Hello everybody!
In this video, I’m going to show you how to flash BIOS with third-party firmware, why
it could be necessary, where to download suitable firmware, and what to do if there is no good
firmware for your motherboard.
Several years ago, trading platforms all over the world started selling lots of second-hand
server CPUs such as Intel Xeon.
Having served their term at data centers, these retired processors have been bought
dirt-cheap by adventurous Chinese businessmen and sold globally.
As it appeared, the popular socket 775 widely used for building home PCs is very similar
to the server socket 771 (the only difference is the two contacts that can be replaced easily).
Newer CPU models designed for sockets 1366 and 1155 can also be tricked into working
properly in motherboards that were never designed for use with server processors.
That is why second-hand server CPUs have gained so much popularity.
And this is why you may need a piece of third-party firmware to add the microcode for a certain
CPU to the BIOS of your motherboard.
On our YouTube channel, you can find a detailed video guide on flashing BIOS with standard
firmware: check the link below.
Now, we’re going to find out how to flash BIOS with third-party firmware.
Before you begin flashing operations, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Any changes you make to BIOS firmware are on your own responsibility.
Even a single error can cripple your motherboard beyond repair.
The size of the original firmware file and the size of the modified firmware file should
be exactly the same.
As long as you are watching this video, you must have already selected a processor for
your motherboard, so I won’t go into compatibility issues or talk about chipset support.
Let’s go on with the flashing process.
You will need a modified version of BIOS for your motherboard model.
You can find this firmware on the Internet, and I will leave the links to several good
resources in the description for this video.
So the first step is to find the firmware; be attentive and select the one that is issued
for your motherboard model specifically; check every letter and digit very carefully, because
wrong firmware can easily turn your motherboard into a piece of inoperable junk.
Download the firmware – usually it’s an archive containing some files.
Unpack the archive.
Now there are several ways to update BIOS: the first is a standard method, involving
the integrated update module inside BIOS (but it may be unavailable for certain motherboards).
To do it, you need to copy the firmware files onto a USB pen drive.
Before that, the drive should be formatted in FAT32.
Boot the computer from the USB drive, find a corresponding menu item in BIOS and start
the process.
The second method involves a bootable USB drive with MS-DOS, and the third method uses
specialized software provided by the motherboard manufacturer.
The first two methods are the safest.
In some cases, you can just copy the firmware files onto a USB stick, restart the computer,
and while it is booting, press F12 or another dedicated key to select boot sequence; select
USB, and let the magic begin.
If you couldn’t boot the computer from the USB drive that way, you will have to create
a DOS bootable drive.
For this operation, you need a well-known tool, Rufus.
Insert the USB stick into the computer’s port, select MBR partition, FAT 32 file system,
and finally, choose FreeDOS below.
Click Start to have the USB stick formatted for DOS.
You will see a warning that all information in this USB drive will be lost.
Now copy the flasher utility (for example, Afudos) and the firmware file to the USB stick.
Afudos is a utility for flashing motherboards with AMI BIOS.
Restart the PC, reset BIOS, insert the USB drive, and press ALT+F8 to boot in DOS.
In the command prompt, type the name of the flasher (that is, program used for flashing),
press Space, type the name of the BIOS file (it should have the ROM extension), press
Enter, and then press Enter one more time to continue.
Wait for the flashing process to be over.
That’s all, the BIOS has been flashed; boot the computer and check if it works properly.
You can use a specialized tool called CPU-Z to find out if the operating system recognizes
the processor.
Actually, the flashing operations are over.
But what should you do if you couldn’t find a modified piece of firmware for your motherboard?
You can try modifying the firmware yourselves.
If you do it right, it’s even safer than flashing modified firmware changed by someone
else.
The point is that you are going to download the standard firmware from the website of
your motherboard manufacturer, which guarantees you are working with the latest software and
it’s free from errors.
On the contrary, when you download a ready-made piece of software from third-party resources,
there is always a risk of getting bugged firmware and actually destroying your BIOS.
All right, now visit your motherboard manufacturer’s website and look for the firmware you need;
use the name and model printed on the motherboard itself.
Make sure you download the latest version.
If your computer has the latest version of BIOS, you can check if microcodes for server
processors are available.
Use the utility named Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit to back up your BIOS.
Start the program, click Read, wait until the process is over, click OK, then Backup.
Give the path where to save the file, and click Save.
To view the contents of the ROM file you have just created, use another tool named AMIBCP.
Open the tab BIOS Features – MicroCode ID.
For modifying the firmware, you will need the latest version of BIOS, and one more utility
- MMTool_322_1B_21Fix and the microcodes you need to add.
Unpack the archive containing the microcodes and view all files with the extension .bin;
leave only the files the beginning of which coincides with CPUID of your computer.
You can view CPUID in AIDA 64 by opening the tab Computer – Overclock – CPUID Revision.
If you don’t know the code, then flash everything.
If your BIOS is in the .EXE format You will have to unpack it first with the
archiver program 7-Zip.
Now find a file which ends in .BIN, .ROM or something else, for example, a digit.
If you’re flashing BIOS for LGA 775, the usual size is about 1,024 KB so look for files
of similar size.
You can also try opening the file with MMTOOL.
If the file is wrong, MMTOOL will inform you about it.
Run MMTool, click Load ROM and upload the latest BIOS for your motherboard into the
program.
If you have the latest BIOS, you can use the Universal BIOS Backup ToolKit to create a
backup copy and make all changes there.
The next step is to load microcodes for Xeon into the BIOS of your motherboard.
Run MC Extractor to see what microcodes are available, and which of them don’t work
anymore.
Load latest microcodes.
Open the folder MC Extractor - after analysis, a directory with the name “Intel” should
appear there.
Remove all obsolete microcodes that have the red “No” word next to them, and copy the
new microcodes into their place.
Now let’s add Xeon support.
The choice of microcodes depends on a particular processor you are going to use.
In my case, the file name is - cpu1067A_plat44_ver00000A0E_2015-07-29_PRD_A3107D75.bin, where the code (1067A) is the CPUID for Xeon
E54xx series processors, and the code plat44 stands for LGA771 socket.
Copy the file into the folder.
Use MMTool to remove all old microcodes: "Delete a Patch Data”, and replace them with new
ones: "Insert a Patch Data".
Don’t forget to click “Apply” after each operation.
Add a microcode for Xeon.
Now the last step to take is flashing BIOS, and you could see how to do it earlier in
this video.
After the modified BIOS has been flashed, your computer should recognize the new processor.
In some cases, though, you need to use a specialized hardware tool called “programmer” for
flashing.
It’s usually required for types of BIOS that allow users to change memory timings
and overclock system memory to 2133 Mhz.
That is all for now!
Hopefully, this video was useful.
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Thank you for watching.
Good luck.