Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

[SLK]

Especially if you overclock your CPU. Do not update to the new IVB release BIOS, the overclock functions are borked. I updated my X79 Extreme 6 and now my CPU will throttle no matter what CPU ratio I set, power limit, or any power saving option. I disabled power saving features and set all the power limits to the max values, disabled VRM protection and thermal throttling and still cannot get a 4ghz OC on my 3930k. If I downgrade the bios to an earlier version the ME firmware disappears. The CPU clocks will show the selected ratio until you apply a load on it, then it will start throttling like the default turbo frequencies are enabled.

Asrock, please fix this since the previous release did not have this issue. Just a warning to everyone else, you may be disappointed if you flash to the latest bios.

[WillyG]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

checkout this thread, good luck

http://forums.tweaktown.com/asrock/53784-important-bios-update-information-asrock-intel-6-series-x79-chipset-mother-boards.html

[SLK]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

Yeah I saw that after I posted this. Parsec is going to give me a hard time because he knows that I should have known better than to update the Bios.


I will say that this bios works very well with the exception of overclocking.

[SLK]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

I just found a Bios that downgraded the ME firmware. Woohooo!!! Softpedia has the older Bios versions and some of them will downgrade the ME firmware via Instant Flash.

[parsec]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

Especially if you overclock your CPU. Do not update to the new IVB release BIOS, the overclock functions are borked. I updated my X79 Extreme 6 and now my CPU will throttle no matter what CPU ratio I set, power limit, or any power saving option. I disabled power saving features and set all the power limits to the max values, disabled VRM protection and thermal throttling and still cannot get a 4ghz OC on my 3930k. If I downgrade the bios to an earlier version the ME firmware disappears. The CPU clocks will show the selected ratio until you apply a load on it, then it will start throttling like the default turbo frequencies are enabled.

Asrock, please fix this since the previous release did not have this issue. Just a warning to everyone else, you may be disappointed if you flash to the latest bios.

Willy, you beat me to it! That's fine, I appreciate your referral.

SLK, believe me, you are getting off easy with the X79 Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge BIOS/UEFI update. The Intel 6 -series chipset boards (P67, Z68, etc) had much worse issues after updating to the IVB compatible UEFI, while still using a SB CPU. At least some of that may be caused by a botched IME firmware update, due to the limited instructions ASR provided, but that is still an unknown, IMO.

Why would I give you a hard time? As you know, is everything written in a forum thread the truth and accurate? I don't blame you for trying that version of the UEFI for yourself. People make mistakes, and you may not make those mistakes. But in this case, we've seen to many similar to identical results after the update, and know what the result will be. Plus you likely felt confident enough to know you could change back to an earlier version of the UEFI, so no harm done, right? OTOH, if you or anyone did not have issues after applying this update while still using a SB CPU, we would want to know that to learn from our mistakes. Regardless, don't worry about me, and frankly I'm glad you did what you did, as long as your PC is fine.

The reality also seems to be, there is nothing that can be fixed in this UEFI update. If you plan on changing to an IVB-E CPU, you apply this update, and all is well with IVB-E (in theory, we can't test that yet.) But if you still use your SB-E CPU with the IVB-E compatible UEFI, you'll have the issue you described. You are the third person to post their experience with this UEFI update with a SB-E CPU, and your issue is identical to the others. There are other implications of this update, which I'll describe in a moment.

Thanks for posting your experience and adding to our knowledge base on this topic. Just to review what you wrote in your first post, and some questions:

You were able to change back to an earlier version of the UEFI, correct? What update methods did you use, Instant Flash, DOS, etc?

You feel that your PC is back to normal after changing back to an earlier version of the UEFI, correct?

You mentioned the IME firmware, and you found the IME firmware changed or was removed ("disappeared" was your term) when you changed to the earlier UEFI version? How did you identify the version of the IME firmware on your PC?

As far as you can tell, do you think it is the IME firmware that is the cause of the OC issue you had? Or the UEFI code itself? Or a bit of both?

The implications I mentioned earlier I'll just touch on here, and add them to my main thread on this topic. They really are questions as well:

Can SB-E CPU users skip the IVB-E compatible UEFI ("transition BIOS" is the term Intel uses, although I am simplifying that a bit here) and use any following UEFI updates without any issues?

Does the SB-E to IVB-E UEFI update signal an (unspoken) end to BIOS/UEFI updates for your board for users of SB CPUs?

Will all the UEFI updates following the IVB-E compatibility update version also contain the IVB-E compatibility changes?

This may seem like a complicated subject, but a few simple facts or answers should clear up the confusion we now have.

[WillyG]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

All I can say about their BIOS updates "OH CRAP, DANGER DANGER"

[SLK]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

SLK, believe me, you are getting off easy with the X79 Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge BIOS/UEFI update. The Intel 6 -series chipset boards (P67, Z68, etc) had much worse issues after updating to the IVB compatible UEFI, while still using a SB CPU. At least some of that may be caused by a botched IME firmware update, due to the limited instructions ASR provided, but that is still an unknown, IMO.

Why would I give you a hard time? As you know, is everything written in a forum thread the truth and accurate? I don't blame you for trying that version of the UEFI for yourself. People make mistakes, and you may not make those mistakes. But in this case, we've seen to many similar to identical results after the update, and know what the result will be. Plus you likely felt confident enough to know you could change back to an earlier version of the UEFI, so no harm done, right? OTOH, if you or anyone did not have issues after applying this update while still using a SB CPU, we would want to know that to learn from our mistakes. Regardless, don't worry about me, and frankly I'm glad you did what you did, as long as your PC is fine.

I was just kidding about the hard time. I know we were going back and forth on the experimentation with the Asrock Z87 Extreme 6 Bios mess, so I was just saying as you would think I would know better than to update to a new untested bios. I got this board yesterday and the first thing I did was update to 2.40 because I wanted the latest MEI. (Big Mistake)

The reality also seems to be, there is nothing that can be fixed in this UEFI update. If you plan on changing to an IVB-E CPU, you apply this update, and all is well with IVB-E (in theory, we can't test that yet.) But if you still use your SB-E CPU with the IVB-E compatible UEFI, you'll have the issue you described. You are the third person to post their experience with this UEFI update with a SB-E CPU, and your issue is identical to the others. There are other implications of this update, which I'll describe in a moment.

Thanks for posting your experience and adding to our knowledge base on this topic. Just to review what you wrote in your first post, and some questions:

You were able to change back to an earlier version of the UEFI, correct? What update methods did you use, Instant Flash, DOS, etc?
Yes I was able to BUT it only works on instant flash straight from 2.40 back to 2.20.
If you do a Windows flash to 2.20 you will be greeted with a black screen with a 00 code at boot. You will have to clear CMOS and your ME firmware is missing which means you will have to use instant flash back to 2.40 then another instant flash back to 2.20. It will ask you to reboot and it will downgrade the ME firmware before flashing back to 2.20. Let me know if you want me to post this file for download for other X79 Extreme 6 users.


You feel that your PC is back to normal after changing back to an earlier version of the UEFI, correct? Yes, now that the ME Firmware was downgraded.

You mentioned the IME firmware, and you found the IME firmware changed or was removed ("disappeared" was your term) when you changed to the earlier UEFI version? How did you identify the version of the IME firmware on your PC?
In the BIOS under Advanced tab called "ME Subsystem" will show the version. When I had a bad downgrade flash it showed "N/A". Now it shows "7.1.21.1134"

As far as you can tell, do you think it is the IME firmware that is the cause of the OC issue you had? Or the UEFI code itself? Or a bit of both?


UEFI Code is messed up for sure, turbo limits aren't being saved properly I think. I bet the new Microcode update probably has a new version of the Turbo Boost which is messing up SB-E Turbo.

[parsec]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

Great SLK, glad you weren't serious, I should have known...

Thanks for the further information on your BIOS re-updates to earlier versions. The IME firmware version and disappearing act with the Windows BIOS update method is not good, less experienced users would likely miss the missing IME firmware, particularly on non-X79 boards. None of the Z77 and Z87 ASRock boards I have display the IME firmware version in the UEFI/BIOS.

That is all important information and again adds to the puzzle that is this topic, thanks very much. There are still some major pieces missing from this picture, but things are better now than they have been.

[parsec]

Re: Warning to anyone who updates their BIOS' on X79

All I can say about their BIOS updates "OH CRAP, DANGER DANGER"

Well, let's not get carried away. While my (two) ASRock Z77 Ex 4 board is not affected by this issue, I have updated the UEFI literally 12 times with new versions, and never had any problems. Important features (IMO) were added along the way, which I would not want to be without.

But that does not excuse the mysteries of the SB to IVB UEFI/BIOS updates. To be fair, this is not limited to ASRock, AFAIK.