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New Microcode for Bloomfield and Gulftown

Regeneration

Regeneration

NGOHQ.COM
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Oct 26, 2005
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HP released a BIOS update for their Z400 Workstation (X58) with a new microcode addressing Meltdown and Spectre (HP Security Bulletin).

Attached below is the new microcode (extracted from HP BIOS) for CPUIDs 106A5 and 206C2 (i7-965, i7-940, i7-920, i7-970, i7-980, i7-990 and Xeons E/L/X/W).

You'll need to inject it somehow (BIOS modding, VMware Microcode Driver).

Microcode.jpg
Microcode2.jpg

I tried it on Xeon W3680 and ASUS P6T (modified BIOS with MMTool), works fine, InSpectre reports the system is fully patched.
 

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I did wonder what my Linux box was doing with the CPU update :) I've not noticed anything bad from doing it, but I'll keep an eye :) Thanks for the post! :)
 
Oops... I tried using VMware CPU Microcode Update Driver on Intel DX58SO, and seems it requires the microcode to be in a .DAT format. Attached below if anyone needs it.
 

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That was a substantial performance decrease.
Wasn't expecting that would be so much.
 
The latest variant patch will make performance even worse for older CPUs. Although WSM-SNB-IVB have PCID for switching w/o TLB flush, Windows will only use PCID if the CPU also supports INVPCID introduced with HSW. Edit: Add IBRS and IBPB microcode updates for Spectre & you're looking @ SKL+. I haven't even updated microcode for the memory sinkhole issue on some old W3680 boxes due to performance drop. :D
 
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Plugging the security holes with molasses... wonder why it seems to work better on newer hardware?
 
Yeah its all good, but as far i have read about. The patch will also reduse performance with up 10 % on old cpu's. So i will pas. Dont wanna spoil the great performance i have on my system now.

Besides the Spectra/meltdown has been there for what like 10 years and it has not been problem. So i dont see a problem either in the future. I take the risk with out patch bios.

Regeneration said:
Yeah, the latest patch is trash... the system won't POST when overclocked.
Click to expand...

No post when oc after patch. Now i deffently wount touch that patch. Sound like it do more harm than good.

Regeneration said:
This Spectre-fixed microcode dropped my 3DMark score by 200 points, AIDA64 FPU VP8 benchmark by 50%, and raised CPU temperature by 5c during stress test.
Click to expand...

Yeah just another prove of my concern. Performance drop and cpu runs hotter to.

Nope nope nope. Im not gonna infest my system with this trash.
 
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Regeneration said:
From my testing, only BCLK overclocking is effected. I emailed Intel about this.
Click to expand...

Useful to know in case I feel like updating my Z400 boxes. I'd hate to lose OC stability on top of microcode performance penalty. Different mb/BIOS may behave differently, of course.
 
Regeneration said:
HP released a BIOS update for their Z400 Workstation (X58) with a new microcode addressing Meltdown and Spectre (HP Security Bulletin).

Attached below is the new microcode (extracted from HP BIOS) for CPUIDs 106A5 and 206C2 (i7-965, i7-940, i7-920, i7-970, i7-980, i7-990 and Xeons E/L/X/W).

You'll need to inject it somehow (BIOS modding, VMware Microcode Driver).

View attachment 99746
View attachment 99752

I tried it on Xeon W3680 and ASUS P6T (modified BIOS with MMTool), works fine, InSpectre reports the system is fully patched.
Click to expand...
I have same Setup asus p6t and X5680 and can't install win 10... it says "your pc run in to a problem.."
 
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