JohnShaft wrote:I have a HP Z420 Workstation containing a Xeon E5 1620 processor and I wanted to swap it with a newer revision of the procerssor (E5 1620v4) in the near future. Is that possible?
Just to be clear that even with the newer boot block date of 2013, the most you can upgrade to is a E5 v2 processor. From v3 onwards there is a socket change from LGA 2011 to 2011-3, which makes the CPU's physically incompatible.
For the time being to upgrade the Z420 to the newer 2013 boot block you will have to use an external SPI programmer.
IMHO, the safest way to approach this is to i) socket the bios chip (SOK-SPI-16W socket, best to use a mobile phone / computer repair place for the desoldering / soldering) ii) buy 1 or 2 W25q128BVFG chips iii) read contents of the original bios with a cheap CH341A programmer, replace boot block contents (FF0000-FFFFFF) with that from newer bios revision and write that onto one of your new bios chips.
Total cost of parts = 15 - 20 USD + desoldering / soldering unless you can do this yourself. Still works out a lot cheaper than a new board and you can always put your old bios chip in if anything goes wrong while flashing one of your new chips.