Intel C202, C204, C206 Xeon E3 Bromolow Motherboards Thread

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supermacro

Member
Aug 31, 2012
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I'm pretty sure it's soldered on to the board. There is a way to recover by renaming the good BIOS to SUPER.ROM (all caps, case sensitive) and put it on a formatted USB stick and hold down Crtl + Home as you power on. You will notice the USB thumb stick blinking (if it has a LED) and let go of the keys and it will load the BIOS. It takes a while so don't turn it off for good 3 minutes. If this doesn't work then you have to send it in for a RMA.
 

5loth

New Member
Nov 3, 2011
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I'm pretty sure it's soldered on to the board. There is a way to recover by renaming the good BIOS to SUPER.ROM (all caps, case sensitive) and put it on a formatted USB stick and hold down Crtl + Home as you power on. You will notice the USB thumb stick blinking (if it has a LED) and let go of the keys and it will load the BIOS. It takes a while so don't turn it off for good 3 minutes. If this doesn't work then you have to send it in for a RMA.
Thanks I did try that but didn't use caps on the bios filename, will give that a try tonight.

However I noticed when I did try it that the keyboard didn't light up, so not sure if its capable of getting far enough to accept input from the keyboard.
 

mobilenvidia

Moderator
Sep 25, 2011
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New Zealand
The BIOS has many sections, one will be a boot section that you cannot erase (with ease), this is the very first thing that gets run at power on. (there is a name for this process that eludes me)
Most devices with ROMs have this, a special key command or even a special device connected to a serial port will trigger a BIOS load.
This is fail safe way of getting out of sticky situations, other wise Supermicro would need to send Mobo back to factory to get the BIOS chipet taken off and replaced.
 

5loth

New Member
Nov 3, 2011
11
0
0
The BIOS has many sections, one will be a boot section that you cannot erase (with ease), this is the very first thing that gets run at power on. (there is a name for this process that eludes me)
Most devices with ROMs have this, a special key command or even a special device connected to a serial port will trigger a BIOS load.
This is fail safe way of getting out of sticky situations, other wise Supermicro would need to send Mobo back to factory to get the BIOS chipet taken off and replaced.
Part you are referring to is the Boot Sector Block I think.

I tried the recovery shortcut but I noticed my keyboard doesn't seem to get any power, however the LED on the USB Key is lit up, so the USB devices are getting power. I might try with another keyboard tomorrow.
 

squirrelslikenuts

New Member
Mar 30, 2019
12
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Ive got an HP DL120 G7 with a c204 chipset.

Currently has a E3-1220 Xeon

HPE website lists the following processors as options (at time of release)


Quad-core processors

  • Intel Xeon E3-1280 (3.50 GHz/4-core/8MB/95 W), 1333, HT, Turbo 1/2/3/4 processor

  • Intel Xeon E3-1270 (3.40 GHz/4-core/8MB/80 W), 1333, HT, Turbo 1/2/3/4 processor

  • Intel Xeon E3-1240 (3.30 GHz/4-core/8MB/80 W),1333, HT, Turbo 1/2/3/4 processor

  • Intel Xeon E3-1230 (3.20 GHz/4-core/8MB/80 W), 1333, HT, Turbo 1/2/3/4 processor

  • Intel Xeon E3-1220 (3.10 GHz/4-core/8MB/80 W),1333, Turbo 1/2/3/4 processor
Dual-core processors

  • Intel Xeon E3-1220L (2.2 GHz/2-core/3MB/20 W), 1333, Turbo 0/0/0/10 processor


These chips are Sandy Bridge, 32nm, released in Q2'11. Server sports a Intel c204 chipset.



Question;



I would like integrated graphics and quicksync.

Is there any reason the following processors wouldn't work?

E3-1225

E3-1235

E3-1245

E3-1260L

E3-1275

The chipset supports it, but HP never listed them at time of sale. Is this because they don't work as per the HP bios or because why would they list Xeons with IGPs as options for rack mount servers?

or

Ivy bridge V2 processors (they are 22nm but same 1155 socket and work on the same chipset c204)

I found a custom BIOS on a Russian (oh boy) site that allows Ivy Bridge on DL120 G7 but removes support for Sandy Bridge processors....



The only real difference is they have IGP and Quicksync. Same 32nm, same socket. Same release quarter.



Thanks for the help!