Athlon 64 revision E won't work on some Nforce 3/4 boards!

[gate1975mlm]

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21780

 

[AnandThenMan]

Troubling, fly in the ointment, monkey wrench in the works, kink in the armour, glitch in the matrix.

 

[gate1975mlm]

So just a Bios update will not help it looks like! Lucky for me I did not buy my new system yet.

 

[Duvie]

I will wait until I see some real user reports from the ppl I trust...


However I am sure this is a prologue for dual core upgradeability as well..If these wont work then I am sure the dual cores wont work...I guess shortly we will see how many of us get screwed here.....

 

[bersl2]

We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

If only this is the case, I don't think that the problem is really as serious as it sounds. Then again, I'm not quite sure what exactly "thermal regulation protection" is referring to, since that could be a number of things.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: bersl2

We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

If only this is the case, I don't think that the problem is really as serious as it sounds. Then again, I'm not quite sure what exactly "thermal regulation protection" is referring to, since that could be a number of things.

It would be related to cool n quiet, and the safety power cut off threshold motherboard setting.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: bersl2

We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

If only this is the case, I don't think that the problem is really as serious as it sounds. Then again, I'm not quite sure what exactly "thermal regulation protection" is referring to, since that could be a number of things.

It would be related to cool n quiet, and the safety power cut off threshold motherboard setting.

Considering most of us have the ability thru bios options to disbale it, it seems it could be bios fixed to permanently disable it....

 

[bookman]

I have a feeling its something more serious than switching off CnQ. Hopefully a simple revision to NVidia's drivers will do it.

 

[BlindBartimaeus]

I would be willing to bet it is more of a chipset revision. I wish it wasn't a big deal, but if it were a bios issue or driver...the article would have said more than likely it would be fixed with such.

 

[Megatomic]

I was planning on an entirely new rig early next year anyway. For me to go even a year with no CPU/mobo upgrade is incredible, I've never, in 10+ years of PC addiction, made it that long.

Basically, I was anticipating this, even when I bought my system. Dual core CPUs are a large advancement, and I never expected my NF3-250Gb mobo to support the latest technologies.

 

[gobucks]

i think theinquirer is full of crap 90% of the time. Remember their horror stories about the problems with nforce 4 silicon, and how it was gonna delay chipsets by another 6 months? If it turns out i have to get a new mobo, I'll just wait for socket M2. Otherwise, i'll throw a dual core 939 into my current mobo. Either way, it's not a huge deal. I'm gonna expect that current mobos will be fine for dual core until i hear a reputable source say otherwise.

 

[fireontheway]

Cool! Another reason to upgrade

 

[Emultra]

What is a revision E and how do I know if I have one?

 

[slash196]

Are you from the future? No? Then you probably don't have one.

 

[CaBoOse999]

Nvidia will figure something out assuming this is true.

 

[Bar81]

Well, considering that dual core ES CPUs, which are E revisions run fine in the Asus SLI nForce4 board, I call *cough*bullshit*cough*

 

[GRIdpOOL]

Originally posted by: Emultra
What is a revision E and how do I know if I have one?

Since they haven't been shipped, you shouldn't worry about it just yet. But when they do, the way to tell for sure when you pick one up in the store is to check the label on the box for the format ABA####BPBOX. This replaces the older BIBOX label. The CPUID also changes to 00020FF0h and you will need a newer BIOS to recognise it.

 

[Heinrich]

I believe there is truth to this story, after fighting with my MSI board for a few weeks. Tomorrow I'll have my DFI SLI-DR to replace it with.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=29&threadid=1531262&enterthread=y

 

[Mrvile]

Originally posted by: Duvie

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: bersl2

We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

If only this is the case, I don't think that the problem is really as serious as it sounds. Then again, I'm not quite sure what exactly "thermal regulation protection" is referring to, since that could be a number of things.

It would be related to cool n quiet, and the safety power cut off threshold motherboard setting.

Considering most of us have the ability thru bios options to disbale it, it seems it could be bios fixed to permanently disable it....

Well you gotta remember, only a small percentage of PC users in the world actually delve into their PCs and do weird whings (like OCing). The majority of the computer population still use Cool n Quiet.

 

[bookman]

I am surprised AMD didnt invest a further $1,000 to buy a few motherboards to test these chips before CeBIT. Now everyone has to scramble, and the enthusiast community that AMD relies on is left wondering if this glitch will affect them.

 

[Duvie]

We need to find out what board alienware was running...someone email them and see if they will tell us...I am sure it is a NF4 board.....

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: bersl2

We are told that AMD changed its thermal regulation protection and that's what makes it incompatible with at least some of the Nforce 3 and Nforce 4 boards out there.

If only this is the case, I don't think that the problem is really as serious as it sounds. Then again, I'm not quite sure what exactly "thermal regulation protection" is referring to, since that could be a number of things.

This sound almost akin to the CPU system-bus electrical interface impedence-matching resistor specification change that came out between the pre- and post-Tbred Socket-A CPUs. (The "ZP resistor" thing.) The change only caused issues with some CPUs and some mobos, not all of them.

 

[bookman]

How was it fixed? A BIOS revision? Or new motherboards?

 

[cjacobs2]

I started a thread on this a few days ago.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1542320

Theinquirer now states that NVidia claims that only BIOS updates are needed (makes sense). Hopefully concerns along these lines can be put to rest now. The potential for upgrades is among the key reasons I bought a NForce 4 board.

Historically, AMD hasn't pulled the kind of bull with sockets and compatibility that Intel has. The whole PPGA, FC-PGA, FC-PGA2 progression on Socket 370 meant a lot of money wasted on adapters. Socket 940 will be useable with dual core chips, and socket 754 never had that many promises made for upgradibilty anyway. Socket A was around forever.

 

[TekDemon]

Well FWIW, someone managed to run one of the new SOI+SSE3 90nm 3800+'s just fine on an MSI Neo2 Platinum over at XtremeSys so I doubt that it's that big of a problem, save for the fact that you'll need someone to reflash some boards first, which makes buying an older motherboard and a newer CPU problematic if the motherboard has an out of date bios.