What controls Turbo Core in Xeons?

[wiseguyuk]

I would like to take an asus x99 board
What Asus x99 motherboards recognize E5 2696 v3?
Asus x99 Deluxe 2 îs one of them?
Thanks a lot in advance

Check this list

https://pan.baidu.com/s/1boHZNbx#list/path=/ASUS X99 lock-50mv

 

[Cata40]

Check this list

https://pan.baidu.com/s/1boHZNbx#list/path=/ASUS X99 lock-50mv

Thanks for the answer
I was not sure, I had one hand and did not boot, did not give any sign, I said the processor is not compatible.
But it was written support E5 2699 V3 and I'm quieter, it was the fault board

 

[GTZ]

Has anyone figured out if this hack works properly works on ES1/ES2 chips? I know earlier nobody has been able to make it work. I think I am going to upgrade my motherboard to one that has new features (USB 3.1, multiple m.2 slots, etc, and use the one I have now for a build I might be doing for my wife.

 

[GTZ]

Anyone care to comment on if this mod will work on an ASRock X99E-ITX/ac board with an E5 to 2696 v3

AsRock is the easiest to mod BIOS, I believe Canonking made a custom BIOS for it. The only thing that might hold you back would be the VRMs, but you would still hit a 8-10 core turbo of 3.8 and an all core of around 3.1 to 3.3. I don't think you would be able to hit 3.4 and 3.5 like some of us are able to hit.

 

[evilr00t]

Has anyone figured out if this hack works properly works on ES1/ES2 chips? I know earlier nobody has been able to make it work. I think I am going to upgrade my motherboard to one that has new features (USB 3.1, multiple m.2 slots, etc, and use the one I have now for a build I might be doing for my wife.

I have no doubt the hack works on earlier chips, however, there are many caveats to working with early engineering samples.
ES0 (306f0) chips are garbage, turn them into keychains. I've never managed to get one to boot into Windows. I wouldn't expect any shipping BIOS to keep microcodes for this stepping around, and some boards may even blacklist these and refuse to boot.
ES1 (306f1) chips are rather buggy, but may be able to boot Windows with microcode loaded. The latest microcode for this chip is 80000014 or 00000014; I'm not sure. You may be able to extract this from a retail BIOS.
ES2 (306f2) chips never came out, because this is the QS / retail stepping. There are two versions of the QS; the later version is what's in the official chips. These chips will happily boot into Windows without any microcode.

For ES0/ES1, you have to load microcode before attempting to boot an OS, and even then, it might not work. The proper place to patch the turbo MSRs is during PEI, before microcode is first loaded by the BIOS, so the BIOS can fix errata after the microcode is loaded. Where the current All Core Turbo EFI drivers are being injected (at the very end of DXE), fixes aren't going to be applied correctly even if you load a microcode there. YMMV.

 

[Cata40]

AsRock is the easiest to mod BIOS, I believe Canonking made a custom BIOS for it. The only thing that might hold you back would be the VRMs, but you would still hit a 8-10 core turbo of 3.8 and an all core of around 3.1 to 3.3. I don't think you would be able to hit 3.4 and 3.5 like some of us are able to hit.

Asrock is the easiest way to do bios, but you're stuck in those voltaje of efi, you can not modify it as a bios asus

 

[MOF]

The only thing that might hold you back would be the VRMs, but you would still hit a 8-10 core turbo of 3.8 and an all core of around 3.1 to 3.3. I don't think you would be able to hit 3.4 and 3.5 like some of us are able to hit.

This depends on the silicon lottery. X99E-ITX VRMs are not much different from my motherboard.

 

[junkim]

Hallo CANONKONG two days ago I flashed the mod BIOS that you did for ASUS X99-E WS/USB 3.1 (Version 3601) unfortunately there is problem with it the usb 3.1 ports are not working . I flashed back the mod bios 3502 that I got from sciff and the usb 3.1 ports working again.

 

[Ol92]

Hi guys!
I am back for pushing a bit more my system! I joined this topic at the very beggining so still rocking the original V3.efi on my system (E5 2686v3 18c, asus x99 deluxe, 96gb of ram). I have read all the 68 pages but I am still lost in some concepts, so I have some questions:
1 - As I understand, the newer drivers undervolt the cpu and cache to get higher frecuency, no? Which one do you recomend I shoult start trying with? I guess the -50mv core, -50mv uncre should be accepted by all cpus?
2 - What does Powercut mean? Is it good? Bad? What does it do?
3 - My system now renders in vray at 2.7ghz (from 2.3ghz originally) using all cores and goes up to 3.5ghz with workloads of 8 cores or less, what should I expect to gain from newer efi? Anyone has experience with this 2686v3?
4 -As I understand, the EFI driver can be baked in the BIOS, no? Someone got an Asus X99 deluxe moded bios? If not, any tutorial? Is it really better than loading the efi as always?

Thanks a lot! I bought the 2686 before all of this and couldnt be happier with my workstation/gaming machine! haha

If I have some spare time, will try to update my original 00_OC ANANDTECH.rar tutorial for new starters, so its easier to get into this boat.

Regards!

Hello,
I have a X99 deluxe too with a E5 2696V3: I have used your guide and I think your modded bios too (the one with just the microcode removed).
I have switched from the original V3.efi to the new V3x4 compiled by kjboughton (directly replaced in the efi partition: you can mount the efi partition with windows diskpart soft and you just have to copy the new efi file to the old one in an admin cmd).

Powercut is supposed to prevent in some way one of the mecanisms which try to lower turbo bin to remain in the stated tdp: I am not sure this is usefull for my setup.

I am using now one efi driver without undervolting included in the efi file but with the powercut: I prefer undervolting directly in the bios. I have tested some efi drivers with preapplied undervolt and various fixed VCCIN and found no advantage with this method in comparison with undervolting in the bios. I prefer the flexibility to adjust voltage from the bios.

My cpu accept -70mv to the core and -50 to the cache, with an allcore turbo to x32 (x38 with less thant 10 cores, lower voltage can give better allcore turbo but are not stable) with microcode 27(more consistent performance boost than 36-39). But I have slighty better performance with bclk overclock >103 which is not stable with this voltage: I need to dial it down a little and the allcore turbo is now x31.

 

[Cata40]

Hello. I installed Windows 10 Fall Creators update and it seems like I can not delete microcodes using the cpumcupdate2.1 method or install any other microcodes.
Can you help me, how to modify or delete microcodes?

Edit: i solved

 

[vercety]

Hello,
I have a X99 deluxe too with a E5 2696V3: I have used your guide and I think your modded bios too (the one with just the microcode removed).
I have switched from the original V3.efi to the new V3x4 compiled by kjboughton (directly replaced in the efi partition: you can mount the efi partition with windows diskpart soft and you just have to copy the new efi file to the old one in an admin cmd).

Powercut is supposed to prevent in some way one of the mecanisms which try to lower turbo bin to remain in the stated tdp: I am not sure this is usefull for my setup.

I am using now one efi driver without undervolting included in the efi file but with the powercut: I prefer undervolting directly in the bios. I have tested some efi drivers with preapplied undervolt and various fixed VCCIN and found no advantage with this method in comparison with undervolting in the bios. I prefer the flexibility to adjust voltage from the bios.

My cpu accept -70mv to the core and -50 to the cache, with an allcore turbo to x32 (x38 with less thant 10 cores, lower voltage can give better allcore turbo but are not stable) with microcode 27(more consistent performance boost than 36-39). But I have slighty better performance with bclk overclock >103 which is not stable with this voltage: I need to dial it down a little and the allcore turbo is now x31.

Well!

I have been trying new Efi drivers and managed to get a maximum of x29multi all core and 3.0ghz with 104bclk. Cinebench does 2636cb points, while it used to do 2475cb at 2.7ghz before. Now I see much higher turbo bins when playing games. I can play Gta 5 and Witcher 3 and all the cores used (around 6 to 8, sometimes 10 in gta) stay at a locked 3.6ghz (x35 x 104bclk). I am using v3x4_70_50_1pt950pc.efi with x27 microcode. No C3 nor C6 on in bios. I tried several EFI drivers and at -90vcore the system holds but the performance is quite erratic.

Thank you guys!

Will try to update the instructions whenever possible!

 

[magicmanred]

AsRock is the easiest to mod BIOS, I believe Canonking made a custom BIOS for it. The only thing that might hold you back would be the VRMs, but you would still hit a 8-10 core turbo of 3.8 and an all core of around 3.1 to 3.3. I don't think you would be able to hit 3.4 and 3.5 like some of us are able to hit.

I'd be STOKED with even just 3.3 all core!! 3.5 would be a dream though
I'd love to try, but UBU tells me something about my BIOS being Aptio 5.
Would this be a concern?

So far, I made the Bootable USB stick and put my modded bios on there.
I'm confident I could flash the bios on my own from all of the instructions I've gathered... but how would I go about selecting what "all-core" frequency for it to run at?
How is this selected? And what precautions must I take?

Would be SUPER helpful as I'd love to try this right away!

This depends on the silicon lottery. X99E-ITX VRMs are not much different from my motherboard.

This is great news.

 

[magicmanred]

Folks. I need some help badly.

I screwed something up.

I attempted the procedure on my own and put my prepared USB stick in the back of my PC in a 2.0 port... restarted and missed going into the bios, and the pc attempted to start with the USB stick.

A bunch of gibberish went by after a shell was trying to load... I pressed escape to cancel it as the instructions stated.

I reset the computer, (since I was supposed to flash the modded bios first anyway) and wanted to go into the bios and flash it through the bios. But instead, I pulled the USB stick just to make sure the computer was still fine...
(Note, that at this point, I hadn't flashed the modded bios in yet or made any changes to my knowledge).

Windows won't load.
"Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

Could it be that shell thing changed something???

I reset and went to bios to make sure the boot priorities were ok... and they were.
my Nvme drive is fine and detected. And the boot order has my ODD drive as first (nothing in it) and "Windows Boot Manager ( : Samsung SSD 960 Pro 512GB)" second, which has my OS.

I got flustered and figured that perhaps flashing the modded bios would fix it.
So I successfully flashed the modded bios...
Booted off the USB into the shell.
Loaded the V3.efi driver, and copied it to the proper efi/boot drive from the usb
Entered the "bcfg driver add..." line and rebooted.

Now when I start the computer... right after my bios loads, it says "V3 Microcode Present" (which I assume means the modded bios doesn't work on this motherboard, because otherwise it would say v3 all turbos set, right?).
But then it goes to the same "...Insert Boot Media..." message from above.

I started freaking out so I tried to boot off of my Acronis USB stick and restore my nvme drive to my last backup... but every time I try to boot off of it and select to load Acronis True Image... the PC restarts after it tries loading drivers...

What on earth is going on! :'(
Please help

---EDIT---
Seems that removing my ODD as the first boot option and forcing "Windows Boot Manager" gets the swirling dots to show up, but the PC hangs and doesn't boot into Windows

 

[magicmanred]

I'm about to lose my mind...

Windows 10 DVD hangs when I attempt to boot from it.
Windows 10 Recovery USB stick hangs when I attempt to boot from it.
Acronis USB & Disc hang when I try to boot into it.

Looks like I won't even be able to format the drive and do a clean install even if I tried!

The shell shows contents on the Nvme (OS) drive... so the drive didn't go bad.

This issue is out of my league.
I'll be glad to pay someone to help me sort this out.
At this point I don't care for the turbo mod.. I just want my PC to function.

 

[kjboughton]

I'm about to lose my mind...

Windows 10 DVD hangs when I attempt to boot from it.
Windows 10 Recovery USB stick hangs when I attempt to boot from it.
Acronis USB & Disc hang when I try to boot into it.

Looks like I won't even be able to format the drive and do a clean install even if I tried!

The shell shows contents on the Nvme (OS) drive... so the drive didn't go bad.

This issue is out of my league.
I'll be glad to pay someone to help me sort this out.
At this point I don't care for the turbo mod.. I just want my PC to function.

Temporarily disconnect your ODD or set it lower in boot priority under your NVMe OS drive and attempt to boot Windows.

 

[magicmanred]

Temporarily disconnect your ODD or set it lower in boot priority under your NVMe OS drive and attempt to boot Windows.

No dice.

I tried flashing the factory bios...
Same behavior of hanging when attempting to boot to/from anything.

 

[kjboughton]

No dice.

I tried flashing the factory bios...
Same behavior of hanging when attempting to boot to/from anything.

Disabled the V3.efi file in BIOS. There should be an option now to set to disabled. You'll need to search throughout to find the location of the setting. Shouldn't be too hard to find.
Did the EFI file set lower Core and/or Uncore voltages?

 

[magicmanred]

Disabled the V3.efi file in BIOS. There should be an option now to set to disabled. You'll need to search throughout to find the location of the setting. Shouldn't be too hard to find.
Did the EFI file set lower Core and/or Uncore voltages?

I'm not entirely sure the mod even worked at all.
It said something about "CPU Microcode Present".
I searched the BIOS after I flashed the supposed modded bios that I created with UBU... but I didn't see any V3 settings.
I flashed the factory bios back.
Tried even flashing an old bios back (3.1).
Tried even removing the NVME.

Still can't boot to a Windows 10 DVD or recovery USB.... or any Acronis recovery/restore media (cd/usb).

I am under the impression that this motherboard/bios isn't compatible with this modification, and just "booting" to that USB drive I made with Rufus screwed something up royally.

I ordered a spare BIOS chip in hopes that perhaps that could solve something... I just have trouble believing that it's the bios chip being corrupt.

 

[Dufus]

If using the original V3.EFI one of the checks it makes is if a microcode update is already present. If it is present it generates a message to say so and exits with changing anything as the exploit requires the processor to not be patched in order to work.

Did you back up the BIOS beforehand. If you did then re-flash your backup BIOS. Some systems require a recycle after flash, ie let the newly flashed BIOS post at which point it will restart. If you are not sure then remove all mainboard connections of bootable devices, flash your BIOS and let it restart without interference. It should end up in the BIOS setup if no bootable devices are found. From there check all settings are as should be especially IDE, AHCI and RAID settings, CSM settings, fast / ultrafast boot, legacy or UEFI boot and secureboot. If still not working a cmos reset can be tried and again reset BIOS setup settings back to your personal settings.

Likely your just having a boot issue and don't need to restore your OS but having that option is nearly always a good idea.

 

[magicmanred]

If using the original V3.EFI one of the checks it makes is if a microcode update is already present. If it is present it generates a message to say so and exits with changing anything as the exploit requires the processor to not be patched in order to work.

Did you back up the BIOS beforehand. If you did then re-flash your backup BIOS. Some systems require a recycle after flash, ie let the newly flashed BIOS post at which point it will restart. If you are not sure then remove all mainboard connections of bootable devices, flash your BIOS and let it restart without interference. It should end up in the BIOS setup if no bootable devices are found. From there check all settings are as should be especially IDE, AHCI and RAID settings, CSM settings, fast / ultrafast boot, legacy or UEFI boot and secureboot. If still not working a cmos reset can be tried and again reset BIOS setup settings back to your personal settings.

Likely your just having a boot issue and don't need to restore your OS but having that option is nearly always a good idea.

I didn't backup my original BIOS.
My bios settings were pretty basic and easy to replicate.

I'm not 100% clear on what you're saying I should try...
But I think it sounds similar to what I've done already.
Let me know what you think:

Enabled/Disabled secure boot.
Enabled/Disabled USB Legacy mode.
Disabled all boot devices except for "Windows Boot Manager - Samsung 960 Pro..."
Unplugged all hard drives including the USB for the Card reader and the ODD... leaving just the NVME.
Removed the NVME... but had other drives plugged in... still wouldn't boot to any USB or Disc.
Tried booting to a Windows 10 DVD & Recovery USB also an Acronis Recovery CD & USB all in variations including and not including the NVME drive installed. No luck.
Tried using one stick of either Ram.
Tried having only one random core enabled a couple times.
Tried Clearing BIOS.
Tried Flashing BIOS with fresh download of 3.6.
Tried Flashing BIOS to one step older (3.1).

None of these situations allow me to boot to any of the media I mentioned.
The odd thing is, this all happened "before" I flashed the modded bios, and "before" I typed any commands in the shell from the USB UEFI boot.

The ONLY thing that allows me to boot is that Rufus USB stick with the v3.efi on it and the modded bios on it as well as the shell.
I can get into that shell and browse the different drives (except for the Raid 1 and Raid 0 arrays obviously) but cannot boot into windows... even if I type FS1:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BOOTMGFW.EFI it won't get into windows... Hangs the same way.

Flashing the Modded bios didn't help.
Not sure it even worked.
Also, when I manually typed the load command into the shell for the v3.efi, it said CPU microcode present.

This is why I just re-flashed the factory BIOS because it doesn't seem that the mod will even work on this mb.
I just want to be able to boot into Windows again, and for whatever reason I can't ever since I booted into that shell on the USB stick.

 

[magicmanred]

I'd like to add that I'd make it worth someone's while if they think they could figure this issue out through a video conference (skype/tango/etc...)
I feel like there is something smack in front of me that I'm just not seeing/noticing that a second set of trained eyes would be able to spot or recognize some pattern I can't figure out...

Really need this PC back up and running... and I'd have gladly restored the OS drive with my Acronis image backup... but that isn't even an option as it won't even boot into Acronis Recovery through the CD or USB stick.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I ordered another BIOS chip...
I live East coast, it's coming from West.
And I worry that replacing the chip isn't a guaranteed fix :'(

 

[Dufus]

I'm not familiar with Rufus, all that is needed is a standard FAT32 device for the shell and V3.EFI file. Not sure which RAID you are referring to, if it is running off the Intel sata ports then BIOS should provide the driver and they should be accessible unless running AHCI instead of RAID.

If you have already successfully flashed the factory BIOS using the internal flasher of the BIOS then turn off the PC and reset the cmos which usually is done by a push button or jumper, check your manual. The reset may start the PC, let it finish. Go into BIOS and set what needs to be set and try again.

 

[magicmanred]

I'm not familiar with Rufus, all that is needed is a standard FAT32 device for the shell and V3.EFI file. Not sure which RAID you are referring to, if it is running off the Intel sata ports then BIOS should provide the driver and they should be accessible unless running AHCI instead of RAID.

If you have already successfully flashed the factory BIOS using the internal flasher of the BIOS then turn off the PC and reset the cmos which usually is done by a push button or jumper, check your manual. The reset may start the PC, let it finish. Go into BIOS and set what needs to be set and try again.

Rufus is just a USB formatting tool that makes them bootable.

My Raid's were done the lazy way (in Windows)... I know... I know...

I will re-flash the bios again with the latest 3.6. Shut down, and push the clear CMOS button on the back right now and report back.

 

[magicmanred]

Reflashed BIOS.
Shut down.
Pressed the Clear CMOS button on back.
Computer started, and said that factory defaults were loaded. Press F1 to continue, or DEL to enter setup.

I pressed F1.
Computer restarted, and attempted to load windows, and the spinning dots stopped in the same place after a couple seconds.

 

[Dufus]

So BIOS is posting and passing off to OS. Did you leave it for a few minutes when the dots stopped? Which version of Windows is this? What partitioning format is being used? Are you able to boot the installation media now? If you can boot the installation media then try running the Windows repair options. Might be the BCD or registry corruption if hardware has been setup correctly.