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From: Tom Lake on 5 Jul 2010 04:50
Studio XPS 435T/9000 BIOS Version A16 is out for those who like to keep up
with the latest.

What does it fix? According to the Dell site,
"Update INTEL Microcode per Intel request"

Vague enough, no? 8^)


http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=STUDIOXPS435T&os=WV64&osl=en&catid=&impid=

(Mind the line break!)

Tom Lake

From: Ben Myers on 5 Jul 2010 10:24
On 7/5/2010 4:50 AM, Tom Lake wrote:
> Studio XPS 435T/9000 BIOS Version A16 is out for those who like to keep
> up with the latest.
>
> What does it fix? According to the Dell site,
> "Update INTEL Microcode per Intel request"
>
> Vague enough, no? 8^)
>
>
> http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/driverslist.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&ServiceTag=&SystemID=STUDIOXPS435T&os=WV64&osl=en&catid=&impid=
>
>
> (Mind the line break!)
>
> Tom Lake


Inside almost every Intel CPU is microcode. In effect, Intel CPUs are
themselves also programmable. I suspect Intel learned from its math
debacle with Pentium chips way back. So Intel has issued some microcode
updates for some of its processors, either to correct small errors or to
tune the performance better. Dell (and other Intel OEMs) uses the BIOS
updates to update this microcode.

What is missing from the description is exactly why the microcode is
being updated. Somewhat secretive Intel does not tell us why, so Dell
can't either.

Another (also obscure) reason for a BIOS update is to extend the range
of CPUs supported by a motherboard, usually when the motherboard has a
more open-ended and flexible design AND the design proves to be
long-lived in this era of rapidly changing computer models.

One example of this from days gone by is set of various BIOS updates for
the venerable Inspiron 1100/5100/5150/5160 laptops, some of which
eventually supported hyper-threaded Pentium 4 mobile CPUs (using the
desktop Socket 478 socket). I have in my possession, for example, an
Inspiron 5150 with 3.06Ghz P4 HT, acquired with a lot (I mean lots of)
of laptops. The BIOS splash screen even shows the P4HT logo, like a
desktop does. (Do not try one of these mobile P4s in a desktop. Due to
lack of a pin signal from a desktop mobo, they cannot run at full speed,
only 1.6Ghz, the speed with which they operate on battery.)
From: Tom Lake on 5 Jul 2010 21:03

"Ben Myers" <ben_myers(a)charter.net> wrote in message
news:i0spus$flu$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...

> Another (also obscure) reason for a BIOS update is to extend the range of
> CPUs supported by a motherboard, usually when the motherboard has a more
> open-ended and flexible design AND the design proves to be long-lived in
> this era of rapidly changing computer models.

Yes, the reason for the upgrade from A14 to A15 was to support the Gulftown
6-core Intel processors.
A14 and earlier only supported 4-core processors.

Tom Lake

From: William R. Walsh on 6 Jul 2010 10:48
Hi!

The microcode is a very low level set of instructions that set up and
configure the system processor. In effect, the concept of microcode
makes the CPU's functionality somewhat "programmable". That way, Intel
may be able to work around defects and errata that turn up in the
design.

This is somewhat common with newer processors whose bugs haven't been
worked out.

Older processors typically had different steppings printed on the CPU
itself to identify the "version number" of a particular CPU.

Operating systems may also use microcode as part of their kernels, if
a patch is required to bypass an issue with a certain processor or
stepping.

William
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