Intel Desktop Board 7 Series BIOS Update Caveats – Important

We’ve been building a lot of our corporate desktop systems based on the Intel DQ77KB and the Core i5-3470S with either an 80GB or 120GB Intel 320 Series SSD installed.

We normally finish of a system install with the most recent BIOS update and then a run through the settings post update boot.

This last board stopped dead during the reboot to BIOS update process.

A call into Intel and we discovered why (from their support technician’s e-mail we requested):

In this particular case, for the 7 Series Chipset based motherboards like the Intel® Desktop Board DQ77KB it is extremely necessary to have the BIOS 0044 before applying the latest version. This is because BIOS 0044 contains the update version 8.1.2.1318 for the Intel® Management Engine which corrects possible problems with USB3.0 front panel headers.

All of the Intel® 7 Series Chipset Based motherboards require this Intel® Management Engine firmware update so here is a list of the required BIOS version to accomplish this fix based on the motherboard number:

Motherboard model BIOS with the Management Engine firmware update

DP75EN 0039

DH77DF / DH77KC 0102

DH77EB 0096

DQ77KB 0044

DQ77CP / DQ77MK 0052

DZ75ML-45K 0010

DZ77BH-55K 0093

DZ77GA-70K / DZ77RE-75K 0057

DZ77SL-50K 0089

You can continue updating the BIOS version once you have reached the one having the Management Engine firmware update

As we can see, we need to step our BIOS updates.

UPDATE: Put “77” in the original title. Corrected to “7 Series”.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

Windows Live Writer