AsRock 4Core Dual Sata2 - B3 stepping ?

[taxman74]

Hi, I have a AsRock 4CoreDual Sata2 (Rev 1.0) M/Board.
It alows for a QX6800(G0) CPU but wont boot with my QX6800(B3) CPU.
It does surport QX6700(B3) and other B3 stepping CPUs so i am hoping you guy can help me out plz and enable some microcoding for this cpu.
(My CPU runs on other motherboards so its working fine)

BIOS-
http://download.asrock.com/bios/775/4Cor...(2.20).zip

BetaBios
http://www.pctreiber.net/forum/dlattach/...456.0.html
ReadMe from BetaBios=

- Based on Bios 2.20
- Add support for E-0/R-0 Wolfdale CPU (E7600, Pentium E6300 supported!)
- Support 4 GB DDR2 (~ 3,3 GB useable)
- Enhanced Speedfancontrol for PWM-Fans
- Support Enahnced Halt State, SpeedStep and Thermal Throttling
- Instant Boot Support

[1234s282]

What makes it even stranger is that Asrock doesn't make any motherboard that supports the B3 QX6800!

Finding a board that take the B3 is proving difficult but ive found the P5E3 Deluxe however Asus Support is currently down so will have to wait till i can grab the bios from this board to look at its microcodes!

Some research required here!

Will post back ASAP

Regards
Admin

[1234s282]

Ok back with more research and a mod for you!

According to intels website the QX6800 has a CPUID of 06F7. Looking at the Asrock bios and searching through my microcode collection for every intel CPU to date results in 2 different 06F7 microcodes.

The single 06F7 microcode already in the asrock bios has a platform ID of 10 and a update revision of 68

The other 06F7 microcode that i have and is not in the bios yet has a platform ID of 40 and a update revision of 69.

I have added this other 06F7 into the asrock bios for you. This is the only thing that i can currently think of until Asus support comes back online!

Try this mod at your own risk!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/747181/Asrock%20...34s282.zip

Regards
Admin

[taxman74]

Belive me i looked for other MotherBoard makes that have the same chipset only to find they stop the CPU surport with core 2 dual, No QX or even Q - In ESC and Gigabytes case it stopped with the Pentium D.
I wont try the Bios just yet. I,ll be patience and wait till you sus out the Asus code.
Thanks heaps.

[taxman74]

Hmmmmm say my CPU is a Intel Core2 DUO Merom 1.83G 2M T5600???
Funny they share the same Intel part number of SL9UE.

[taxman74]

Any update on the Asus code?. Well i used the one u posted and it does work. Only thing i have to set it to 266Mhz in the Bios setting as the CPU doesnt set to 266 on its own. But its fine i guess.

Thxs.

[TheWiz]

Not sure because 1234s282 is on a bit of leave for now but at elast you go the CPU up. I'll move this to confirmed soon and he can look at it on return.

Regards,
TheWiz

[1234s282]

The latest Asus bios v2002 for the Striker Extreme (which supports the QX6800) contains exactly the same microcode patch hmmmmmmmmmm

Does windows reconginise the cpu correctly in system properties and by using software like cpuid??

Admin

[taxman74]

Yes WinXP Pro SP3 noted it was a QX6800.
I have not done the CPUz test as yet. I got my World Record back using this motherboard and your bios mod but got it wet and now its RMA. So cant test CPUz untill i get it back to make sure it shows B3 stepping.
CPU comes up as unknown on 3DMarks01se with my W/R.

BTW look here
Made sure i thanked thouse who helped .

I,d say confirm it as the motherboard wouldnt run at all, After i flashed it with the bios mod from you guys it loaded up and showed the correct CPU in Windows all but i had to change FSB from 200 to 266 and i believe it is a AsRock thing as it stated in its CPU list FSB may drop when using that CPU.
CPU Support List

[1234s282]

i dont think its that important that the bios cant identify it as long as windows sees it fine as its Windows that will use the CPU once its booted up

I wouldn't worry about it so long as you can successfully boot up with it

Admin