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Meltdown and Spectre Patched BIOS for X58 Motherboards

Regeneration

Regeneration

NGOHQ.COM
Joined
Oct 26, 2005
Messages
3,153 (0.44/day)
Linked below is a database of modified BIOSes for X58 motherboards patched with the latest microcode (0x1F for Westmere, 0x1D for Bloomfield) against Meltdown and all variants of Spectre. Make sure the operating system is also updated to be fully protected from speculative execution side-channel vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-5715, CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5754).

While most of Nehalem CPUs received a new microcode from Intel, there is an early stepping (C0) that hasn't and therefore still vulnerable at the moment. However, these very few CPUs will also benefit from increased security and stability due to more recent microcode. In addition, the ROMs feature TRIM support for SSDs in RAID0 and extended CPU compatibility table for all motherboards.

Unofficial ROMs! use at your own risk.

ASRock *updated on 11/8/2018*
ASUS *updated on 11/8/2018*
Biostar *updated on 11/8/2018*
DFI *updated on 11/3/2019*
ECS *updated on 19/8/2018*
EVGA *updated on 11/8/2018*
Foxconn *updated on 11/8/2018*
Gigabyte *updated on 11/8/2018*
Jetway *updated on 6/4/2021*
MSI *updated on 11/8/2018*
Sapphire *updated on 11/8/2018*
Shuttle *updated on 19/8/2018*
XFX *updated on 19/8/2018*
Zotac *updated on 19/8/2018*
Other useful downloads
All of ROMs are mirrored in this location just-in-case.

Some 3DMark and AIDA64 benchmark results are available here.
 
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Thank you for taking the time to do this for the community.
 
Regeneration said:
Attached below is a collection of modded BIOSes for all ASUS X58 motherboards patched with the latest microcode (0x1F for Westmere, 0x1D for Bloomfield) against Meltdown and all variants of Spectre.

Unofficial ROMs! use at your own risk.
Click to expand...
No Asus Rampage II Extreme :(
 
I am not so sure i am gonna update. Dont wanna lose performance and oc stability.

Have others update and exsperiencet any stability problems?
 
Tomgang said:
I am not so sure i am gonna update. Dont wanna lose performance and oc stability.
Click to expand...
I cannot speak for the unofficial/unauthorized updates, but I note most who have upgraded with the official updated codes have not experienced any "noticeable" performance degradation.
 
I'm pretty sure you only need IDE mode on controller, and a FAT32 file system, for EZ Flash 2 to see partition on a hard drive. I can be wrong though...
 
agent_x007 said:
I'm pretty sure you only need IDE mode on controller, and a FAT32 file system, for EZ Flash 2 to see partition on a hard drive. I can be wrong though...
Click to expand...

EZ Flash 2 works with AHCI and NTFS. But only the first HDD is visible.
 
Regeneration said:
Linked below is a collection of modded BIOSes for all ASUS X58 motherboards patched with the latest microcode (0x1F for Westmere, 0x1D for Bloomfield) against Meltdown and all variants of Spectre.

Unofficial ROMs! use at your own risk.
Easiest way to flash: place the ROM in C:\ and boot to EZ Flash (press Alt+F2 during POST).
Click to expand...
Thanks for your work, considering using this ROM on our P6X58D-E but waiting for more feedback in the meantime I downloaded it.
 
Computer Specifications
Intel Xeon W3680 @ 4.4 GHz
ASUS P6T (vanilla)
12GB G.Skill DDR3 10-12-12-31-1T @ 2266 MHz
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 @ 1516 MHz / 7364 MHz
Windows 7 up-to-date

3DMark Fire Strike
Original ROM: 11177
Patched ROM: 11149

AIDA64
Memory Read
Original ROM: 24179 MB/s
Patched ROM: 24618 MB/s

Memory Write
Original ROM: 20646 MB/s
Patched ROM: 20648 MB/s

Memory Copy
Original ROM: 27227 MB/s
Patched ROM: 26809 MB/s

Memory Latency
Original ROM: 51.0 ns
Patched ROM: 51.0 ns

CPU Queen
Original ROM: 68989
Patched ROM: 68958

CPU PhotoWorxx
Original ROM: 14755 MPixel/s
Patched ROM: 14749 MPixel/s

CPU ZLib
Original ROM: 440.9 MB/s
Patched ROM: 438.4 MB/s

CPU AES
Original ROM: 14873 MB/s
Patched ROM: 14871 MB/s

CPU Hash
Original ROM: 3821 MB/s
Patched ROM: 3821 MB/s

FPU VP9
Original ROM: 6238
Patched ROM: 3688

FPU Julia
Original ROM: 21861
Patched ROM: 21843

FPU Mandel
Original ROM: 10531
Patched ROM: 10530

FPU SinJulia
Original ROM: 9074
Patched ROM: 9072

FP32 RayTrace
Original ROM: 3135 KRay/s
Patched ROM: 3135 KRay/s

FP64 RayTrace
Original ROM: 1734 KRay/s
Patched ROM: 1734 KRay/s
 

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shifter said:
I
I don't mind loosing minor perf. for improving security.
Click to expand...

Well i do and according to notes for old CPU's. performance loss can be up to 10 % or maybe even higher. I am not ready to lose that from my system.

Bill_Bright said:
I cannot speak for the unofficial/unauthorized updates, but I note most who have upgraded with the official updated codes have not experienced any "noticeable" performance degradation.
Click to expand...

Then i have to ask how old cpu´s has the patch been tested on then.
Cause what i have read the older CPU, the higher performance loss. With the oldest gen like mine is shut get the biggest hit from these patch.
 
Thanks for making these modified BIOS files, does this support fixes for the i7 990x? I have an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard.

If I am not happy with any performance loss, can I reflash to the official BIOS with no side effects?
 
PurSpyk!! said:
Thanks for making these modified BIOS files, does this support fixes for the i7 990x? I have an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard.

If I am not happy with any performance loss, can I reflash to the official BIOS with no side effects?
Click to expand...

Yes, and yes. You can backup the stock ROM within EZ Flash.
 
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Thanks, are these just the default bios with the fix, or are there any other updates included?
 
Yeah I'll pass - Spectre is BS and it's easier to hack a system with a virus - nobody has been recorded using spectre to hack systems before it got hyped
 
Xx Tek Tip xX said:
Yeah I'll pass - Spectre is BS and it's easier to hack a system with a virus - nobody has been recorded using spectre to hack systems before it got hyped
Click to expand...

For now. I feel like we're still in the early stages of this hardware vulnerability nonsense...
 
hat said:
For now. I feel like we're still in the early stages of this hardware vulnerability nonsense...
Click to expand...
Exactly - out of the millions and millions of viruses released each day that can infect systems I can guarantee it's no more than 0.1% using spectre before the discovery and taking a performance impact however minimal is pathetic. My x58 system is never online anyway - I've got nothing to lose.
 
Xx Tek Tip xX said:
Exactly - out of the millions and millions of viruses released each day that can infect systems I can guarantee it's no more than 0.1% using spectre before the discovery and taking a performance impact however minimal is pathetic. My x58 system is never online anyway - I've got nothing to lose.
Click to expand...

The point I was trying to make is that these vulnerabilities could potentially get a lot worse in the future. Maybe attackers using Spectre will be commonplace in days to come. Of course don't know nearly enough about hardware design or anything like that to say whether that can or can't happen, just saying it wouldn't surprise me. I think many of us were surprised to learn that processors as far back as the Pentium Pro could be affected... so this has been possible for a very long time, just unknown. Now that it's known I'm sure the bad guys are trying to figure out how to use it, use it more effectively, and try to find other similar attacks.

Of course... it's a moot point if your system is offline anyway. It would be pretty hard to hack a system that's not even connected to the Internet. That said, if it's still connected to your network, only with Internet access disabled, it could still be vulnerable if another device on your network becomes compromised.
 
hat said:
The point I was trying to make is that these vulnerabilities could potentially get a lot worse in the future. Maybe attackers using Spectre will be commonplace in days to come. Of course don't know nearly enough about hardware design or anything like that to say whether that can or can't happen, just saying it wouldn't surprise me. I think many of us were surprised to learn that processors as far back as the Pentium Pro could be affected... so this has been possible for a very long time, just unknown. Now that it's known I'm sure the bad guys are trying to figure out how to use it, use it more effectively, and try to find other similar attacks.

Of course... it's a moot point if your system is offline anyway. It would be pretty hard to hack a system that's not even connected to the Internet. That said, if it's still connected to your network, only with Internet access disabled, it could still be vulnerable if another device on your network becomes compromised.
Click to expand...
Correct, that's thanks to trojans and worms that can pass through to other devices. I still think hackers won't use hardware vulnerabilities yet - take a look how long it took to discover Spectre and it affects old processors and it's been a vulnerability for years. Thing is it takes too long to discover hardware vulnerabilities and it's more practical for a hacker to create a virus that exploits software vulnerabilities.
 
If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? "Traditional" viruses are far more prevalent, sure... and you're right that it took a long time for anybody to find out about Spectre (or Meltdown for that matter), but now that it's known, I fully expect the bad guys to try to use it. They didn't know about it before, so they couldn't use it... but now they can, because they know about it. I also expect the bad guys to try to find other hardware vulnerabilities now, since they seem to be a popular thing these days. Have you ever thought about what else inside your computer may be affected by some as of yet unknown security vulnerability? Though not quite the same thing, I remember reading some months ago about some game or something that could potentially link up with your wireless router and use the radio to try to make a map of your house, so advertisers could use that data to target you with specific ads. It was here on TPU, in the news section I think... right around the time that big uproar about microtransactions in games was fresh. Though not the same thing as Spectre/Meltdown, I mention it to bring up the possibilities of what can be done. It would be pretty hard to surprise me with anything like that anymore.
 
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