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switching out CPU's

vtohthree

Senior member
I don't see why, but I'm just going to ask out of lack of experience anyways. I have my s939 board with a single core(in my sig) and I'm about to switch in a dual core opteron 170 chip in there.

Do/should I reformat the computer, or will it be fine just swapping out the cpu?

And..while I'm at it.. is there anything I should be aware of for the single to dual core switch as far as drivers and motherboard bios goes?(I have a DFI nf4ultra-D, in sig)

From what I've read, the board should take it as is, but I also read that there were stability issues reguardless because there should be some flashing or drivers to be installed, etc.

 
As long as you have a new enough bios to recognize the dual core right off the bat, shouldn't have any trouble, windows should detect the dual core, and update to the mulitproccessor HAL on it's own(you can check this, by going to device manager, and looking under computer, it should show ACPI mulitproccessor PC there, and show 2 CPU's under proccessor.
 
No you do not have to reformat the hard drive. Windows should not have any trouble with these changes. All you need to do is remove the old heat sink, pull on the lever holding the old CPU in place and remove the old processor. Next you align the old CPU's corners up with the socket. If the CPU does not drop right in then it is mis-aligned or mis-orented. Try rotating it but do not force it in the socket. Once it has been placed in the socket lock the lever down and reinstall the new heatsink that came with the CPU.
 
Originally posted by: stevty2889
As long as you have a new enough bios to recognize the dual core right off the bat, shouldn't have any trouble, windows should detect the dual core, and update to the mulitproccessor HAL on it's own(you can check this, by going to device manager, and looking under computer, it should show ACPI mulitproccessor PC there, and show 2 CPU's under proccessor.


That's great to hear, thanks. I will check for that once the chip arrives. What about the answer to the first question, is it ok to just plug and play without any reformatting? Leave my HDD how it is?
 
I thought Xp would freak doing this but it sounds like you know from experience. When I switch a m/b that requires a different hal I have to switch it manually. Usually in dos.
 
Been there, done that. Windows will put up its leetle "New Hardware Found" balloon saying "w00t, I found an ACPI Multiprocessor PC! dude, reboot please! 😎" and then you can reboot, install the AMD processor driver, and get right down to some gnarly multitasking 🙂
 
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