Xeon Owners Club

[Edwired]

Just abit over three months I haven't seen my beloved system I'm pretty sure it gathering dust for another while. At the moment I'm currently waiting for the housing assistance officer to contact me for a meeting in a few weeks or more which I'm hoping for a suitable place either a flat or a one bedroom house to become available. Once I get a place and settled in I be able to get all my things transferred and I be able to tear the system down for a deep clean as it be going into a warm bubbly bath whenever I get a chance. So yep slow progress for the time being as well moving on from family conflicts including having my own freedom without the family dictating me on what I can and can't do. So happy days are coming for me.

 

[TopHatProductions115]

I haven't checked this thread in a while Anyone else here daily-driving a 4U server? Just curious...

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I haven't checked this thread in a while Anyone else here daily-driving a 4U server? Just curious...

Closest I can come is daily driving a 1U 100-base switch until recently.

 

[1freedude]

I think @stinger608 has some multi slot horsepower

I haven't checked this thread in a while Anyone else here daily-driving a 4U server? Just curious...

Not a daily driver, but I have two HP dual slot 1366s. Eventually, Im gonna fire em up for home lab studies. One of them has e5450s e5540s and the other has x5675s....I blame that one on @Toothless .

 

[stinger608]

I think @stinger608 has some multi slot horsepower

Yeah, a couple of multi-processor systems. Haven't ran them for awhile due to power prices. LOL

 

[SamirD]

I haven't checked this thread in a while Anyone else here daily-driving a 4U server? Just curious...

Not 4U, but I have a 2U Dell 2950 that I power up from time to time.

 

[1freedude]

My reading comprehension took a shit, I guess......I read TopHat's post as 4P

 

[TopHatProductions115]

My reading comprehension took a shit, I guess......I read TopHat's post as 4P

I mean, the ProLiant DL580 (G7 and newer) are all 4U, 4-processor servers iirc.

 

[SamirD]

I mean, the ProLiant DL580 (G7 and newer) are all 4U, 4-processor servers iirc.

Quad xeons ftw!

 

[johnspack]

Finally got my x99 system working after months of weirdness. Every cold boot it would reboot once by itself, even in the middle of updating an os. Only once though... it would run for days after without an issue. Fortunately I just did that on vms. Got tired of it and pulled the mobo... decided to check the vrm backplate screws.. they were loose. Tightened them and put it all back together. After testing for days it just won't reboot again.
What the hell? Also can't figure out the last part of the xeon bios mod on this board... the entries don't make sense.

 

[Edwired]

Finally got my x99 system working after months of weirdness. Every cold boot it would reboot once by itself, even in the middle of updating an os. Only once though... it would run for days after without an issue. Fortunately I just did that on vms. Got tired of it and pulled the mobo... decided to check the vrm backplate screws.. they were loose. Tightened them and put it all back together. After testing for days it just won't reboot again.
What the hell? Also can't figure out the last part of the xeon bios mod on this board... the entries don't make sense.

Little things like that can be overlooked easily. If you had the chance you could replace the thermal paste for the southbridge and replaced the thermal pads for better quality for the vrm so it can run cooler for longer. As for the xeon mod for the bios pretty sure there's some sort of guide online that might help or someone has the bios already made for the board in question. Other than that you got it running which is the main thing.

 

[johnspack]

Yeah, for some reason it's still working fine. I actually pulled the vrm backplate off because I figured it was something warming up and reconnecting. Hottest things on a mobo are the vrms.
I wanted to look for a cold solder joint on the vrms. Didn't find any. But did notice one of the backplate screws was almost loose. As for the bios mod.... did it once before for a msi bios.
I have all the guides and know how to do it, but seems this asus x99-a bios is a bit weirdly written so can't mod it. At least I got the all core turbo to 2.8.... so it'll be a pure server for me.
Run vms... but dam they boot slow... but for server stuff it's perfect.

 

[Edwired]

Yeah, for some reason it's still working fine. I actually pulled the vrm backplate off because I figured it was something warming up and reconnecting. Hottest things on a mobo are the vrms.
I wanted to look for a cold solder joint on the vrms. Didn't find any. But did notice one of the backplate screws was almost loose. As for the bios mod.... did it once before for a msi bios.
I have all the guides and know how to do it, but seems this asus x99-a bios is a bit weirdly written so can't mod it. At least I got the all core turbo to 2.8.... so it'll be a pure server for me.
Run vms... but dam they boot slow... but for server stuff it's perfect.

That the thing about vms it only runs slow while in the main operating system. Might be just something not enabling the system to run vms unless you do the dual boot method which I think is a better option for performance. You can edit the bios for Asus it just requires a editor that can read from the bios file extension like rom and cap. Are you trying to add microcode for the CPU in question?

 

[johnspack]

Nah, you just need uefitool and uefitool_ne. You rename the cap file to bios.bin... no matter what version it is. Then you extract the microcode body using ne and modify it. Then you
reinsert the modified body back in using regular uefitool. You actually remove a bunch from the microcode sections to do it. Unfortunately my asus x99-a has a bios that doesn't comform
to the regular x99 bios... I don't know why... so I simply can't modify it. You also have to inject a .ffs file as well, but I can't get that far.

 

[:D:D]

Okay on the slow boot. I'm still using an Asrock X99 and it's getting old. Sometimes have to reseat video cards, RAM main settings need to be set or sometimes DIMM's start disappearing, strange stuff like that. I forget about uefitool but was a really useful tool from what I remember, maybe if you provide a link to the manufacturers BIOS I will have a look to see if I can help.

 

[johnspack]

Here's the link to bioses... the one I need to mod is 3801: https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/x99-a/helpdesk_bios/
The ubu tool with both uefitools is here: https://mega.nz/folder/lLg2GLrA#SnZZd0WjHkULFHg7FESm8g/file/5SRCEZxC
The guide to do it is here: https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/guide-haswell-e-ep-xeon-cpuid-306f2-turbo-unlock/32696
I forget which one of these works the best but you must slip one of these ffs files in as well: https://peine-braun.net/public_files/XEON_V3_BIOS_MODS/EFI-Drivers/single CPU/
I made this work on an msi mobo... but this one is ticking me off.... Also rename the .cap file as bios.bin to work with uefitools....

 

[:D:D]

I have no experience of .cap so you need feedback for that from someone else. Also UefiTool has some reservations with the BIOS too.

Looking at your link for method I see this.

Do you have the same options in your BIOS? If so then this is a much better approach than inserting one of the ffs's you linked which set negative voltage offsets for core and cache. The bigger the offsets the higher the all core ratio's should be able to run providing it's still stable.

I see there's appears to be only one BIOS chip on your board, what's your recovery method?

Have you tried fpt for backup / flashing? i.e. fpt -D mybackup.bin -BIOS to dump the BIOS region.

What Xeon are you using?

 

[Magic Cube]

Have you tried fpt for backup / flashing?

This is what I would recommend first.

Here's the link to bioses... the one I need to mod is 3801: https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/x99-a/helpdesk_bios/
The ubu tool with both uefitools is here: https://mega.nz/folder/lLg2GLrA#SnZZd0WjHkULFHg7FESm8g/file/5SRCEZxC
The guide to do it is here: https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/guide-haswell-e-ep-xeon-cpuid-306f2-turbo-unlock/32696
I forget which one of these works the best but you must slip one of these ffs files in as well: https://peine-braun.net/public_files/XEON_V3_BIOS_MODS/EFI-Drivers/single CPU/
I made this work on an msi mobo... but this one is ticking me off.... Also rename the .cap file as bios.bin to work with uefitools....

Bios file from Asus won't have all the data. Backup made with Intel fpt will have every region, if it is allowed to do backup(depends from manufacturer). Other choice is Flashrom or hardware bios flasher.

If something gets f*up, restoring is easy at least with hardware bios flasher. Also backup includes network cards mac-address, serial and UUID.

For modding all core turbo there are couple tools:
-S3TurboTool. I don't know if there is clean version anywhere. Also I don't know if it works with Asus motherboards, mostly for Chinese x99 motherboards.
-Overclick_'s script from different forum(Overclock.net). Update last month.
-Manually by yourself

-There is also way to mod without bios mod. It is done with Clover bootloader. I have once done usb stick with this for my Chinese x99 board.

But full bios backup with all bios regions always first.

 

[johnspack]

I was able to mod my bios finally... but the dam ubu tool that's supposed to make my bios asus ready doesn't seem to work.
Mobo just says it's not a bios file. Creates a .cap file and everything, but nope. This thing is going back in the corner for
light duty work. Dam I needed a workstation....

 

[Magic Cube]

I was able to mod my bios finally... but the dam ubu tool that's supposed to make my bios asus ready doesn't seem to work.
Mobo just says it's not a bios file. Creates a .cap file and everything, but nope. This thing is going back in the corner for
light duty work. Dam I needed a workstation....

Which tool you used for flashing bios? Asus bios flash has a (signature?)check if bios is original and as signature fails by modifying file it won't allow flashing.

Intel ftp and Flashrom will flash modified bios. You can get intel system tools 9.1 here(credits to plutomaniac at win-raid forum), this one(9.1) should be for x99 and C612. It contains Intel ftp and other tools. Do full backup first and save it to cloud or usb->just in case.

 

[bobbybluz]

I was able to mod my bios finally... but the dam ubu tool that's supposed to make my bios asus ready doesn't seem to work.
Mobo just says it's not a bios file. Creates a .cap file and everything, but nope. This thing is going back in the corner for
light duty work. Dam I needed a workstation....

Modded BIOS seem to install correctly only by using BIOS flashback. That's the only way I could get them to work on my Asus X99 & X79 as well as my ASRock X99 mobos.

 

[Magic Cube]

Modded BIOS seem to install correctly only by using BIOS flashback. That's the only way I could get them to work on my Asus X99 & X79 as well as my ASRock X99 mobos.

I didn't even remember that BIOS flashback exist.

 

[Edwired]

Just thinking about the pc not too sure what the next upgrade path will I take x79 or x99. Any pointers which one is better?

 

[:D:D]

Modded BIOS seem to install correctly only by using BIOS flashback. That's the only way I could get them to work on my Asus X99 & X79 as well as my ASRock X99 mobos.

So that means flashback ignores the signature, but what are you saying about Asrock x99, flashback is an Asus thing no?

For those without such features can be covered by SPI programmer which can not only take a full backup but also flash a bricked board that will not post to get the job done.

I've nearly always preferred FPT in normal cases, -BIOS option. BIOS settings are kept with a dump [-D]. If @johnspack BIOS has voltage settings then no need for ffs injection. Looking at 3801 I would try just hex edit of 2 bytes in microcode header. Example of BIOS region in 3801

By changing these 2 bytes from 3 to 5 and 1 normally would mean the microcode update would not be loaded and the using of the 2 different values means the UEFI simple checksum is unaffected. The .cap signature would be invalid as usual if using the full firmware. After successful flash go into BIOS, disable CState C6 and set CPU and Cache negative offsets, maybe start with -50mV for both. Set all core ratio's to highest single core ratio. If flash fails make recovery as correctly planned out before hand with full backup that was taken.

The above image would be if BIOS region only was extracted such as with "FPT -D mybios.bin -BIOS". If using the full .cap package then need to add the other regions and cap header, 0x180000 + 0x800 to give offset 0xc195be instead of 0xa98dbe. Data shown in above pic will be the same if correct.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Just thinking about the pc not too sure what the next upgrade path will I take x79 or x99. Any pointers which one is better?

That depends on what you want to do with it. What will it's primary task be?