[Request] Modding the bios of an old P4 mobo (845G chipset) to enable hyperthreading

[Adrian_]

Hello,
Can someone please help me with modding the Award bios of a VERY old motherboard in order to add support for hyperthreading.? The motherboard has the Intel 845G chipset (which supports hyperthreading) but the manufacturer (Albatron) never issued an update for this particular Mb.
The last Bios for this mb can be downloaded here http://www.elhvb.com/supportbios.info/Archives/BIOS/0-A/ALBATRON/PX845G Pro II/index.html (version 1.07) and the same archive has bioses for similar mb's from the same manufacturer that had releases for HT support (for example this one http://www.elhvb.com/supportbios.info/Archives/BIOS/0-A/ALBATRON/PX845GE Pro II/index.html version 1.09)

 The  CPU (3.06 Ghz s478 ) has HT,  but with the current BIOS the Mb recognises it only as a plain P4 with 1 core, 1 thread.

Thanks a lot for any help.

[DeathBringer]

Please tell sSpec of your P4 CPU.
Post screenshots of first (CPU) & third (Mainboard) tabs of CPU-Z with current CPU.

[Adrian_]

Thanks a lot for the quick reply. The sSpec is  SL6PG  if my eyes serve well.

 I attached the two screenshots.

[DeathBringer]

Try to flash my my mod.
Then make TXT report of CPU-Z.
And post a screenshot of regedit with expanded key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\0
And show a screenshot of msconfig under button Advanced options on current OS in Boot tab. E.g.

[Adrian_]

Hi,
I flashed the modded bios but the board won't boot with it. No POST, no beeps were the symptoms (tried several memory configurations).

Since it has a dual bios configuration I was able to do a recovery without much trouble, but I'm afraid we're back to square 1, so to speak.

[DeathBringer]

So I can't help you.

[Adrian_]

Thanks for trying

Would it be possible to use the 1.09 core bios of the Px845GE pro II board and just add the modules for raid, lan and so on from the 1.07 bios of the Px845G pro II (my) board?

Also is it possible in your modded bios to set the hyperthreading by default to off? (in case it's set to default to on). This would allow me to just reset the bios to defaults when things go south and try various settings, memory timings perhaps?

Just to understand the sudden interest in such ancient hardware, I'm working pro bono in a social project which involves using components from damaged beyond repaid motherboards, video cards and so on to fix others that have minor flaws (like blown caps and so on) then putting together computers capable to competently run Win 7 and donating them to orphanages and so on.

On Saturday I just replaced 9 (1000micro farad 6.3v) caps from this board only to discover that it now runs great but it's bios never learned about a little thing called hyperthreading. Bummer.

[DeathBringer]

I've just added microcode for your CPU. Nothing else.

[Adrian_]

Hmm, that's really weird, it should have booted up just fine. It doesn't give any CPU error with the last official bios, it just enables 1 thread and carries on.

 From what I managed to read on the subject the approach that may work would be to use the core bios of the Px845GE pro II board that has HT and add to it the modules specific to the  Px845G pro II (LAN and Promise RAID controller).  But this is totally out of my competence range, so to speak.

[DeathBringer]

You can try to flash BIOS from Px845GE pro II without modifications.