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Intel® 5000 Series Chipsets Server Board Family Datasheet
3.11 BIOS Bank Select and One Boot Flash Update
One Boot Flash Update refers to the ability to update the BIOS while the server is online and
operating.
The BIOS Bank Select feature provides the ability to update the BIOS in a fault tolerant way. If
the updated (new) BIOS is found to be non functional for any reason, the system can still be
booted by rolling back to the previous, healthy BIOS.
®
All Intel
server boards and systems that use the Intel
space for system BIOS. This flash is divided into 2 banks of 2 MB each. One of the banks is
called upper bank and the other is called lower bank. The BIOS can reside in either or both of
these banks. The BIOS area from which the system boots at any point in time is called the
Primary BIOS Partition. The other BIOS area is called the Secondary BIOS Partition. All BIOS
updates are made only to the Secondary BIOS Partition.
Note: The primary and secondary BIOS partitions are logical partition on a 4 MB system flash.
They can reside on either of the two physical banks.
The BIOS relies on specialized hardware and additional flash space for a BIOS Bank Select and
One Boot Flash Update. The BIOS Bank Select Jumper is used to direct the behavior of the
BIOS once the online update is performed. The BIOS Bank Select Jumper has two modes.
1-2 Bank 0
2-3 Normal Operation (Default)
BIOS updates can be made with the BIOS Bank Select Jumper in either of the two positions.
The behavior of the system in either of these modes is described below.
3.11.1
BIOS Bank Select Jumper in Normal Mode (Jumper Pins 2 - 3
connected)
In normal mode, the new BIOS image is updated onto the secondary partition and is validated. If
the validation is successful, the BIOS uses specialized hardware to notify the system to boot
from the new BIOS, and resets the system. The new BIOS begins to boot. If the boot is
successful, the BIOS update is complete. If the new BIOS fails to boot successfully, a timer is
started and the system rolls back to the previous, healthy BIOS image.
1. Boot the system with the jumper covering pins 2 and 3.
2. Update the BIOS using iFlash32.exe or the Intel
Boot Flash Update utility) utility.
3. Reset the system.
4. The current BIOS will validate and then boot from the new BIOS.
5. If the new BIOS fails, roll back occurs and the system boots with the old BIOS.
Revision 1.1
®
Intel order number D38960-004
5000 Series Chipsets have 4 MB of flash
®
One Flash Update (Intel® One
System BIOS
89
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