MSI K7N2-L mobo not recognizing 2500+ Barton?

[elbirth]

I finished building my system a couple days ago, and while everything seems to be running fine, I noticed a few things...

First my temps were reading really high (like around 60C at idle). As per discussion on these forums and some input, I flashed the BIOS to the most recent version and now it underreads them at like ~35C at idle (I understand that MSI is working on this because they're reading the temps directly from the CPU die and not a sensor like normal).

However, my concern now is that when I go to the System Properties, it shows the correct clock speed (1.83GHz) but it says "Unknown CPU Type". I loaded up WCPUID and it says the same thing. It also only shows 128K cache rather than 512K...

I've tried clearing the CMOS to see if it would do anything since I had flashed the BIOS, and nothing... the FSB is set to 166MHz (as it should be) but it won't recognize it as a Barton 2500+ CPU... it always says it's unknown.

Anyone know what I can do to make it recognize it and have all values correct?

(My original thread about my weird temperatures can be found at http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=1044247 however it seems to be basically dead now and I figured the motherboard forum might help focus my attempts).

 

[mechBgon]

Sounds to me like MSI has a goofed-up BIOS flyin' around loose there! :Q How's the system performing under stress, does it seem as if it's running on 128kb of L2 cache instead of 512kb?

If you have the original Unreal Tournament on CD, and WinZip 8.1 installed, you can try my WinZip/UT benchie that's described in my second post in this thread. Given your system configuration, it should do this compression in about 2m 30s or less. Note the key item: use the Maximum compression level, not Normal.

A SETI@Home benchmark would be another one that could diagnose whether your CPU is using all its cache or not. I'm putting together a SETIbench for people to run, but the routine is mentioned in jhites' thread here and you should get a result of about 2.3 to 2.5 hours. If the CPU isn't using most of its cache then the time will probably be at least an hour longer than that. If you want to beta-test my SETIbench setup, I can email it to you to try.

 

[KF]

Like mechBgon says, this a screwed BIOS. WCPUID is repeating what it gets from the BIOS. (Although there are some CPU numbers WCPUID gets directly: model, stepping, which should be correct.) This is a new cheapo low for MSI, if not a flub. Unknown CPU generally means a CPU made after any of the ones the BIOS has info for. For instance, my 2 year old ABIT mobo has a fairly recently updated BIOS, but it does not know what an Athlon XP is: it is unknown CPU. That part of the BIOS wasn't updated. The mobo makers pay the people that they buy the BIOSes from for everything extra that is put in.

Somebody here should know what the model and steppin numbers for Bartons are.

 

[elbirth]

From what I've used of the computer so far, it seems to be running fine. The only games I've played so far are Medal of Honor: Spearhead and Command & Conquer: Generals, and both of those run great. I'm not really sure how 128K would compare to 512K, so I can't really say, though I'd like to say possibly 512K...
I have a copy of one of the original Unreal games that came with my old Voodoo3 3500 around here somewhere, so I'll try and find that to see. I'm interested in trying those benchmarks you spoke of, mechBgon, since that might help me see if it's just misreading the CPU or actually making it run slower.

It seems like all I can do for now is either attempt to return this motherboard and get something else, or just wait it out and see what MSI does in regards to properly recognizing this CPU....