Dell Inspiron 530 / 530s v1.0.2 Experimental Unlocking & Upgrading Project

[thegreatyashu]

Ok, so I confirmed that this bios enables AHCI mode and it enables support for large drives! I have a 3TB drive humming along side my SSD with NCQ and everything. Before, when I would enable the RAID mode, the 3TB drive would show up as 746.5gb. The SSD is so fast now too, good lord.

The only bug I found was that if you turned off the dell splash screen, the machine won't boot. It has an error: "no timer tick interrupt". I wish there was a way to fix this. I don't know about about this stuff.

[jimichunga]

First time here, so apologies for the noob questions ...

I've been reading this thread with interest as, like the previous poster, I would like to enable AHCI on my Inspiron 530s (so, not a 530) for my SSD to run at its best. It seems a few have been successful with this, and there's a very well written blog by twoleftbrians which makes the process seem pretty straightforward.

According to the Dell website the BIOS version is the same for the 530 and the 530s so I hope I am right in assuming this mod should work for both machines. Most of the posts here refer to the 530. I have updated and am successfully running BIOS 1.0.18. which claims AHCI is enabled but it Dell have hobbled the Foxconn board so that AHCI isn't available. I tried to flash the BIOS using the flasher and the DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.zip file following twoleftbrains steps but got hit with winflash "Load Driver Failed" error message before I even got going. So now I am stuck. Am I overlooking something obvious?

Any advice appreciated!

I was caught up at the same place and the directions on that blog post were a little confusing. You don't need to click on the 'launch.bat' file... Just go to the next step by running cmd as administrator, then follow this screenshot and it'll all work out fine!

This is great! AHCI working flawlessly on my 530 Q9300. (1.0.18)


I was also able to add 2 more gigs of ddr2 I had laying around so now I'm at 6gb.

[Ranman]

Hi everybody. I just wanted to post a reply to this thread. I followed the Wiz's instructions and flashed my Inspiron 530 to Dansolo's "DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.BIN" BIOS. The enhancements are there and everything is working just fine. I have the 530 minitower with a Q6600 and upgraded 4Gb of Ballistix 800 memory.

I am moving away from store-bought PC's and am making the jump back to DIY building. I have an i7-4690k ASUS z97 rig planned for the long term, but am taking an interim step where I intend to take the 530 guts (mobo, CPU, ram and SATA2 HDD) out of the 530 chassis and transplant them into my "go-forward" case. I've purchased a Fractal Arc Midi, Seasonic platinum 660W PSU, Samsung 840 EVO SSD and Windows 8.1 (I'm typing this on XP which is forcing my upgrades). ho[pefully I can get this setup up and running Win 8.1 decently until I can transition to the full i7, Z97 platform.

While I would have loved to have seen a BIOS that has unlocked overclocking and Raid 0, the AHCI enhancement should help get my SSD running well enough on this old platform to help 8.1 along.

Thanks to Dansolo and Wiz for putting this together.

[Eugene74]

Greetings everyone,

One more reason to keep this Thread alive:
You can run Quad Core Xeon LGA 771 CPUs on 530 (but NOT on ALL motherboard versions)

Xeon 771 is fast QUAD core on a low price (just gOOgle: LGA775 Support For LGA771 Xeon CPUs)
I just modified "DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.BIN" one more time to be able to run Yorkfield-CL And Harpertown 45nm XEONs.

If you want to have 3TB HDD or XEON CPU with your Dell Inspiron 530 - flash the BIOS from COMMAND PROMPT with ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS using the Xeon.BAT file. (launch.bat will flash with the old BIOS in case you want to get back)

DO NOT use this MOD on models with letters (530s/530a/530b/530c and so on) it is ONLY for pure 530 with 16Mb FLASH chip
DO NOT disable DELL SPLASH SCREEN

... and you are ready to go:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ix262k2ij0pils...r.zip?dl=1

Thanks Dansolo and Thanks Wiz

[macnb]

Greetings everyone,

One more reason to keep this Thread alive:
You can run Quad Core Xeon LGA 771 CPUs on 530 (G33M02 mobo)

Hi Eugene, I have a standard (non-modded) 1.0.18 BIOS. I modded my motherboard to add the Xeon E5450. My BIOS recognises the Xeon CPU and everything works fine.

What have you done the 1.0.18 BIOS when you say you added Xeon when it already existed ?

I am confused.

[ozzuneoj]

Greetings everyone,

One more reason to keep this Thread alive:
You can run Quad Core Xeon LGA 771 CPUs on 530 (G33M02 mobo)

Xeon 771 is fast QUAD core on a low price (just gOOgle: LGA775 Support For LGA771 Xeon CPUs)
I just modified "DellInspiron530-18-RAID87-IBA1363-AHCI120E0027-VGA1653.BIN" one more time to be able to run Yorkfield-CL And Harpertown 45nm XEONs.

If you want to have 3TB HDD or XEON CPU with your Dell Inspiron 530 - flash the BIOS from COMMAND PROMPT with ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS using the Xeon.BAT file. (launch.bat will flash with the old BIOS in case you want to get back)

DO NOT use this MOD on models with letters (530s/530a/530b/530c and so on) it is ONLY for pure 530 with 16Mb FLASH chip
DO NOT disable DELL SPLASH SCREEN

... and you are ready to go:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ix262k2ij0pils...r.zip?dl=1

Thanks Dansolo and Thanks Wiz

Okay, I just want to have this clarified before I go bricking someone's motherboard, which I'll be upgrading soon.

The G33M02 (not the G33M03), which apparently has a less robust voltage regulator that can't support higher wattages (over 80W I believe?), does not normally work with ANY quad cores regardless of voltage. I tried one with a modded Xeon L5420 which is only a 50W chip, and the system wouldn't post with the official dell 1.0.18 bios. It seems that some part of the board black lists all quad core CPUs by default. A Xeon L5240 dual core worked fine in the same board.

Are you saying that the modded BIOS in your post would allow for quad core Xeon chips (80W TDP or less I'd assume) to work on this board? If so, that's great news!

Just please please clarify as to whether you're talking about a G33m02 or G33m03. They are nearly identical, but one has a more robust VRM to handle higher wattage CPUs, where the other doesn't and has apparently been set up to not support quad cores artificially, regardless of wattage.

Thank you!

[Eugene74]

Dell 530 Mini Tower - but ONLY the batch factory equipped with 350W PS (and probably with G33M03) support officially:

Yorkfield Quad Core, Q8200, 2.33GHz, 4MB, 1333FSB, M1
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q8300, 2.50GHz, 4MB, 95W,R0
Yorkfield Quad Core, QX9300, 2.50GHz, 6MB, 1333FSB, M1
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q9400, 2.66GHz, 6MB, 1333FSB, R0
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q9450, 2.66GHz, 12MB, 1333FSB, C1
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q9550, 2.83GHz, 12MB, 1333FSB, C1
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q9550, 2.83GHz, 12MB, 1333FSB, E0
Yorkfield Quad Core, Q9650, 3.00GHz, 12MB, 1333FSB, E0
Kentsfield Quad Core, Q6600, 2.4GHz, 8MB, 1066FSB, G0

530s (SlimLine) does NOT support any QUAD-CORE officially.

From Software point of view - it is pretty safe to flash this BIOS-MOD - you will not brick anything, just by flashing ON THE CORRECT Motherboard.
From Hardware point of view - to do the mod of the LGA socket or installing more than 90 Watts CPU - there are some risk involved always.

SINGLE-CPU XEONs Quad-Core:
the Yorkfield LGA 775 XEONs will NOT require any hardware mods, but they are with 95 W TDP - so using them them with heavy load on G33M02 mobo might not be very good idea, but to gain high performance on old system like this - it's worth the risk if you ask me, just because 45nm Quad cores almost never do consume the maximum TDP
Xeon Yorkfield (45 nm) series: X3320, X3330, X3350, X3360, X3370, X3380

ONLY Xeon L3360 SLGPF (E0) is with 65 W TDP

on other hand:
the Yorkfield-CL LGA 771 XEONs will REQUIRE the hardware mods of the socket, and they are with 80 W TDP - so using them them with heavy load on G33M02 mobo should be just fine and the price to get them is much lower.
Xeon Yorkfield-CL (45 nm) series: X3323, X3353, X3363

MULTI-CPU XEONs:
like "Harpertown" (45 nm) - I have not tested my G33M02 with them yet.

---

Greetings everyone,

One more reason to keep this Thread alive:
You can run Quad Core Xeon LGA 771 CPUs on 530

Hi Eugene, I have a standard (non-modded) 1.0.18 BIOS. I modded my motherboard to add the Xeon E5450. My BIOS recognises the Xeon CPU and everything works fine.

What have you done the 1.0.18 BIOS when you say you added Xeon when it already existed ?

I am confused.

Greetings macnb,

"... and everything works fine" is a little bit overestimation, more truthful will be "... and works fine", because:

With the original 1.0.18 BIOS and XEON CPU
these functions will NOT work:

1) AHCI for SSD
2) Hot-Swap for HDD
3) 3TB+ large disk support
4) Intel Speed-Step
5) Intel Thermal-Monitoring
6) SSE4.1
7) SSSE3
8) most likely VT-d and VT-x will not work (OS dependent as well)

With the MOD all above is tested and confirmed to work without any problems.

Also you can use the PC even WITHOUT all of the 8 functionalities above , but why?

----------------------------
EDIT (07.Nov.2014): I have been mistaken - the motherboard that supports QUAD-CORE is NOT G33M02. Some time ago I have upgraded Dell 530 Mini Tower for a friend of mine to: Yorkfield -CL x3363 and everything went perfect. Today I tried the same process with several QAUD-COREs on G33M02 that I have and non of Kentsfield or Yorkfield or Yorkfield-CL or Harpertown or Harpertown-L QUAD-COREs received power from the G33M02 mobo - the CPUs where totally cold and no indication on external debug card.
Returning to E8x00 DUAL-CORE and the G33M02 mobo works fine again (with the MOD-BIOS, w/o re-flashing back to original BIOS). Also all QUAD-COREs works fine on G33 from GigaByte, so nothing is damaged at all, just incompatible.
Most likely the motherboard that works with QUAD-COREs is G33M03, but my friend have sold his old DELL and I can not confirm even that.

To macnb: COULD YOU PLEASE CHECK inside your DELL and tell what is written on your mobo that power-up your Harpertown XEON ?

I am not a DELL employee from a long time ago, but I still hold the DCSE certificate on my name, so if anyone from DELL-Europe management reads this - you can cancel my certification - effective immediately I will stick with Asus, AsRock, GigaByte and EVGA

[macnb]

Greetings macnb,

"... and everything works fine" is a little bit overestimation, more truthful will be "... and works fine", because:

With the original 1.0.18 BIOS and XEON CPU
these functions will NOT work:

1) AHCI for SSD
2) Hot-Swap for HDD
3) 3TB+ large disk support
4) Intel Speed-Step
5) Intel Thermal-Monitoring
6) SSE4.1
7) SSSE3
8) most likely VT-d and VT-x will not work (OS dependent as well)

With the MOD all above is tested and confirmed to work without any problems.

Also you can use the PC even WITHOUT all of the 8 functionalities above , but why?

To macnb: COULD YOU PLEASE CHECK inside your DELL and tell what is written on your mobo that power-up your Harpertown XEON ?

Why ? Well, For me everything works fine ...for what I need.
I have a G33M03 motherboad (OFM586) with 1.0.18 BIOS.
It had Q9300 Core2Quad.
I replaced it with E5450.
Powered up and hit F2 and the stock BIOS (1.0.18) proudly announced that I have a Xeon E5450 running at 3.00GHz.
Mac OS 10.6.8, 10.9.5 and now the latest Yosemite 10.10.0 run perfectly fine.
Enhance Speed stepping works fine (idles at 2.0Ghz and steps up 3.00Ghz when running Prime95 --way better than windoze.

According to CPU-Z it has 4), 5), 6), 7), & 8) from your list.
That's all I need to run Mac OS X.
Well, AHCI would be nice but it does this indirectly by selecting RAID (even though I am not using it).
Yes SSD would be nice but I do not have that but may add that - hence my interest in modding.
I do not need 2) & 3).

I just ran Intelmicrocodelister on the stock BIOS (1.0.18) and it shows the following microcodes:

CPUID=6FD Rev=A3 2007/08/13 CRC=89C0D09E Off=1D0FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6FB Rev=B6 2007/07/13 CRC=B3176C40 Off=1D1FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F9 Rev=82 2006/09/03 CRC=59C9FE00 Off=1D2FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F6 Rev=C6 2007/03/07 CRC=B1BFF977 Off=1D3FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F5 Rev=33 2006/05/01 CRC=6A962F22 Off=1D4FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F5 Rev=33 2006/05/01 CRC=6A962ED3 Off=1D5FE0 Size=1000 Plat=4,6
CPUID=6F4 Rev=25 2006/02/27 CRC=D8AB5036 Off=1D6FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0,2,4,5,6
CPUID=6F4 Rev=26 2006/03/12 CRC=DA8E97D1 Off=1D7FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0,2,4,5,6,7
CPUID=6F1 Rev=11 2005/10/10 CRC=A28ACD13 Off=1D8FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0,1,2,5
CPUID=6F2 Rev=5A 2007/09/26 CRC=594DDBA0 Off=1D9FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F0 Rev=05 2005/08/18 CRC=6D5B2CAB Off=1DAFE0 Size=1000 Plat=5
CPUID=6F0 Rev=05 2005/08/18 CRC=6D5B2CC7 Off=1DBFE0 Size=1000 Plat=2
CPUID=6F0 Rev=05 2005/08/18 CRC=6D5B2CCA Off=1DCFE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10661 Rev=38 2007/09/19 CRC=8A2D6F19 Off=1DDFE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10660 Rev=04 2006/06/12 CRC=6CC60901 Off=1DEFE0 Size=1000 Plat=0,1
CPUID=6FB Rev=B6 2007/07/13 CRC=5E5A71A7 Off=1DFFE0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=6F7 Rev=66 2007/03/08 CRC=FEA82C68 Off=1E0FE0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=1067A Rev=A07 2008/04/09 CRC=83067F5A Off=1E1FE0 Size=2000 Plat=0,4
CPUID=10677 Rev=705 2008/04/28 CRC=A6DB99DD Off=1E3FE0 Size=2000 Plat=4
CPUID=10676 Rev=60C 2008/01/19 CRC=FBAC0F5D Off=1E5FE0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=10676 Rev=60C 2008/01/19 CRC=FBAC0F6C Off=1E6FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10674 Rev=404 2007/06/08 CRC=F9DEC4C0 Off=1E7FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10674 Rev=404 2007/06/08 CRC=F9DEC4B1 Off=1E8FE0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=10674 Rev=404 2007/06/08 CRC=F9DEC4BD Off=1E9FE0 Size=1000 Plat=2
CPUID=10671 Rev=106 2007/03/29 CRC=80731BA9 Off=1EAFE0 Size=1000 Plat=2
CPUID=10671 Rev=106 2007/03/29 CRC=80731BAC Off=1EBFE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10671 Rev=106 2007/03/29 CRC=80731B9D Off=1ECFE0 Size=1000 Plat=4

Then I ran it on your modded BIOS and it shows the following microcodes:

CPUID=6FB Rev=BA 2010/10/03 CRC=08707B60 Off=1D97E0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6FB Rev=BC 2010/10/03 CRC=9394765A Off=1DA7E0 Size=1000 Plat=2
CPUID=6FB Rev=BB 2010/10/03 CRC=E7FBF398 Off=1DB7E0 Size=1000 Plat=3
CPUID=6FB Rev=BA 2010/10/03 CRC=ED247070 Off=1DC7E0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=6FB Rev=BA 2010/10/03 CRC=9777492E Off=1DD7E0 Size=1000 Plat=5
CPUID=6FB Rev=BC 2010/10/03 CRC=F1A7A484 Off=1DE7E0 Size=1000 Plat=6
CPUID=6FB Rev=BA 2010/10/03 CRC=F953DC67 Off=1DF7E0 Size=1000 Plat=7
CPUID=6F2 Rev=5D 2010/10/02 CRC=9384A573 Off=1E07E0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=6F2 Rev=5C 2010/10/02 CRC=C335A60F Off=1E17E0 Size=1000 Plat=5
CPUID=F65 Rev=08 2006/04/26 CRC=5C58F575 Off=1E27E0 Size=800 Plat=0
CPUID=1067A Rev=A0B 2010/09/28 CRC=B007E754 Off=1E2FE0 Size=2000 Plat=5,7
CPUID=1067A Rev=A0B 2010/09/28 CRC=B007E7E3 Off=1E4FE0 Size=2000 Plat=0,4
CPUID=1067A Rev=A0B 2010/09/28 CRC=B007E7B0 Off=1E6FE0 Size=2000 Plat=2,6
CPUID=10676 Rev=60F 2010/09/29 CRC=8FE1A246 Off=1E8FE0 Size=1000 Plat=0
CPUID=10676 Rev=60F 2010/09/29 CRC=8FE1A243 Off=1E9FE0 Size=1000 Plat=2
CPUID=10676 Rev=60F 2010/09/29 CRC=8FE1A237 Off=1EAFE0 Size=1000 Plat=4
CPUID=10676 Rev=60F 2010/09/29 CRC=8FE1A207 Off=1EBFE0 Size=1000 Plat=6
CPUID=10676 Rev=60F 2010/09/29 CRC=8FE1A1C7 Off=1ECFE0 Size=1000 Plat=7

Now back to my question, when you say you modified the bios to run yorkfield and harpertown, but some CPU's seems to have disappeared, ?
Any reason why they were taken out ?

[Eugene74]

......

Now back to my question, when you say you modified the bios to run yorkfield and harpertown, but some CPU's seems to have disappeared, ?
Any reason why they were taken out ?

First: Thank you macnb, for clarifying that mobo supporting XEONs is G33M03

Second: the last BIOS-MOD is DellInspiron530-18.Xeon.bin.rom (with .ROM file type)

When you run Intelmicrocodelister on it , you see that it INCLUDES all stepping/platforms for ALL QUAD-CORE XEONs (Also ALL Kentsfield 65nm QUAD-CORES are updated):

CPUID=1067A: Plat=0,2,4,5,6,7
CPUID=10676: Plat=0,2,4,6,7

The latest INTEL update from 2010, they a space consuming and that's why CPUs like SINGLE-COREs have been removed to make space.

When the original 1.0.18 BIOS includes ONLY:
CPUID=1067A: Plat=0,4
CPUID=10676: Plat=0,4
from 2008

Obviously you are from the few lucky ones that got the very first Harpertown CPUs with stepping than matches Core2Quad and all functions works for you. In a great majority of the cases the stepping does not match with what you have in the original BIOS. There are 4 steppings only for E5450 (Q5YQ , SLANQ, QFUF, SLBBM)

Here are the pictures showing how is the common situation when the CPU-Patch is missing in the BIOS:
       
In the case on the pictures the CPUID=1067A and CPUID=10676 are present in the original BIOS for supporting Q8000 & Q9000 series, but E5450 & E5430 installed are with the latest stepping and they do not match with Q8000 or Q9000 series, and the result is pretty visible

[macnb]

OK. I understand - you took some microcodes to make room.

I have C0 stepping E5450 (SLANQ).
I don't think it's by luck that I have all the features working but by design.
If you look carefully at the microcode list for CPUID 10676 in the stock BIOS, it shows that microcode patch ID is 060C which enables those functions.
Your rom adds Patch ID 060F to those CPU's.

In your screen shots, that BIOS (not obvious which machine) happened to have Xeon CPU support but no microcode update - that's all.
and yes, adding patch ID 060F gives the enhanced feature to that BIOS.

BTW, SSD works in RAID mode - may not as fast as it could.