** OFFICIAL ** Intel DX38BT & DX48BT2 BoneTrail Thread

It seems Intel is still working on BIOSes after all.
SO2 gets a new 817 BIOS with several bug fixes and RAID option ROM update to v10.6.0.1091.
The rest of us are already into oblivion.

New Renesas USB 3.0 driver, for those with newer boards.

DP67BG gets 2 UEFI (BIOS) updates, 2023 and 2040. Why do they still call it BIOS anyway? Even Intel who's been on this from the beginning?! Oh,well!
Each with a new SATA RAID option ROM version. Funny though that the latest flash in UEFI (v10.6.0.1091) is not the same as the software version available (v10.6.0.1002).
The same goes to the Management Engine versions.
Guess they didn't update the download page yet with the latest versions.
Intel at it's best as usual.

Did you guys knew that SB already supports PCIe 3.0 out of the box? It seems Intel ommited this fact from the spec sheet since there was no hardware to go with it at the time.
Now that it's coming maybe we'll hear about it.
Board makers are already taking advantage of it.
Also, early next year new families of graphics cards are coming out (guess not this year anymore for nVidia at least, for AMD who knows though yield issues are with TSMC).

News regarding SB-E, trouble for Intel it seems.
They might end up releasing it this year after all, but with some disabled features. Come on Intel, just drop it when it's ready, don't throw out unfinished products.
Check it out at VR-Zone: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-mi...ar/12991.html#
Also, see the discussion at TechPowerUp.
Also, AMD will be ready with HD 7000 series Southern Islands maybe this year, PCIe 3.0.
There goes Intel's excuse for not supporting PCIe 3.0 right away in SB-E. nVidia should follow suit.
Why are they positioning X79 as Patsburg -D beats me, SAS is cool and all but on the desktop? By the why, what exactly is SCU anyone?
Guess I'll wait for the second revision, when all settles.
There we go with the X and K monikers for the procs.

Intel really is holding on the PCIe 3.0 bandwagon, they're now proposing mass use of PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, use current standard with double bandwidth than x1.

EVGA is showing a dual socket 2011 board, what a monster, a-la SR-2.

OS X Lion is out! Also, ThunderBolt display and new MacBook Air laptops, they're working hard at Apple.

BITS 474.
BIOS 0027 for DZ68DB with SATA RAID option ROM v11, along with ME engine and Video BIOS.

Thanks Manuel :)
New BITS is always something good to play with. The New Option ROM V11 does not work on our boards :(
The newest I can get to work is 10.6.1091, but I have rolled back to 10.1.1008 as that was what I had issued in a BETA BIOS from ASUS and it appeared to work best on my RE.
John

Don't get so hung up on Sandy Bridge. The things that bother you will not rear their heads in a very short time. SNB is still many times better than the competition and the last generation.

John, BITS is getting some attention and development is sailing along. Cool!
Unfortunatelly, BoneTrail was forgotten and the SATA RAID option ROM built into the BIOS is rather old. Can't blame Intel for dropping it, old stuff doesn't last long these days.

djs, SNB is great I guess, I'm kinda holding for SNB-E though but so far it's not what I hoped it was. Still, i7-3960X being 47% on average faster than i7-990X is great.

Those 47% seem a bit high as an average. Some apps do get twice or more as fast on SNB-E, mostly those that use the extra mem bandwidth and new AVX instructions. The others will have a somewhat more conservative 10-15% increase I guess. Guess Intel picked the benchmarks that best suited them for it, like everyone does for that matter.

For those who use it, and it's quite good for a free app, MS Security Essencials has an update for v2.1.
nVidia has a new beta driver of the new 280 series (280.19) without even getting WHQL'ed 275.50 beta. Morons! Funny how there seems to be nothing really new however.

LAN drivers v16.4 released.

Hello all,

I think its time for me to get these issues resolved. None of the usb ports on my DX48BT2 system seems to work with mass storage devices (bluetooth receivers, RF receivers they all work fine). Everytime I attach a mass storage device like a usb flash drive, it comes up with new hardware found and tries to install drivers and eventually gives a message error installing drivers.

Coming to esata ports, when ever I connect an external hard drive enclosure to my esata port, it hangs the system and then eventually bluescreens. I have updated all my drivers to the latest versions.

Board: DX48BT2
OS: Win XP Pro (not 64bit)

thanks

Hey ucb, welcome.
I guess this could be a silly question, but have you checked that your mass storage devices can be powered by the port alone? Or have you connected an external power supply?
All is enabled in BIOS?
Is XP also updated to SP3? I believe the original version wouldn't support esata.
Maybe you could try installing 7 on a spare disk or something, just to rule out OS problems.
Or maybe you have a defective board, but it's odd to be only USB and eSATA.
Can't remember if this board has USB port fuses, for over-current protection.

nVidia drivers v280.26 out.
Several MS security updates.

It seems we might get X79 and i7-3000 series this year after all.
Only Patsburg A and B at first.

X79 for Xmas anyone? :-)
Ivy Bridge is also set for March-April release.
Most mobo makers are already launching PCIe 3.0 ready mobos. Some recent models will only need a BIOS/UEFI update I guess.

BITS 499 out.
There's a new version v1.2.105 of Lucid Virtu on Intel.

New Intel board roadmap for 2011-12 showing the already known DX79SI Siler and DX79TO Thornsby.
Man, with 8 DIMM slots and 4GB sticks being the standard, MS better up the mem address limits of their OSes. The 16GB for Home versions seems so "old" now!
Also in the ExtremeSeries, the new DZ68BC Braiden Creek this year and next year Z77 based boards, one model (RE) featuring ThunderBolt.
Check it out at DonanimHaber (source, Turkish), or TechPowerUp.
Funny to see FireWire mentioned on the Z77 boards, I wonder if Intel has built it into the chipset, now that almost no one uses it. Kinda going against their TB push though.

Newsflash:
SB-E will be shiped without a cooler. It seems Intel will offer their own branded coolers as a separate part. Guess everyone will go for a 3rd party cooler then.
Quad-core 3820 will come later than 3930K and 3960X.
Also TDP of 130W sees to be on paper only, more like 180W go up in heat for these babies. A PSU design guide so hints anyway.
It seems als that a cold bug exists in early samples of SB-E, so LN2 guys - tough luck. It might be fixed now as stepping C1 seems to be the final version to be shipped.

Prices for SB-E confirmed, same as for last generation: 294USD, 583USD and 999USD.

BITS 511 out, these guys are working on it.
John, have you been playing with it?

nVidia Kepler might only come next year, while AMD's Southern Islands are on track for Q4, maybe even a September launch, rumour has it.
Will AMD win the 28nm availability and performance over nVidia?
New stuff coming up to cheer us up! Or are we sick of this already?!

It seems there might have been issues with SATA Option ROM v11 as Intel has posted a BIOS update 0029 for DZ68DB going back to v10.6, while 0027 already had support vor v11.0.
Intel seems to be having a lot of issues latelly.
They also finally posted a firmware update for their 320 SSDs to fix the 8MB problem. Took them a while also.

Shoot, a couple of days ago I was browsing Intel's page and I found a board matrix pdf with future X79 and Z68 Extreme boards mentioned there.
Didn't save the pdf at the time and now I can't find it anymore. Siler DX79SI and Thornston DX79TO were mentione there, as well as a DZ68?? (can't remember the code name) belonging to the Extreme Series.
Either I can't remember where I found it exactly or the removed it. I only found an earlier board matrix without those.
Oh well!
Shouldn't be too long for some info to come out anyway, specially after seeing that.

Sandy Bridge-E Xeon procs will be E5-2600 series, 17 models announced.
For dual-socket (2011) platform Romley-EP.