stojke

I am currently back onto an E5200 Pentium while I work this out, but an interesting thing happened yesterday. I did the following: - Flash the BIOS chip to 1.3.0 externally - Insert new LGA 771 platform microcodes for 676, 677 and 67A (04 40 0F, 44 0B, 10 0A) and update existing LGA775 platform microcodes from 0016760C 0106760C to 0F , from 01067705 to 0B and from 01167A07 to 0A. - Programmed all blocks directly with Win Flash (ticked all options and double checked) - Shut down the computer, replaced the procesor and thermal grease, Clearned CMOS settings using jumper function and powered it on - After that edited the BIOS settings (like tag, time, boot sequence and such, CPU Xeon was detected normally), saved to CMOS and restarted After that windows started normally (Very quickly) but it still had E5200 dual core in its settings as the installed processor. During that time everything was blazing fast. Knowing this can happen if somebody replaces the processor with out doing an full restart I after that did an full system restart/shutdown (Shut down - Restart). Once that completed windows became much slower and has again started experiencing prolonged boot times and almost unbearable response times. This has lead me to believe that there was something wrong with the system it self so I did a few tests. First that I tried was to boot my windows 8.1 installation disc, boot time was so long I literally went home, had lunch, got back and it was not done by then (eventually it did boot the installation menu but it was unusably slow), After that I tried an Mini Windows Xp boot disc (Hirens boot disc) and to my surprise, and expectation at this point, the mini windows XP system worked flawlessly, no lag no stutter. This has lead me to believe that there is either something that is preventing usage of an Xeon processor in an modern system with this computer or I simply failed to install proper microcodes again. Here are images of before and after my modification: Maybe, even though an E5450 SLANU is an Code ID 676, I should have inserted 1067A Platform type 44 as well? I don't know.

For example I tried the follwing - Remove all micro codes and install only 1, 4 , maybe I should try remove all the codes and install only 1, 4, 10 and 44.

Yeah, I have checked program all blocks every time I flashed it. I will now remove the CPU and check if I installed the right micro codes again. Should I install both combinations of micro codes for 676 microprocessor? There are 1, 4, 10, 44 code combinations.

Thank you for this great tutorial I have read it and tried it on my Dell Vostro 220 G45M03 Rev A00 motherboard. But it did not go as planned In my case (G45M03 Rev A00 , BIOS 1.3.0) the motherboard detected the Xeon CPU instantly and loaded up the system with out me having to mod the bios with additional and newer Micro Codes, but the system was booting and operating very slowly and sluggish. When reading from task manager I noticed that the CPU ussage is constantly over 30% to 40%, mostly by System Interupts and System (which should never use so much CPU). Application and basic folder navigation took around 5 to 20 seconds for each operation of open and close, but even so I managed to give it time and try different combinations of Micro codes and BIOS revisions (1.2.4). Even so, it still operates extremely slowly. I am currently at the Service i work and will try a couple of last tries before calling quit. Fun time to spend a day

Altec Lansing VS2321 2.1 system speakers can be found new and used for around $30 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836113005) . These are by far in my opinion the best possible speakers for the given price range as they have a strong and rich bass. High quality sound cards and speakers are luxury. Expensive sound cards require expensive equipment that can follow , aka speakers and amplifiers , and that equipment also costs, some times a lot more than the sound card. If your budget is lower, and you do lack proper speakers, you should consider buying used and older models. When it comes to sound cards used does not nececarily mean bad or worse than new and newer. Actually there is little to none improvement when it comes to sound quality and reproducion in newer Creative sound cards (opposed to X-Fi Xtreme Music , etc series), as when it comes to speakers they can and do wear out over time, no matter how high quality they are (I once heard from a Professional sound equipment dealer that speakers only reproduce factory guaranteed sound for only about 6 months of usage, everything after is degrading), Think smart, than invest.

High quality higher end sound cards are expensive. Asus Xonar D2X series costs around $150 or more in the region where I live, same goes for STX and Essence series. If you really want an high quality higher end sound card for your machine you should consider buying an used Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music or Fatal1ty card as they cost around $30 and have almost identical sound fidelity where in my opinion Fatality has better bass than Asus Xonar D2X (As I used to own both). The only down side is PCI slot bus interface.

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