Hello everyone,
as I am sure many of you know, intel raptor lake CPUs are affected by an hardware issue which might lead to the CPU eventually failing. The proposed workaround from Intel is basically reducing the maximum power of the CPU, via a combination of microcode and firmware updates for the chipsest.
My homelab is setup with an Pro WS W680-ACE IPMI and an i9-13900. I have setup and enabled the microcode updates within proxmox, as of now I am running microcode version 0x123 which is the latest available on debian.
If I understand correctly, this is not enough as ideally one would need to also update the BIOS, to get the latest "best" settings for the CPU, and also the chipset firmware, more or less for the same reason. Now, the issue I have is that Asus does not provide any way of updating the chipset firmware without windows OS. They also include a scary message in the latest BIOS update for my MB, which would load microcode 0x125: "Before BIOS update, please download the Intel ME update tool from the ASUS support site and update the ME firmware to Version 16.1.30.2307 to ensure optimized system settings."
Reading around, the information I found is not conclusive, i.e. do I _have_ to update the ME firmware before updating the BIOS? Do I even need to update the BIOS at all, since I now have OS microcode updates enabled?
My understanding is that if I really want to update the chipset firmware, I have to install windows on a spare SSD - just for this very reason, taking my server offline for several hours. Frankly, on a motherboard with an IPMI card this seems ridiculous to me - I understand several people use windows server but several others do not![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
I am hoping someone has insights/advice on this topic. I might just wait some more time, as intel plans to release another update by mid August, and then just bite the bullet and install windows, and properly update everything.
Thanks!
V
as I am sure many of you know, intel raptor lake CPUs are affected by an hardware issue which might lead to the CPU eventually failing. The proposed workaround from Intel is basically reducing the maximum power of the CPU, via a combination of microcode and firmware updates for the chipsest.
My homelab is setup with an Pro WS W680-ACE IPMI and an i9-13900. I have setup and enabled the microcode updates within proxmox, as of now I am running microcode version 0x123 which is the latest available on debian.
If I understand correctly, this is not enough as ideally one would need to also update the BIOS, to get the latest "best" settings for the CPU, and also the chipset firmware, more or less for the same reason. Now, the issue I have is that Asus does not provide any way of updating the chipset firmware without windows OS. They also include a scary message in the latest BIOS update for my MB, which would load microcode 0x125: "Before BIOS update, please download the Intel ME update tool from the ASUS support site and update the ME firmware to Version 16.1.30.2307 to ensure optimized system settings."
Reading around, the information I found is not conclusive, i.e. do I _have_ to update the ME firmware before updating the BIOS? Do I even need to update the BIOS at all, since I now have OS microcode updates enabled?
My understanding is that if I really want to update the chipset firmware, I have to install windows on a spare SSD - just for this very reason, taking my server offline for several hours. Frankly, on a motherboard with an IPMI card this seems ridiculous to me - I understand several people use windows server but several others do not
I am hoping someone has insights/advice on this topic. I might just wait some more time, as intel plans to release another update by mid August, and then just bite the bullet and install windows, and properly update everything.
Thanks!
V