K7D patched BIOS

edit: Web page up at http://www.emboss.co.nz/k7d

I've got to the point where I'm pretty certain that the BIOS (patched 1.91) should work. It's a "minimum changes" mod, in the sense that only the bare essentials to get mobiles to do SMP have been added.

Things patched:
[] Should not complain if the CPUs are not MP-capable (ie: L5 mods should not be needed). This includes CPUs such as the Morgan Durons and TBirds.
[] Should not disable SMP capability if the CPU is a mobile. Combined with the above, mobiles should work in SMP.
Things not patched:
[] Mobile CPUs will probably show up as "Unknown CPU type".
[] No PCI register/MSR changes. I'm not sure what needs changing so I've left it as-is edit: None needed, it seems.
[] Mobile CPUs will still boot at maximum VID and FID. This means you NEED to mod the mobile-VID bridges if you're using a non-mobile chip (otherwise you'll pump 2V through it which could be fatal). Edit: The K7D does not have software-VID support, so you can safely leave these alone. Just be careful if you stick it in anoher board.

I'm looking for gunea pigs to try out the BIOS The ideal tester would be somone with a BIOS Saviour and access to a couple mobile CPUs. It has not been tested at all, due to the problems associated with getting BIOS Savious or backup BIOS chips here in NZ. Also, you can't buy mobile chips here, which makes the testing even harder ... As such, only volunteer if you have the capability to recover from a trashed BIOS. I'm pretty certain that it won't kill the board (no idea HOW it would kill the board, really), but I won't buy you a replacment if it does

edit: The 0.09 revision of 191_MF.bin seems to be stable. 3 out of 3 success rate so far. Boots up by the multiplier specified on the L3, and multiplier can be changed by CrystalCPUID under Windows. Recommended course of action is to flash the 191_MF.BIN file first. Then, rejoin the 2nd L2 and the 3rd if it's been broken (ie: no L5 bridges should be broken) and have L3 set to a fairly conservative multiplier (note that L3 multiplier must be less than or equal to the L6 multiplier, otherwise Bad Things happen). If you rejoin the 2nd L2 before you flash the BIOS, it'll try and boot up with a 24x multiplier (not too likely to happen ...).

Aww, what, noone game?

I've also now got a version with a hard-wired 1.65V soft-VID and 11x FID for those people who have desktop chips that have been turned into mobiles, but not had the L8's/L6's adjusted to have a lower VID.

I'd love to be your guinea pig, but I don't have a BIOS Savior, or a pair of Mobile XP's. I could probably afford a BIOS Savior, but not the Mobiles. I'm going to be broke for a while (car problems.)

i will give it a shot if you can tell me where to get a BIOS Savior at i got a k7d on the way and Friday i am going to have 2 AMD 2400 mobles on the way

www.mwave.com stocks them.

That is just one place. I checked them, because Newegg doesn't stock them and I've had good experiences in the past with MultiWave.

You may also want to check on Froogle (part of Google.)

can some one tell me if the K7d meets these Requirements

Technical Information:
For Systems with 32pin 4Mbit PLCC Firmware Hub
System Requirements:
Original BIOS ROM must be mounted to a ROM socket.
BIOS ROM's configuration must be 32pin DIP or 32pin PLCC.
BIOS ROM's size should be the same as this product.
To install RD1 requires approximately 7mm above BIOS ROM Socket.

Yup, the RD1-LPC2 should work fine. Another source is www.pcmods.com, though I have no idea what they are like as a retailer.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1803.html

pcmods sucks.

I have a spare bios chip but don't have mobiles, although i could mod them and see what happens with the bios. Or if someone w/ mobiles would like the spare chip for testing i'd have no problems mailing it.

Report from 1st guinea pig

Short report: BIOS checksum error. It cannot boot. Award Boot Block is activated to recover from bad flashing.


Longer report:

I don't have BIOS Savior, i bought another Winbond 2MB flash chip but different code. I tried hotswap flashing. But awdflash prog says "unknown flashtype" and refuses to write on my backup chip . That awdflash prog goes along with BIOS package downloaded from MSI. Maybe i try to use other awdflash progs.

The K7D Bios has bootblock. That means it can recover from corrupted image without replacing chip. But it does not means: can recover from buggy bios .

I have an idea here: can we replace the boot block in K7D by newer bootblock so that we can press some keys (Alt-F2) at boot time to activate bios recovery sequence ?????

To emboss: i tried flashing 2 modded versions. Both report checksum error.

Hmm, not good Looks like I've got a bit more work to do on it, stupid checksumming ... Also, I'll look into enabling the some-key-combination on boot starts recovery, because by the sounds of it, they're closely related.

I think the problem was due to the tool I was using to do the repackaging of the BIOS. I've redone it using a different tool, so it might work this time Haven't implemented the "undo" key though, since I couldn't track down where the important bit of code was.

PM me for details.

Bad news: checksum error again.

To emboss: I think the checksum is written on binary code section, not whole packed bios file. So, when you change the code section, you need to change the checksum of that section also.

yeah ill try it, the k7d actually has a backup system that will boot a floppy for you to reflash the bios if something goes kaplooey. Unfortunately my board is damaged and in transit for RMA, however, i would very much like to help you test out this bios. The only problem is that i attempted to mod my processors, by cutting the third L5 bridge, and i dont know if its succesful or not. Does this version eliminate the checking or something? What happens if u have a "mobile" then an "unknown" because one l5 was done correctly, and the other wasnt. Anyways no bios savior or anything, i think i could build something to work, ill look on the web for schematics, ive built flashing circuits for microcontrollers, and flash drives. PM me with the file, or a link to it. ill download it when i get home (vacationing, yay!!). I think that the built in bios recovery thing should work ok, ive used it before.

EDIT: Dangerous warning:
This link is provided only for people who know what you are doing. Flashing your bios by a BAD version WILL make your motherboard unusable. Therefore, try this at your own risk, the author of these files is NOT resposible for any of your damages.

Repeat: those files are checksum error versions. Flashing them and your bios will ask you to insert BIOS recovery floppy disk OR worse: blank screen.

http://www.emboss.co.nz/k7d/

The file which has ".vid." string means he encoded:
_ startup voltage to 1.65V
_ startup multiplier to 11x

For desktop chip painted to mobile, if you use no ".vid." version, the result is:
_ max voltage is pumped to the cpus: all closed L8 = 1.85V
_ max multiplier: all closed L6 = 11x

i have a k7d-l, ver. 1

have 2x2600+ mobile xp's just waitin to throw in

uncut

un modded

i just want to run them at default clock

which hacked bios should i flash?

thanks!

speciestraitor said:

i just want to run them at default clock
which hacked bios should i flash?
thanks!

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, NONE. Because all versions have incorrect checksum.

dualAthlon: Hence the reason why I didn't post the URL

Anyhow, there may be another workaround with the K7D boards. In the early BIOSes, there was an option called "BIOS IDs of MP capability" (see page 3-11 of your manual ). Using an older BIOS and enabling this option might allow the mobiles to be run in SMP mode.

Still working on that checksum issue btw ... I think I've found out where it's stored, but I'm having a bit of difficulty determining how/where it's calculated/checked.

emboss said:

dualAthlon: Hence the reason why I didn't post the URL

Anyhow, there may be another workaround with the K7D boards. In the early BIOSes, there was an option called "BIOS IDs of MP capability" (see page 3-11 of your manual ). Using an older BIOS and enabling this option might allow the mobiles to be run in SMP mode.

Click to expand...

That option never worked, in any BIOS version I tried.

Hi!

Probably very useless remark of mine, but winflash, at least, does not complain about Emboss' latest version with the message 'This file is not BIOS ROM'. So, perhaps, the checksum issue has been ("magically") solved?!? Surely not, I know, but I'm a bit puzzled about it.