NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 firmware upgrade for DOS

[thelostswede]

Ok, this took a little bit longer time than I expected to sort out, but for those of you either with a Hackingtosh without Windows on it, or for those of you with a motherboard with a pair of NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 uPD720200 host controllers, this will help you update the host controller firmware to the currently latest known version. This may, or may not, fix some issues that you're having with USB 3.0.

Download the file below, put it on a Dos bootable USB stick (can't help you on how to make one on a Mac, I doubt it's even possible, but this is a requirement) and boot from the USB stick by pressing F12 on Gigabyte boards at boot and then select hard drives and the USB stick.

Once you've booted up you type: D200FW36 /srom 0 /writeall update.mem cfg.ini and hit enter. On Gigabyte boards you can change /srom 0 to /srom 2, but /srom 0 is an auto detect and will work on boards using different flash memory from Gigabyte. This will upgrade any and all NEC/Renesas USB 3.0 host controllers in your system to firmware version 3028 which is currently the most recent one available.

Hope this helps for those that have been having problems.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/911286/NEC_3028_FW.zip

 

[Going Bald]

Updated. Works.

 

[the_gael]

thank you

 

[Say Heading]

(...) but for those of you either with a Hackingtosh without Windows on it (...)

Thanks a lot for this.
Just for clarification: Would this firmware be upgraded by Windows 7 automatically?
I ask because I just noticed W7 updating stuff for the USB Renesas chips.
But I don´t know much about Windows, just boot it once in a while to have the system updated. It is not in use at all, just for the sake of having it.
After the mentioned update I checked the device manager but it didn´t tell me much, at least I couldn´t confirm the mentioned firmware revision.
So should I rather follow your firmware upgrade recommendation anyway?

Cheers, SH

 

[Going Bald]

(...) but for those of you either with a Hackingtosh without Windows on it (...)

Thanks a lot for this.
Just for clarification: Would this firmware be upgraded by Windows 7 automatically?
I ask because I just noticed W7 updating stuff for the USB Renesas chips.
But I don´t know much about Windows, just boot it once in a while to have the system updated. It is not in use at all, just for the sake of having it.
After the mentioned update I checked the device manager but it didn´t tell me much, at least I couldn´t confirm the mentioned firmware revision.
So should I rather follow your firmware upgrade recommendation anyway?

Cheers, SH

Windows 7 will only update software drivers. It will not update firmware.

 

[Say Heading]

Windows 7 will only update software drivers. It will not update firmware.

I hope you are right. Actually I don´t doubt it but... after those driver updates in W7 I have (had) some very unusual system behaviours on the hackintosh: Laggy mouse, long time delay until wacom tablet reaction after reaching desktop, sometimes no wakeup from sleep. Anyway I´ll try the firmware update now. But just on one system for now...

Update:
I followed MacMan´s guide to create a bootable USB stick.
http://macmanx86.blogspot.com/2011/07/c ... ck-on.html

This exe stuff scares the sh** out of me. I am a GUI guy since ATARI ST -> MacOS 7.x (LC II pizza box) and don´t regret.
Anyway, it didn´t work for me as I could not boot from the stick. It hangs at "loading operating system". But maybe no factor because I found this:

Ok, just a little tip here, Renesas (formerly NEC) issues firmware updates for their USB 3.0 host controllers from time to time, the only problem is that these firmware upgrades are part of the Windows drivers.

(from here:http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14988)

So I assume that the driver update that took place this afternoon should also have updated the firmware. Just to be on the safe side I booted W7 again and opened the device manager (or whatever it´s called in English ). For each and every USB device I initiated the automatic driver update again and they all reported to be up to date.
So how do I know now what the actual firmware version is? I didn´t find any information next to the mentioned USB devices.
Or is it safe to believe in Microsoft´s statement to be up to date?

Thanks for comments!
Prost!

 

[thelostswede]

My mistake on the old post you quoted, missing a not. But if you want to do things the easy way and have Windows installed, just use the Windows updater, no need for any Dos stuff. If you go to that thread you'll find a link to the Windows update tool and it's a matter of downloading it, running it and rebooting.

To check the firmware version you have to use the Windows utility from Renesas, it installs alongside the drivers.

 

[Say Heading]

My mistake on the old post you quoted, missing a not. But if you want to do things the easy way and have Windows installed, just use the Windows updater, no need for any Dos stuff. If you go to that thread you'll find a link to the Windows update tool and it's a matter of downloading it, running it and rebooting.

To check the firmware version you have to use the Windows utility from Renesas, it installs alongside the drivers.

Thanks for clarifying it! I'll try that tomorrow.

 

[Say Heading]

And I did. Here´s what happened:

Updating the windows driver to version 2.1.19.0 went fine.
Updating the firmware failed, as multiple USB hosts were detected.
Statement from the release note of the firmware update:
"Note3 : If multiple uPD720200s are detected on the PC, F302808FWUP1.EXE does not
start to update."
But anyway I checked the firmware version with the Renesas tool and it is 4015 already?
So I guess I should have no trouble.

The attached picture shows host controller1, it states the same for host controller2.

Update:
Just to make shure I swapped the W7 hd into my second identical hack and that had the same firmware installed.
So I start believing that we are talking about different controllers here.
This board (Z68X-UD7-B3) has those VLI hubs installed. Maybe that makes the difference? (And trouble is back in... )

Update II:
Just learned we are talking about different chips installed.
So the VLI hub trouble is still in.

 

[thelostswede]

There's a separate thread for updating the VLI hubs, but yes, if you have multiple chips, you have to do it in Dos. You can find several guides on how to make a bootable USB device in Windows 7, just Google it. Easiest way is using a tool from HP and downloading the Win 98 boot files. You'd have to do this to upgrade the VLI firmwares anyhow, at least if you're running a 64-bit version of Windows, as their Windows updater only supports 32-bit Windows...
Here's the download link to the VLI firmwares http://www.via-labs.com/en/support/down ... p#firmware it's not exactly new though and I've pointed out to them that some people here are having problems, but so far, nothing.
You have some strange firmware version on your NEC/Renesas chips though, never seen that one and the latest is meant to be 3.0.2.8... go figure