000   01000095 00001022  | 00000000 00000000   01000096 00001020
00000000 00000000   0100009F 00001062  |

we can try importing meminit, but i think wi'll get a brick
and we should find a donor for compressed cpucode.

the subject mobo has Dual BIOS Plus technology, so if the owner doesn't mind being the beta-tester, we can try.

[Ellhead]

I would have been a test bunny but i don't have a chip to drop in and i'm not really willing to buy one just to see if it works. All my friends are intel as well. so i cant even borrow one.

if someone could send me a proc to test ........ lmao jk

There is a computer repair place near me, i may ask if i can get one on loan if they have one lying about. highly doubtful though.

[2LTime]

Hi Guys,
yesterday something very strange happened with my computer. It was booting when switched on, but there was no picture on the screen. My first thought was that maybe the graphics card is dead since there was one long and two short beeps on power on. Long story short - after some testing with other hardware it pointed out that the ghraphics card was fine. But none of the graphic cards I used for testing was running - no matter which pcie slot was used. So the final conclusion is that the mainboard is dead. I bought a new one, put all the other hardware on it and it works just fine.
This morning I noticed strange "white dots" everywhere on the mainboard. My guess is that thanks to lead-free design (ROHS) there is a massive whisker build up going on.
I am very dissapointed of Gigabyte since I paid ~180 Euros in the beginning of 2007 for that board, assuming that it is a high quality product and there will be a good support (BIOS). I guess I was wrong since neither happened.
Therefore there is no further need for a modded BIOS from my side.