Firmware
At a recent OCP Regional Summit held in Prague, AMD shared its plans to replace its AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA) firmware with an open-source alternative called Open-Source Silicon Initialization Library (openSIL). The new firmware would be ready for production use in 2026, following a multi-year, four phase development cycle. Firmware is a crucial component for modern computer systems, and on modern AMD systems, that critical code blob is AGESA. Among other things, AGESA is responsible for initializing several sub-systems of the platform, including processor cores, chipset, and memory; and it is frequently updated to support new hardware and resolve bugs. But for all the utility that firmware brings, it can also be a weak point in a system via vulnerable to cyber attacks. So...
MSI Addresses CPU Voltages on AM5 Motherboards for Ryzen 7000X3D Processors
In response to recent reports of AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D processors being damaged, MSI has announced a wave of firmware updates to address potential issues. The highlight of MSI's new...
15 by Gavin Bonshor on 4/24/2023ASRock Announces New AM5 BIOS Design, Promises Faster Booting Times
In preparation for AMD's Ryzen 7000 series processors, which will launch on September 27th, ASRock has announced that it has developed a new BIOS for its AM5 motherboards. ASRock...
27 by Gavin Bonshor on 9/9/2022GIGABYTE AM4 Motherboards: PCIe 4.0 Ready for Ryzen 3000
In preparation for the launch of AMD's next generation of Ryzen processors, GIGABYTE has released a wave of firmware updates for its X470 and B450 AM4 socket motherboards. The...
32 by Gavin Bonshor on 5/21/2019EFI Update Brings Lion Recovery to iMacs
Apple has released a new firmware update for the Sandy Bridge iMacs that enables Lion Internet Recovery, allowing customers to connect to Apple's servers in the event that they...
10 by Andrew Cunningham on 10/27/2011Intel SSD 320 Firmware Posted, Addresses Bad Context 13x Error
How about that for turnaround time? Just two days ago Intel announced that it had found the root cause of the power cycle bug that could leave your SSD...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/17/2011Intel Testing Firmware Fix for SSD 320 8MB Power Bug
Not too long ago Intel officially recognized that its SSD 320 is impacted by a bug that results in the drive's capacity being limited to 8MB. Today Intel announced...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/15/2011Kingston Releases New V100 Firmware to Address Data Loss Bug
While I was at CTIA last week I ran into a friend from Kingston who let me know about an issue with the JMicron JMF618 based SSDNow V100 SSDs...
20 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/28/2011Crucial RealSSD C300 Firmware, Part III
Poor Crucial. Although it started its C300 campaign on the right foot, posting some very impressive sequential read speeds thanks to 6Gbps SATA and ONFI 2.0 NAND, things haven't...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/6/2010Crucial Releases RealSSD C300 Firmware Fix, Bricks More Drives?
Back in March I posted an update on my experiences with Crucial's RealSSD C300. In it I pointed out that not only had my review sample apparently bricked itself...
21 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/4/2010