VOGONS


First post, by karl80038

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When I decided to visit Intel's website to download a BIOS update for my D865PERL desktop board (https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/840 … e-RL86510A-86A-, I noticed this very sad message:

End Of Life - This download, BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21, will no longer be available after November 22, 2019 and will not be supported with any additional functional, security, or other updates. All versions are provided as is. Intel recommends that users of BIOS Update [RL86510A.86A] P21 uninstall and/or discontinue use as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, they'll be removing all BIOS download links to all Intel desktop boards on that very same date (even the later Sandy Bridge boards)
It seems Intel wants to wipe out their entire desktop board support section from their website.
Now is the perfect time to download and archive their BIOS files for all their boards and maybe host them on VOGONS drivers website. If anybody has access to a list containing all the desktop boards Intel has ever produced, I'd be very grateful. While visiting the Intel desktop board's subforum, I also discovered Intel had already removed all their drivers just two days ago (!!) (on September 13th, 2019). So for those who're owning a vintage Intel motherboard (or maybe not so vintage), be sure to get them while you can (assuming you still haven't updated the BIOS).

Reply 1 of 111, by cyclone3d

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Looks like somebody backed up the Intel FTP in 2014 so anything as of January 2014 should be good.
https://archive.org/details/2014.01.download.intel.com

Here is an ft that has older stuff as well:
ftp://ftp.spez.com.ua/driver/mb/intel/

But yeah, anybody want to take on the task of getting all the more current stuff?

If somebody comes up with the wget script to get it all, I can download and upload to archive.org.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 2 of 111, by karl80038

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It appears to be even worse. They're also removing old graphics drivers (and maybe even something else )from their website too, and that is bound to happen even earlier, the October 11th. Looks like i'll be downloading as many old drivers as I could. Luckily, getting older graphics drivers is a lot easier job than getting older BIOS updates, because multiple vendors like DELL still have them on their website for download. This is such an HP move (HP tends to remove drivers for most non-business products that are older than 10 years old from their website), you'd think, them being a large corporation, would have room to keep all this stuff. I am so disappointed in Intel, I used consider them trustworthy when it comes to downloading drivers, but I guess I was wrong. I could also archive direct download links on Intel's website directly to Archive.org. Anything older than 2011 will likely be removed from Intel's site 😢 .

Reply 4 of 111, by kwyjibo

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I noticed something similar on HP website.

A few months ago I could download several recovery images for xpe for a given ThinClient and now only the most recent image is available...

Reply 5 of 111, by Solplay

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Terrible, just terrible. Much thanks for the heads-up though, I never considered that Intel would be this stupid to remove all of their useful legacy drivers. Especially when they are not even taking up a concerning amount of space.

karl80038 wrote:

If anybody has access to a list containing all the desktop boards Intel has ever produced, I'd be very grateful.

I don't quite think that this is all of it, but it should help: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kiZi6DZs8 … dit?usp=sharing

Reply 6 of 111, by AmiSapphire

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Unfortunately I expected this since last year, like the HP thing in 2017. Especially when they said they were revamping their site then, too. 😕
Re: PSA: HP is deleting old product pages/drivers from their website

A lot of their older stuff was already gone before that as well. I only noticed when I was looking for additional technical notes to archive for my Intel SAI2 server board... They were pretty much gone from their site, but the archive.org link cyclone3d posted had had them. That was the same day I grabbed a local copy and then eventually mirrored it on my site.

The only other thing I archived (in late 2014) were practically everything for the Intel DG41RQ desktop board: BIOSes from the earliest to the latest, drivers for XP, Vista, and 7, docs (manuals, specs, references), and utilities, which I keep forgetting where I stored them. It's nearly 500MB for that alone; imagine grabbing most of the modern stuff from Intel's site!

Edit:

kwyjibo wrote:

I noticed something similar on HP website.

A few months ago I could download several recovery images for xpe for a given ThinClient and now only the most recent image is available...

Depressing. Just depressing. 😢

Edit 2:
Just remembered. Despite what I said in that thread I linked last year, most of the files for 2000s and 2010s boards weren't in that download.intel.com FTP archive unless it was products from the '90s and early 2000s (My SAI2 section only had PDF files and one HTML file, but I mirrored the BIOSes, drivers, and utilities they had back then, and imaged the SAI2 CD I had as well), as those were stored on another server. Safe to say those will be pretty much gone at some point.

Last edited by AmiSapphire on 2019-09-15, 09:54. Edited 2 times in total.

Site update: cwcyrix.duckdns.org -> cwcyrix.nsupdate.info due to the former no longer working.

Reply 7 of 111, by derSammler

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It seems Intel wants to wipe out their entire desktop board support section from their website.

No offense, but I think you are a bit off here. They will remove that download after more than 14 years. Yes, that's how long they kept it online so far. If you click on the older versions of the BIOS on the left, you'll see that they are offline already since they reached an age of 15 years and more. 15 years seems to be their deadline for downloads, and that is long, very long. It's totally fine for me if a company stops offering downloads that are older than 15 years.

Also, there's absolutely no indication that they will kill all legacy product downloads any time soon. They "kill" what is 15 years or older, just like they always did. Newer stuff has shorter deadlines, but who cares anyway?

Reply 8 of 111, by karl80038

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No, Intel is indeed removing everything, even the BIOS update for the LGA1155 motherboard (DH67BL) will be removed, just take a look at this:
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/282 … e-BLH6710H-86A-
The BIOS update for this board was released just last year and they'll be already taking it down this November.
Dell still seems to have drivers for 20 year old computers like the Dell Optiplex GX1, just take a look: https://www.dell.com/support/home/ee/en/eebsd … lex-gx1/drivers
Companies can take down older downloads as they please (nothing in this world last forever after all), for sure, but the fact that DELL and Lenovo (older downloads are available at https://download.lenovo.com/eol) manage to keep downloads for their older products, but the companies like HP and Intel are unable to means when I'll be shopping for a new computer, I would definitely lean towards buying a computer from the former companies. That shows me that at least some companies care about very few customers, who still have older computers kicking around and would perhaps want to reinstall the original operating system and be able to find drivers for that system with ease. But that's just my opinion, everybody is welcome to have their own opinion.

Last edited by karl80038 on 2019-09-15, 10:48. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 14 of 111, by Caluser2000

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The sites may go. The ftps normally hang around quite a bit longer. a lot of people forget that.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 15 of 111, by Horun

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Since I own a VS440FX and MU440EX and will try to DL all the "Legacy" last BIOS and post to usenet somewhere.
I cannot find any of the BIOS thru their ftp so may not get all the old boards listed as will have to DL thru their support website.

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 16 of 111, by cyclone3d

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Horun wrote:

Since I own a VS440FX and MU440EX and will try to DL all the "Legacy" last BIOS and post to usenet somewhere.
I cannot find any of the BIOS thru their ftp so may not get all the old boards listed as will have to DL thru their support website.

Why not post to archive.org? Much easier for people to get to than usenet and it is free.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 17 of 111, by AmiSapphire

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Horun wrote:

Since I own a VS440FX and MU440EX and will try to DL all the "Legacy" last BIOS and post to usenet somewhere.
I cannot find any of the BIOS thru their ftp so may not get all the old boards listed as will have to DL thru their support website.

Good luck. I went after what was left of their Server BIOSes because those will be gone on October rather than late November. Neither of those BIOSes post-2000 are on the FTP archive.

Also, archive.org (Internet Archive) would be a more ideal choice nowadays, per cyclone3d. Will have to upload my Intel SAI2 Resource CD image to there at some point...

Site update: cwcyrix.duckdns.org -> cwcyrix.nsupdate.info due to the former no longer working.

Reply 18 of 111, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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The (latest?) bios for those two boards are still available thru downloadcenter at

MU440EX - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/5044 … p-board-mu440ex

Also, this is a screencap list of what was there this time last year when I took a full snapshot

Filename
Intel MU440EX Support Files.zip
File size
564.1 KiB
Downloads
198 downloads
File license
Fair use/fair dealing exception

VS440FX - https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/5056 … p-Board-VS440FX

Another site which still seems to host many of these files is

ftp://oisellerie.org/drivers/Intel/

Reply 19 of 111, by Horun

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Thanks all. Yeah Intel already removed a bunch of support files for most legacy desktop boards prior to their "Nov 22" deadline compared to a year ago or more. Only the latest BIOS file and main board manual for the MU440EX remains. No drivers exist that I can currently find though a few years ago they (Intel) hosted many, same with the DQ77MK board. I will do my best to grab what is left of the BIOS and manuals before they are all gone.
Note: the 2014.01.download.intel.com at Archive .org does not contain much for desktop boards but does have a lot of docs for the server boards.
The BIOS files have original Intel naming and many are hard to figure which board they go to.
Thanks for the help !

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. https://archive.org/details/@horun