Do all new 845E/PE motherboards support Celeron 2.0+ out of the box?

[Cenarius]

Going by Tom'sHG review, the Celeron 2.0 was released October 2002, so I'm thinking there is a good chance the BIOS in some new 845E and 845PE boards will not support the new Celerons.

Is there anything to look out for, like a sticker on BIOS chips?

 

[Cenarius]

Well, has anyone purchased a new 845E/PE motherboard recently that didn't support the Celeron 2.0 and above?

The reason why I ask is that I came across some top brand (Gigabyte, MSI, etc) 845E motherboards selling pretty cheaply for ~$US50 at a market recently. It is quite possible these were made before October 02, so I would think you would need an older core CPU to flash the BIOS first.

What about the still-popular 845PE, I think that came out days before the new Celerons - is it possible motherboard makers could have included BIOS support during the first production run, weeks in advance of its release?

 

[Flakk]

Well, my ECS L4S8A2 motherboard with 1.0c bios from January (the latest that there is) doesn't seem to support Celerons, as the screen just goes blank and nothing happens when power is applied. I know the board works because it runs fine with my Pentium 4 cpu in it. I hope they add support soon because I'd LIKE TO USE MY COMPUTER

And yes, i'm even going to have to go through the obvious, yet not-so-obvious hassle of having to first put BACK in my P4 just to flash the bios so that it can recognize my celeron.. that is when/if they add support for it... argh

--edit--
christ, and it looks like the board DOES correctly support a 2.0ghz celeron.. http://www.ripnet-uk.com/reviews/motherboards/ECS/L4S8A2/page2.shtmljust my fargin luck.. i should have just got a 2.0 instead of 2.2 :S

 

[Cenarius]

If it supports the Celeron 2GHz, I think it should work with the 2.2. Maybe you need to put the P4 back in and set the FSB down from 533 to 400 before you install the Celeron? Or reset/clear the BIOS.

Flakk's original thread:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1106421&STARTPAGE=1

 

[Cenarius]

OK, I have figured out a way to answer my own question. I will go through the BIOS pages of 845E/PE motherboards I am interested buying and check for Celeron support references. If there are none, I can pretty much assume Celerons are supported out of the box.