First of all, thank you very much for this great forum. It's amazing how much information and hard work you do to help all the members of this community.

In this case i request for your support. I have a Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S which contains a chipset GM965 according to the CPU-Z information as you can see below:



The Current CPU of this Sony Vaio VGN-CR21S is the original one, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250:



After searching a lot on the Internet I saw through different sites such as cpu-upgrade, that the chip that incorporates my GM965 Express laptop allows the installation of a more advanced processor of type Penryn which belongs to the Santa Rosa Refresh platform. After evaluating options I decided to buy the Intel Core 2 Duo T9300.

The processor will be delivered to me next week. However, since I wanted to be sure that the computer BIOS will support it, I made a backup of my current BIOS. Then with MCExtractor I examined the ROM and got the following list of microcodes:

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ MC Extractor v1.42.1 r142 ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════╝

R1131Q0.ROM (1/1)

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Intel ║
╠───┬───────┬─────────────┬──────────┬────────────┬──────┬────────┬─────────┬──────╣
║ # │ CPUID │ Platform ID │ Revision │ Date │ Type │ Size │ Offset │ Last ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 1 │ 10661 │ 80 (7) │ 33 │ 2007-03-16 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x31000 │ No ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 2 │ 6F5 │ 80 (7) │ 38 │ 2006-07-25 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x32000 │ Yes ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 3 │ 6F9 │ 80 (7) │ 83 │ 2006-09-28 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x33000 │ Yes ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 4 │ 6FA │ 80 (7) │ 92 │ 2007-03-13 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x34000 │ No ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 5 │ 6FB │ 80 (7) │ B3 │ 2007-03-14 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x35000 │ No ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 6 │ 6FD │ 80 (7) │ A1 │ 2007-03-13 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x36000 │ No ║
╠───┼───────┼─────────────┼──────────┼────────────┼──────┼────────┼─────────┼──────╣
║ 7 │ 6EC │ 80 (7) │ 5B │ 2007-02-08 │ PRD │ 0x1000 │ 0x37000 │ Yes ║
╚═══╩═══════╩═════════════╩══════════╩════════════╩══════╩════════╩═════════╩══════╝

I was very sad that the last BIOS published by Sony for this computer, the Microcode for the T9300, which is 10676, did not appear.

I was quite surprised because I have seen other Vaio models like the VGN-CR220E or the VGN-CR29XN, which use exactly the same BIOS as mine, that many users have upgraded correctly to the T9300 processor. After a lot of searching, I haven't seen that a BIOS modification would have been necessary to make it work.

However, the microcode does not appear and I am convinced that it will not work. As I have never done a BIOS modification yet, and I am very fond of this old VAIO I ask you to please help me and do the modification for me if you think it is necessary. I would appreciate it very much.

I attached to this post the BIOS R1131Q0 that is currently on my computer and from which the data of the MCExtracter comes out.

Thank you very much in advance for your time and support!

I decided to start learning the "art" of the BIOS Modding. Since my Vaio VGN-CR21S is a Phonenix BIOS I decided to read the post t20f16-Guide-Award-Phoenix-BIOS-Modding written by Fenando.

The post is amazing and is very well explained but my Phoenix BIOS seems to struggle with the CBROM utility. I have tried also with CBROM155.exe and CBROM198 but the result is always the same. The CBROM tool seems to be freezing. I tried to "view" only BIOS information by execution the command CBROM155.EXE R1131Q0.BIN /D in a command prompt under Windows 8.1 32 bit and the dual-core CPU goes up to 50% usage and it doesn't output anything. I can stop the frozen process with Ctrl+C. It seems to enter into an endless loop:



I tried with onether Windows version and using the compatibility sistem (XP, Vista, etc)... It seems imposible to add the microcode to the BIOS if I am not able to view the data with CBROM... Support will be very appreciated.

I am quite scared about brick my laptop because of the following Fernando's comment:

Zitat

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I ask this, because the risk of a bricked system by flashing a modded BIOS into a laptop is much bigger than with a desktop PC.

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Carry out a BIOS Modding for a laptop does not seem the best way to the first lesson of a rookie.

Update BIOS to R2101Q0 version.

First of all, thank yoy very much for your quick response.

I only would like to know if the operation is safe... Is it risky? I mention it because the last official version of Sony for that series is R1131Q0, but I'm sure it has much less risk than if I try to add the microcode by myself :)

Adding microcode doesn't add support for 45-nm CPUs.
BIOS flashing is always a little dangerous :)

Thank you very much again.... The strange thing is that in other forums I have read posts from users who had my own BIOS that have been able to make the T9300 work. With Vaios VGN-CR220E and VGN-CR29XN. I have seen at least 4 different ones and none of them talk about updating the BIOS and much less about modding it to add microcodes manually....

It leads me to think as you very well say, that the microcode is not essential. It is very likely that those users did not do anything special in the BIOS and it will work with the official Sony. To your knowledge, is this possible? If the BIOS supports 45-nm CPUs, can the T9300 work with the microcodes that the MC Extractor reported?

Zitat von josea im Beitrag #7

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It is very likely that those users did not do anything special in the BIOS and it will work with the official Sony. To your knowledge, is this possible?

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Zitat von josea im Beitrag #7

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... can the T9300 work with the microcodes that the MC Extractor reported?

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Thanks again! What is your recommendation then? Try directly with the R1131Q0 BIOS I have right now? And if it doesn't work, try R2101Q0, right? Your help is very important to me because I don't know much about BIOS...

Try it.

Zitat von josea im Beitrag #7

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.P.S. CBROM is suitable for Award BIOS only.

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Zitat von josea im Beitrag #11

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Is not the same then Award Phoenix and Phoenix Technologies?

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Thank you very much for the information.

Zitat von DeathBringer im Beitrag #8

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Sometime BIOS can boot 45-nm with CPUs even without official support for it. Then the operating system loads suitable microcode for CPU.

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Zitat

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...I advise that anybody should update their microcode for stability because mine was buggy with stock out of the box on T9500, updated microcode and no more bugs....

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Zitat

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Here is the latest microcode for Penryn (10676), sideload via Windows (helpful for anyone who's running Penryn with old BIOS and old Penryn-minimal supported buggy microcode). Version 612h dated 2015, extended life cycle version. Not like old version 610h dated back in 2011 included in latest Intel microcode public library. Enjoy. Just unzip, run install.bat with admin rights and reboot. You can check microcode version using tools like AIDA64

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It is pity because the link he posted is broken. It seems he updated the microcodes in Windows. Is there here any post explaining how to do this?

What's your laptop's operating system?

It's a Microsoft Windows 8.1 32 bits. If the CPU starts I think is less risky to be updated via Operating System as spektykles done.