Hi.
I've seen a lot of discussion on internet regarding SuperMicro MB with older BIOS being incompatible with Haswell refresh CPU, and various options how to resolve this. I was unfortunate enough to purchase X10SLM and G3258 before researching this information, and experienced this first hand. Motherbord simply wouldn't start with this CPU.
After some extensive googling, i've found out that it might be possible to update the BIOS without compatible CPU. The software required for this is called "SuperMicro Update Manager", however it is not freely available. I was able to request this software from SM website. Please note, that this requires using some kind of corporate email. I've also received a trial key for MAC address of my specific MB.
Using the software is simple enough (it's a command line utility), however my first attempt to update the BIOS has failed with very weird error message "another user is already updating". Tried rebooting both my target machine and desktop i've used for updating - no luck. After running out of options, i've thought maybe it's worth a shot to upgrade BMC (IMPI) firmware. This was quite straightforward, and after reboot i've tried to update the BIOS again. Well, guess what - the process has now started :) After updating the BIOS to latest firmware and rebooting, motherboard has finally booted up normally and i was able to enter BIOS setup. Mission accomplished! I hope this story might be useful for somebody.
Link to SM Update Manager - https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/SMS_SUM.cfm
I've seen a lot of discussion on internet regarding SuperMicro MB with older BIOS being incompatible with Haswell refresh CPU, and various options how to resolve this. I was unfortunate enough to purchase X10SLM and G3258 before researching this information, and experienced this first hand. Motherbord simply wouldn't start with this CPU.
After some extensive googling, i've found out that it might be possible to update the BIOS without compatible CPU. The software required for this is called "SuperMicro Update Manager", however it is not freely available. I was able to request this software from SM website. Please note, that this requires using some kind of corporate email. I've also received a trial key for MAC address of my specific MB.
Using the software is simple enough (it's a command line utility), however my first attempt to update the BIOS has failed with very weird error message "another user is already updating". Tried rebooting both my target machine and desktop i've used for updating - no luck. After running out of options, i've thought maybe it's worth a shot to upgrade BMC (IMPI) firmware. This was quite straightforward, and after reboot i've tried to update the BIOS again. Well, guess what - the process has now started :) After updating the BIOS to latest firmware and rebooting, motherboard has finally booted up normally and i was able to enter BIOS setup. Mission accomplished! I hope this story might be useful for somebody.
Link to SM Update Manager - https://www.supermicro.com/products/nfo/SMS_SUM.cfm
