P5K-VM + E8400 Asus not providing BIOS support

[fwkitziger]

Asus have yet to provide a BIOS nor have they placed the E8xxx on the CPU support list. Of course some shill review sites are publishing lists heralding support based on marketing guff from Asus. I have tried to get a positive response from Asus support and on Asus forums all to no avail. Even the P965 and non-VM P5K versions have BIOS for Wolfdale.

Is the P5K-VM a dead-end board? Will hardware review sites dare point out the marketing duplicity?

 

[jiffylube1024]

Hmm, strange, you seem to be right! According to their "CPU support" page the new 0602 BIOS added support for the QX9650 (Quad core 45nm Penryn), but they make no mention of Wolfdale Exxx series.

Have you tried an E8xxx in the board? Maybe they omitted it from the list?

If it doesn't work then that is annoying - perhaps try emailing them.

I've got an even older board - P5B-E based on the P965 chipset (with "45nm supported" written on the box), and with the latest BIOS my board supports Wolfdale (and I'm running an E8400 @ 3.8 GHz on it now). All the non-micro ATX P5K boards seem to have Wolfdale E8xxx support, but not yours.

 

[fwkitziger]

I pre-ordered an E8400 for $199, got it last Thursday, and have been trying to find anyone who's installed a Wolfdale on the board already. Over at HardOCP one chap tried an E8200, seemed to work at first but then ran into inconsistent POST issues and gave up. Other than that one, nobody's talking (http://www.hardforum.com/showt...php?t=1201758&page=12). The P5K-VM's all have fairly new Core2's so not a lot of folks out there ready to change. And by the time Penryn hit in January, P5E-VM's were supplanting the G33 board.

But for Asus to dead-end a top-end (at the time) MicroATX board is unusual and speaks volumes about the company. They did it to me on the pathetic MoDT MicroATX N4L-VM, so I guess this one is my fault. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me."

But if you're like 90% of the buyers out there and just check a 45nm support list propagated by Asus marketing and re-published at hardware review sites without any due diligence, then just who is to blame?

 

[fwkitziger]

Sorry to reply to my own post, but I got on my soapbox and forgot what I was saying.

I passed the E8400 to a friend with the G35 after newegg went out of stock and jacked up the price 30 bucks. RMA if it didn't work was not an option, and my kids would've killed me if I ripped open their Christmas gaming machine for a science project.

Posting the issue in the Asus (sorry excuse for a) support forum, moderator says: "Here is the listing of supported processors. The$1000.00 QX9650 is listed so other 45nm parts should work. But until a BIOS becomes available, a processor is not supported and use of an unsupported processor constitutes an 'improper use'...". I got an auto response from them on email, so I've turned to the better hardware sites to see if anyone has had success with an unsupported cpu on this board.