Spectre and Meltdown custom BIOS ROMs for Intel X58 motherboards

Hardware Motherboards
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OK, time to throw away our new motherboards, forget about Intel’s current guilty pleasures and go back to the days when Nehalem changed the #PCMR market with vast performance improvements and a redesigned architecture where it changed our overclocking habits. Well that was 10 years ago, and look where we are now; motherboards filled with RGB lighting, and designer clothing for computer motherboards. What if you’re that type of person who doesn’t buy into that bullshit? What if you want to go back to basics, and have a motherboard that functions and performs like an actual computer motherboard? You can either try hard and find a decent performing motherboard that hadn’t got all the frills and give you the helping hand that you only need…

Or, go back to Intel’s (don’t bash me) X58 platform; the age where motherboard manufacturers focused and competed on particular things; features that we may never use but will be Handy Andy to have, for example, Firewire 400/800 ports; and the race to the top of who can have the best overclocking experience like the true man.

Cut to the chase, yes you are free to go back to X58 but with one thing; do you know Spectre and Meltdown? If you do, then you do know that pretty much all the Nehalem chips are affected, and being a 10 year old platform, motherboard manufacturers have ceased support for these hardworking gems. But on the other camp, Intel has a microcode release that actually supports all the way back to the 1st gen Core micro-architecture; so Nehalems are supported - mostly - with a few with early steppings that might’ve not gotten the support and therefore, won’t be compatible with these custom BIOS ROMs for every X58 motherboards that comes with the microcode update, so double check to see what stepping your Nehalem micro chip has before applying the motherboard update.

Now I have downloaded the update for my Rampage II Extreme board my other system has, and I could flash mine using ASUS’ EZ Flash tool to do so, but haven’t done so yet, because I would want to backup the original BIOS first before proceeding (recommended for the rest of you). Some of you may have other methods of flashing motherboard ROMs so refer to you board’s manufacturer’s instructions on how to do that. And a bit of a warning - if it matters to you a lot: After you successfully applied the update, do expect some performance drops, due to the microcode patch having adverse effect on some of the processor’s instructions.

Here’s the link to all of the available custom BIOS ROMs. Do note this is an unofficial BIOS update so do proceed at your own risk, I will not be held responsible if things didn’t go well for you - but at least I will be responsible for my own fuck up, lol; best practice is to backup your BIOS, as I said earlier. And another note, these are pretty much every latest BIOS available for every Intel X58 based motherboards at the least but with the microcode chip update included with every single ROMs.

Last thing and I repeat, check your CPU stepping to see if it’s compatible with Intel’s microcode update otherwise your motherboard will be sent to the void.

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Hmm.

I’m not sure the idea of installing a hacked bios from some random dude on the internet is theoretically sound security hygiene.

Even if it is to patch a bug.

Run Linux instead, the microcode update is included in the OS.

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Question is; does all the target audience agree using it?

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X58 is a tough old, platform and I’m glad I kept it for my family. Two of my many daughters still use it and game on it incessantly. My 11 year old loves mucking about on blender and running content creation programs on hers while the 9 year old simply games incessantly. They frequently network each other on these old i7 rigs and Spectre has never been an issue with them. Of course, they run good security and Daddy has 'em on a hard ware firewall, which admittedly is a bit old fashioned but probably well worth the occasional reset. If Spectre ever becomes an issue I’ll just tell them the time to switch to Linux has come as the 11 year old is already keen on trying Mint anyway. X58… The platform that just doesn’t die.

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You’re talking about running an old server architecture that was ported to desktop. That’s literally the target audience for Linux.

But I totally see what you’re getting at.

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Do you want security, or do you want to risk whatever malware may be in the hacked BIOS?

I guess my angle was that you have no clue what is in that hacked BIOS without the source and it isn’t from a vendor with a reputation. It is literally some guy on the internet.

I’m not guaranteeing it is insecure or has malware or whatever, but it is entirely possible. And there’s not really any way of you doing anything to detect it without disassembling it and sifting through the machine code.

Worrying enough about security that you’re patching an old x58 platform for meltdown one would think that your security practices would preclude doing this.

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I understand where you and I are coming from. I personally have Linux (might change distro again soon, lol) running on my X58 PC. But if we were to be concerned about the credibility of those files, then one can just grab the new microcode from Intel themselves if they got the knowledge for the whole procedure, even though official support is for newer 1366-based Xeons from what I read.

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Most of these BIOS mods look like they’ve simply swapped out the microcode blob with the one intel provides for operating systems.

Unnecessary if you’re using linux with a microcode mask-rom loader.
Technically windows can also do this with some hacks.

But nice to have :slight_smile:
It’s so simple any of us could do it with some basic ROM modding skills.

I’ve just recently patched 'ancient' microcode for a X38 & P35 mainboard because I still have a use for my Happy Core 2 Quad Q9550 system.

EDIT: this was not spectre/meltdown related though - just C-state fixes.

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I’m glad I kept the X58 for my family because it’s a tough old platform. It is still used and gamed on by two of my many daughters. My 11-year-old enjoys tinkering with blender and running content creation programs on her computer, whereas my 9-year-old simply enjoys playing video games. On these old i7 rigs, they frequently network with one another, and Spectre has never been an issue. Of course, they have good security, and Daddy has them on a hardware firewall, which is admittedly a little antiquated but probably worth the occasional reboot.

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