If flashing the entire BIOS file, one would need to hex-edit the MAC addresses and whatever else back in. Possibly even the CMOS battery too, just to be cautious.įlashing just the boot block is imporant because it seems there may be system-specific information stored on the BIOS flash like MAC addresses. The specific SPI flash chip you have matters and its worth looking at the datasheet of the chip and how SPI wiring works.ĭisconnect everything from the motherboard before doing option 2) or 3). Allows one to avoid the flashing stage and might be easier for the more hardware inclined.īefore doing any of these, read up on how flashing BIOS chips works in general.
You get one shot to do this right, as a failed flash will probably result in a soft-bricked motherboard! You would then need to do 2) or 3) to recover. A couple of people there successfully flashed their BIOSes.ĭisable the 0xFF0000 to 0xFFFFFF boot block write protection using the jumper on the motherboard and flash in Linux or Windows using a tool like flashrom or FPT. I can’t link it, but look up “HP z820-e5-2600-v2-ivy-bridge-upgrade” and read through it, especially pages 5 to 10. Same goes for the Z620’s second CPU riser. HP haven’t absolutely confirmed this but I couldn’t find any actual differences between the boards discussed, only how exactly similar they are.
The only difference between Zx20 version 1 (sandy bridge Xeons only) and Zx20 version 2 (sandy or ivy bridge Xeons) seems to be the boot block version: 2011 or 2013. For HP Z420, Z620, and Z820, it’s entirely possible, people have done it. I’ve been looking at this a lot recently.