Small help on buying an old CPU for an old system

[AleksiDj73]

Hello everyone, i will get into what i wanna say. I am in the military serving my time and our head guy there got a computer and he told me it's slow. I took it home, checked it, there was a bit of cigarette dust, cleaned that off, checked the CPU/RAM/System etc and the CPU it's got is an Pentim 4 640 single core and the motherboard is an ASUS P5VD2-VM with 3GB of RAM running Windows 10. Obviously it's not worth upgrading but oh well it's his computer and i'm gonna do what he says.

 

The motherboard supports upto 2 cores and i thought the best CPU for this would be the Pentium D 930. The CPU will be bought from EBay germany (i live in greece) because shipping is better than the US EBay. Now my question is, on some listings, it says in the title "SL95X", "SL94X" and "SL94R". Searching the 95 one brings up Pentium D 930 and searching the 94 brings Pentium 4 641 and the 94R brings the D 930 and it confuses me.

 

Does the Pentium D 930 have different names? If so, which is THE Pentium 930, SL95X or SL94X or SL94R?

 

Thank you!

[mMontana]

Did you considered to use Intel ARK?

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html

[AleksiDj73]

1 minute ago, mMontana said:

Did you considered to use Intel ARK?

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html

For what?

[mMontana]

Having all the details you're looking for about Pentium D 930.

Happens sometimes that... Intel deliver several SKUs for the same commercial name.

[Middcore]

OK, so this is a bit confusing because you start by saying you want the Pentium D 940, and then shift to talking about the 930. Which are you trying to buy?

 

TechPowerUp shows part numbers SL8WQ, SL94Q, and SL95W for the Pentium D 940: https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/pentium-d-940.c325

 

SL95X and SL94R are part numbers for the Pentium D 930.

 

SL94X is the Pentium 4 641.

 

 

[AleksiDj73]

2 minutes ago, mMontana said:

Having all the details you're looking for about Pentium D 930.

Happens sometimes that... Intel deliver several SKUs for the same commercial name.

It's weird and interesting at the same time lol

[AleksiDj73]

2 minutes ago, Middcore said:

OK, so this is a bit confusing because you start by saying you want the Pentium D 940, and then shift to talking about the 930. Which are you trying to buy?

 

TechPowerUp shows part numbers SL8WQ, SL94Q, and SL95W for the Pentium D 940: https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/pentium-d-940.c325

 

SL95X and SL94R are part numbers for the Pentium D 930.

 

SL94X is the Pentium 4 641.

 

 

Yeah sorry apologies, i meant the 930 and not the 940, fixed

 

Ahhh alright, gotcha, i understand

 

So i should completely ignore the 94X and only look for 95X and 94R correct?

[mMontana]

Better than some SSD brands that deliver same product code... for different PCBs and SSD spec.

[Applefreak]

1 hour ago, AleksiDj73 said:

Hello everyone, i will get into what i wanna say. I am in the military serving my time and our head guy there got a computer and he told me it's slow. I took it home, checked it, there was a bit of cigarette dust, cleaned that off, checked the CPU/RAM/System etc and the CPU it's got is an Pentim 4 640 single core and the motherboard is an ASUS P5VD2-VM with 3GB of RAM running Windows 10. Obviously it's not worth upgrading but oh well it's his computer and i'm gonna do what he says.

 

The motherboard supports upto 2 cores and i thought the best CPU for this would be the Pentium D 930. The CPU will be bought from EBay germany (i live in greece) because shipping is better than the US EBay. Now my question is, on some listings, it says in the title "SL95X", "SL94X" and "SL94R". Searching the 95 one brings up Pentium D 930 and searching the 94 brings Pentium 4 641 and the 94R brings the D 930 and it confuses me.

 

Does the Pentium D 930 have different names? If so, which is THE Pentium 930, SL95X or SL94X or SL94R?

 

Thank you!

First let me tell you that this motherboard actually supports Core 2 Duo processors like the E6700, which are far superior to the Pentium D, I had both, I know. The Core 2 Duos can handle Win 10 just fine, not amazingly but good enough. You do want to upgrade to at least 4 GB of RAM though and possibly an SSD if that fits the budget. 

[mariushm]

The motherboard is kinda shit, only a 2 phase vrm with no heatsinks.

 

Retroweb -  https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-p5vd2-vm - says it supports Core 2 Duo and Pentium D, I'd stay away from power hungry cpus and focus on the later core2duos with higher ipc (faster single cores, more instructions per mhz)

 

these should work ( select socket 775, select FSB 800 and 1066 , fsb 1333 won't work ) : https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/TYPE-Core 2 Duo.html  - double check with cpu support list on asus page

 

 

based on the cpubenchmark site, pentium d are really the suck .. here's a list, first number is performance "score"  :

 

Intel Pentium D 830 @ 3.00GHz    568   
Intel Pentium D 915 @ 2.80GHz    430    
Intel Pentium D 940 @ 3.20GHz    498   
Intel Pentium D 950 @ 3.40GHz    671 
Intel Pentium D 960 @ 3.60GHz    743   

 

here's core 2 duos running at 667 mhz fsb :

 

Intel Core2 Duo E4300 @ 1.80GHz    593    
Intel Core2 Duo E4400 @ 2.00GHz    646    
Intel Core2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz    739    
Intel Core2 Duo E4700 @ 2.60GHz    862    
Intel Core2 Duo E4600 @ 2.40GHz    864   

 

and here's core2duo running at 800 mhz fsb (double check, some 1333 fsb may slip by)

 

Intel Core2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz    625   
Intel Core2 Duo E6320 @ 1.86GHz    717    
Intel Core2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13GHz    740  
Intel Core2 Duo E6420 @ 2.13GHz    756    
Intel Core2 Duo E6540 @ 2.33GHz    808   
Intel Core2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz    885   
Intel Core2 Duo E6600 @ 2.40GHz    937   
Intel Core2 Duo E6700 @ 2.66GHz    990    
Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz    1,009    
Intel Core2 Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz    1,118  

 

Intel Core2 Duo E7300 @ 2.66GHz    965 
Intel Core2 Duo E7200 @ 2.53GHz    984  
Intel Core2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80GHz    1,011 
Intel Core2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz    1,122  
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 @ 3.06GHz    1,139 

 

 

The asus support page stops at E6700, could be the maximum it supports is a 10x multiplier (2.66 Ghz)  but it's possible the board will support E7xx processors and just not have the cpu support list updated, I don't know.

 

Anyway, the sweetspot would be E6600 - E6700 , the E6600 is less than $10 on eBay and E6700 seems to be around $15

 

They also have a low TDP, 65w, so should work with the cheapo vrm .... wouldn't use the 95w TDP pentium d 930 on it.

 

 

 

 

[8tg]

A few people are reporting across the web that the Q6600 works on this board, as does the E6700.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P5VD2-VM.html
Do a bios update and drop in an E6700, Q6600 only if you either roll a larger downdraft Heatsink or are down for adding some vrm heatsinks. It’s survived this long with an 84w Pentium 4 HT but if anything was gonna die on that board, it would be the vrms after moving to a Q6600.

 

Either of those with the existing 3gb of ram, and ideally swapping to even a basic ssd, you could see reasonable modern use out of it. It would at least play YouTube videos and browse the internet in a better state than it does now.

 

[AleksiDj73]

3 hours ago, Applefreak said:

First let me tell you that this motherboard actually supports Core 2 Duo processors like the E6700, which are far superior to the Pentium D, I had both, I know. The Core 2 Duos can handle Win 10 just fine, not amazingly but good enough. You do want to upgrade to at least 4 GB of RAM though and possibly an SSD if that fits the budget. 

I legit said that this is my owners computer. I told him what was the issue and i found out the CPU was causing the whole lag. So no, no SSD upgrades, no 4GB RAM, nothing like that. He told me to buy a new CPU and that's it.

 

I am fully aware of what the motherboard can take in terms of CPU and i don't want any high end CPU for this. As if it's "high end" but you get it.

3 hours ago, mariushm said:

The motherboard is kinda shit, only a 2 phase vrm with no heatsinks.

 

Retroweb -  https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-p5vd2-vm - says it supports Core 2 Duo and Pentium D, I'd stay away from power hungry cpus and focus on the later core2duos with higher ipc (faster single cores, more instructions per mhz)

 

these should work ( select socket 775, select FSB 800 and 1066 , fsb 1333 won't work ) : https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/TYPE-Core 2 Duo.html  - double check with cpu support list on asus page

 

 

based on the cpubenchmark site, pentium d are really the suck .. here's a list, first number is performance "score"  :

 

Intel Pentium D 830 @ 3.00GHz    568   
Intel Pentium D 915 @ 2.80GHz    430    
Intel Pentium D 940 @ 3.20GHz    498   
Intel Pentium D 950 @ 3.40GHz    671 
Intel Pentium D 960 @ 3.60GHz    743   

 

here's core 2 duos running at 667 mhz fsb :

 

Intel Core2 Duo E4300 @ 1.80GHz    593    
Intel Core2 Duo E4400 @ 2.00GHz    646    
Intel Core2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz    739    
Intel Core2 Duo E4700 @ 2.60GHz    862    
Intel Core2 Duo E4600 @ 2.40GHz    864   

 

and here's core2duo running at 800 mhz fsb (double check, some 1333 fsb may slip by)

 

Intel Core2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz    625   
Intel Core2 Duo E6320 @ 1.86GHz    717    
Intel Core2 Duo E6400 @ 2.13GHz    740  
Intel Core2 Duo E6420 @ 2.13GHz    756    
Intel Core2 Duo E6540 @ 2.33GHz    808   
Intel Core2 Duo E6550 @ 2.33GHz    885   
Intel Core2 Duo E6600 @ 2.40GHz    937   
Intel Core2 Duo E6700 @ 2.66GHz    990    
Intel Core2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz    1,009    
Intel Core2 Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz    1,118  

 

Intel Core2 Duo E7300 @ 2.66GHz    965 
Intel Core2 Duo E7200 @ 2.53GHz    984  
Intel Core2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80GHz    1,011 
Intel Core2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz    1,122  
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 @ 3.06GHz    1,139 

 

 

The asus support page stops at E6700, could be the maximum it supports is a 10x multiplier (2.66 Ghz)  but it's possible the board will support E7xx processors and just not have the cpu support list updated, I don't know.

 

Anyway, the sweetspot would be E6600 - E6700 , the E6600 is less than $10 on eBay and E6700 seems to be around $15

 

They also have a low TDP, 65w, so should work with the cheapo vrm .... wouldn't use the 95w TDP pentium d 930 on it.

 

 

 

 

I may just go with the 930 as he's not gonna be doing some wow on this computer. It's very low end anyways and i chose the 930 to have somewhat the same power/voltages and speed as the P4-640 that it has right now.

 

3 hours ago, 8tg said:

A few people are reporting across the web that the Q6600 works on this board, as does the E6700.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-ASUS/P5VD2-VM.html
Do a bios update and drop in an E6700, Q6600 only if you either roll a larger downdraft Heatsink or are down for adding some vrm heatsinks. It’s survived this long with an 84w Pentium 4 HT but if anything was gonna die on that board, it would be the vrms after moving to a Q6600.

 

Either of those with the existing 3gb of ram, and ideally swapping to even a basic ssd, you could see reasonable modern use out of it. It would at least play YouTube videos and browse the internet in a better state than it does now.

 

Thanks for suggestion but no, not gonna do bios updates and putting vrm heatsinks. This is like a 20 year old computer, why put vrm heatsinks lol. he simply wants a "powerful" CPU.

 

This is his PC and he told me to ONLY replace the CPU, no SSDs, no RAM upgrades, nothing.

[mariushm]

38 minutes ago, AleksiDj73 said:

I may just go with the 930 as he's not gonna be doing some wow on this computer. It's very low end anyways and i chose the 930 to have somewhat the same power/voltages and speed as the P4-640 that it has right now.

If the current cpu is causing lag and all that, the 930 that has about the same performance will still cause lag.

What you're saying is moronic.

 

The Pentium 930 is based on the older Netburst architecture and is power hungry (95w TDP) - the 640 was 84w TDP - so the cpu will consume more power.

The E6600 or E6700 are 65w tdp so they'll consume less power , and are based on newer and better architecture Conroe , the e6700 is even made on newer process (45nm vs 65nm) making it less power hungry.

 

 

 

[8tg]

1 hour ago, AleksiDj73 said:

Thanks for suggestion but no, not gonna do bios updates and putting vrm heatsinks. This is like a 20 year old computer, why put vrm heatsinks lol. he simply wants a "powerful" CPU.

 

This is his PC and he told me to ONLY replace the CPU, no SSDs, no RAM upgrades, nothing.

Core2duo e6700 then, you’ll likely need to do a bios update anyway.

Nothing else will be an “upgrade”, moving from a P4 HT to a PD won’t help in 2023 at all.

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, AleksiDj73 said:

I legit said that this is my owners computer. I told him what was the issue and i found out the CPU was causing the whole lag. So no, no SSD upgrades, no 4GB RAM, nothing like that. He told me to buy a new CPU and that's it.

 

I am fully aware of what the motherboard can take in terms of CPU and i don't want any high end CPU for this. As if it's "high end" but you get it.

I may just go with the 930 as he's not gonna be doing some wow on this computer. It's very low end anyways and i chose the 930 to have somewhat the same power/voltages and speed as the P4-640 that it has right now.

 

Thanks for suggestion but no, not gonna do bios updates and putting vrm heatsinks. This is like a 20 year old computer, why put vrm heatsinks lol. he simply wants a "powerful" CPU.

 

This is his PC and he told me to ONLY replace the CPU, no SSDs, no RAM upgrades, nothing.

Now this is an interesting comment...

 

"I legit said that this is my owners computer."

 

They won't notice shit for a difference if you don't increase the RAM and keep the HDD.  It MAY be a touch faster, but barely polished turd.

[AleksiDj73]

22 hours ago, mariushm said:

If the current cpu is causing lag and all that, the 930 that has about the same performance will still cause lag.

What you're saying is moronic.

 

The Pentium 930 is based on the older Netburst architecture and is power hungry (95w TDP) - the 640 was 84w TDP - so the cpu will consume more power.

The E6600 or E6700 are 65w tdp so they'll consume less power , and are based on newer and better architecture Conroe , the e6700 is even made on newer process (45nm vs 65nm) making it less power hungry.

 

 

 

Soo i see there are 2 part numbers on EBay for the E6700, SL9ZF and SL9S7. PowerTechUp says SL9S7 and only that. Are the part numbers the same?

[mariushm]

It's same cpu,  SL9ZF is just a newer stepping, basically same cpu but fine tuning the manufacturing process allowed them to support a higher maximum voltage (1.5v compared to 1.3625v for the previous stepping) and some super minor tweaks that don't really give more performance

 

All codes except SL9S7 and SL9ZF are engineering or qualification sample, not guaranteed to work.

 

so tldr it doesn't matter which one you get, they'll work exactly the same.

 

Stepping	S-Spec	HH80557PH0674M	BX80557E6700
B0	QLLO	+
B1	QPGA	+
	QPGB	+
B2	QTOE	+
	QTOF	+
	SL9S7	+	+
	SL9ZF	+	+
Unknown	QPEU	+
	QUJC	+

[AleksiDj73]

On 9/12/2023 at 11:55 PM, mariushm said:

It's same cpu,  SL9ZF is just a newer stepping, basically same cpu but fine tuning the manufacturing process allowed them to support a higher maximum voltage (1.5v compared to 1.3625v for the previous stepping) and some super minor tweaks that don't really give more performance

 

All codes except SL9S7 and SL9ZF are engineering or qualification sample, not guaranteed to work.

 

so tldr it doesn't matter which one you get, they'll work exactly the same.

 

Stepping	S-Spec	HH80557PH0674M	BX80557E6700
B0	QLLO	+
B1	QPGA	+
	QPGB	+
B2	QTOE	+
	QTOF	+
	SL9S7	+	+
	SL9ZF	+	+
Unknown	QPEU	+
	QUJC	+

Heyo, I'm back. So i bought the E6700 but it doesn't boot, it doesn't give me no beeps and it stays there doing nothing. Putting back the old CPU works just fine but the E6700 does nothing. BIOS update was already on it's latest version so i didn't touch the BIOS update but i see no life.

 

Faulty CPU?

 

To be honest, i haven't done any deep down troubleshooting, does the RAM affect the boot of the PC?

[alyen]

Sounds like the CPU is dead,but you would need another motherboard to test it on to confirm it.

[AleksiDj73]

4 minutes ago, alyen said:

Sounds like the CPU is dead,but you would need another motherboard to test it on to confirm it.

Great, that's the last thing i wanted to hear  Waited 3 weeks for the thing to come...

[Beerzerker]

4 hours ago, alyen said:

Sounds like the CPU is dead,but you would need another motherboard to test it on to confirm it.

Socket 775 had so many different chips some, if not all 775 boards coudn't support them all with a single BIOS file.
I'll use my old 775 DFI Infinity Dark as the example for this.
After it too acted as if the chip I was trying to use was dead I did some research and found this as the cause of it not working with certain chip models and figured out it was the older 775 chips it didn't work with "As was" when I tried it after buying it.

Support between older and newer CPU variants of that socket are split between these models, largely based on whether it was a 333, 400, 800 or even a 1600 chip as examples of these.

So I had onhand two BIOS chips I could swap out with one having the older BIOS file supporting older ones, the other for newer ones and a BIOS that worked with them.
I got these files from an old site called "Rebel's Haven" and it has BIOS files for different DFI boards that covered the fuul range of these different BIOS files.
It may or may not have had files for your board model too but the best place to get what you need would be directly from Asus.

So.... You may have a BIOS version currently in the board that doesn't support the chip you have because of that, causing the chip to act as if it's dead when it's not.
You can try an older BIOS version to see if that's the case or not here.

Be sure to try a BIOS file that states added support or supports the chip model(s) you have and see.

If the board's BIOS chip is removeable you can do as I did with my old DFI.

Since it DID have a similar model chip to the one you're trying that may not be the case here, esp if you know that chip (The system) was working but it's still good info just in case you want to run a newer chip later.
 

[AleksiDj73]

16 hours ago, Beerzerker said:

Socket 775 had so many different chips some, if not all 775 boards coudn't support them all with a single BIOS file.
I'll use my old 775 DFI Infinity Dark as the example for this.
After it too acted as if the chip I was trying to use was dead I did some research and found this as the cause of it not working with certain chip models and figured out it was the older 775 chips it didn't work with "As was" when I tried it after buying it.

Support between older and newer CPU variants of that socket are split between these models, largely based on whether it was a 333, 400, 800 or even a 1600 chip as examples of these.

So I had onhand two BIOS chips I could swap out with one having the older BIOS file supporting older ones, the other for newer ones and a BIOS that worked with them.
I got these files from an old site called "Rebel's Haven" and it has BIOS files for different DFI boards that covered the fuul range of these different BIOS files.
It may or may not have had files for your board model too but the best place to get what you need would be directly from Asus.

So.... You may have a BIOS version currently in the board that doesn't support the chip you have because of that, causing the chip to act as if it's dead when it's not.
You can try an older BIOS version to see if that's the case or not here.

Be sure to try a BIOS file that states added support or supports the chip model(s) you have and see.

If the board's BIOS chip is removeable you can do as I did with my old DFI.

Since it DID have a similar model chip to the one you're trying that may not be the case here, esp if you know that chip (The system) was working but it's still good info just in case you want to run a newer chip later.
 

Alright then bud, i will try going back to an older BIOS version when i got time and i will get back to you with news. But the BIOS chip is not removable unfortunately so the only solution is going back to an older BIOS.

 

There are 2 BIOSes that say "Support for new CPUs" etc so i will try those and see what happens. If nothing works, well, I'm doomed.

[Beerzerker]

7 hours ago, AleksiDj73 said:

Alright then bud, i will try going back to an older BIOS version when i got time and i will get back to you with news. But the BIOS chip is not removable unfortunately so the only solution is going back to an older BIOS.

 

There are 2 BIOSes that say "Support for new CPUs" etc so i will try those and see what happens. If nothing works, well, I'm doomed.

Not necessarily - I'm in the US and if you are here instead of posted overseas somewhere I believe I can do something.

EDIT:
Before flashing, I'm not 100% sure if those are boards that won't let you flash back to an older BIOS if you have to.

Your chip in particular DOES fall into the "Newer" category, being it's a Pentium D 930 "Pressler" which is a 800Mhz chip.
All that means is if you flash it and the system works, you're set as long as you stick with newer chips for it. Should also work with Wolfdale chips too (Core 2 Duo) such as an E8400 for example, those are better chips than the one you have now.

[AleksiDj73]

On 10/6/2023 at 9:55 PM, Beerzerker said:

Not necessarily - I'm in the US and if you are here instead of posted overseas somewhere I believe I can do something.

EDIT:
Before flashing, I'm not 100% sure if those are boards that won't let you flash back to an older BIOS if you have to.

Your chip in particular DOES fall into the "Newer" category, being it's a Pentium D 930 "Pressler" which is a 800Mhz chip.
All that means is if you flash it and the system works, you're set as long as you stick with newer chips for it. Should also work with Wolfdale chips too (Core 2 Duo) such as an E8400 for example, those are better chips than the one you have now.

I'm quite baffled right now, the computer works with the new CPU with 1 stick of RAM. This computer has mismatched RAM. The RAMs that were in were the Samsung M378T953CZ3-CE6 (Slot 1, left) and the Kingston KVR800D2N5/2G (Slot 2, right) . Removing the Kingston one and leaving the Samsung alone made the computer boot up putting the Kingston in slot 1 where Samsung was, the computer has difficulty booting up, as if the Kingston is barely getting read so it boots up. It's 50/50

 

Putting Samsung in slot 2 and Kingston in slot 1, it doesn't boot, i'm baffled lol. Why does it do that? Maybe the CPU doesn't like mismatched RAM? Could you check it out please because i'm mingboggled lol.

 

I didn't think the RAMs would be an issue, that's why i didn't bother removing each one and see what's up. Sometimes the simpliest thing could cause the whole system to not boot, my days

[mariushm]

Samsung seems to be 667 Mhz, Kingston seems to be 800 Mhz

 

Manual says : Memory 2 x 240-pin DIMM sockets support up to 4 GB of  DDR2 667/533 unbufferred non-ECC memory

 

It's possible there was an option in the bios to manually set the memory at 667 Mhz and the previous person set that option, and then installed the kingston ram which probably forced the kingston ram to run at 667 mhz

 

With bios update, maybe that option was reset, or maybe with this new cpu this option may no longer work - and the board officially can't work the memory at 800 mhz