Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Flying Fox, morphine
Mr. Camel wrote:I don't have an Asus motherboard.
just brew it! wrote:Unless you're running legacy software that requires Windows 7, keep this in mind. You're talking about a fairly old CPU in an HP box.Given the age of the system, it is probably appropriate to ask yourself how much effort you're willing to spend fixing this issue. If the motherboard has solid-state caps in the CPU VRMs it may still have a few good years left; but if it has old-school wet electrolytics I'd say you're on borrowed time already and this system ought to be retired as soon as you can afford to replace it.
bfg-9000 wrote:Hmmm...so if this is a bios limitation, was there ever a hacked bios that could fully restore normal operation? I know the guy on the bios-mods forum are pretty good at this, especially when there is a full functional derivative of a crippled board.Mr. Camel wrote:I don't have an Asus motherboard.
Pegatron was spun off from ASUS in 2007 (in 2010 they bought Asrock which had been spun off from ASUS in 2002) which is why most IPIBL motherboards listed for sale are listed as ASUS.
As your board was designed before this, ASUS engineers wrote the original BIOS for it and customized it to HP's specifications, which undoubtedly hid most of the normally adjustable settings from view in order to minimize support calls and RMA due to misconfiguration. Unfortunately in this case it forces you to accept the default setting of "CPU TM function" enabled, so the BIOS performs its crude multiplier throttling before the internal processor throttling (which can drop a Core 2 to as low as 200MHz effective, by inserting stop-clock T-wait-states) can occur. The problem is, unlike the elegant internal CPU throttling mechanism, this keeps things throttled to 6x even after the load causing the overheat condition is removed, just one of the dumb "features" of ASUS' BIOS programming.
Best to clean the heatsink as best you can, and repaste. That Q9650 only draws ~72w at 3.0GHz despite its 95w TDP rating, so even a clean stock heatsink should be able to keep this from happening unless running something like Linpack.
superjawes wrote:Those are the prices of just the processors. The Q9650 goes for half those at $35, and the motherboards and ram are cheaper as well. Either of those systems fully built will be $150+ while you can pick up used Q9650 systems for $50 if you look in the right places.just brew it! wrote:Unless you're running legacy software that requires Windows 7, keep this in mind. You're talking about a fairly old CPU in an HP box.Given the age of the system, it is probably appropriate to ask yourself how much effort you're willing to spend fixing this issue. If the motherboard has solid-state caps in the CPU VRMs it may still have a few good years left; but if it has old-school wet electrolytics I'd say you're on borrowed time already and this system ought to be retired as soon as you can afford to replace it.
For reference, Intel i3-9100F for $111.50 @ Newegg and AMD Ryzen 3 1200 for $64.99 @ Newegg. Those are the cheapest modern offerings from each team that match the quad core and 3.0+ GHz specs of your 9650.
bfg-9000 wrote:I've had good luck finding everything for all of our HP stuff that's at least 10yrs old like the dx2300, dl380 g5, 8760w and more.HP have been systematically removing old PC drivers, manuals and BIOSes from their website for many years now (yet everything for 20+ year old printers still seems to be there). You'll have to browse the 3rd-party mirrors, and once you know the exact file name chances are good it's still on HP's FTP servers too--in case you are leery of downloading such a thing from a 3rd party.
Of course you have to extract the BIOS file from the softpaq, then it should be a simple matter for someone on one of those forums to toggle one default setting.
That's if it does run fine at 3GHz with a clean heatsink, at least until you put it under serious load. I have never had to change this setting below 3.6GHz for a 45nm quad, but then I have never used such crappy cooling as stock Core 2. Even the OEM Socket 775 cooling for 115w Prescott or 130w Pentium D was better than that.
As an aside, Win 10 can indeed misreport actual CPU speeds and in some cases even make CPU-Z report the wrong speed, but OP is running Windows 7-64. Note if a Core 2 is installed in a i865 or i875 or VIA PT880 chipset board, then it could even run Win 9x and dual-boot Win 10-64. Try that with your fancy i3.
Topinio wrote:I too would like to know the model number.I'm might regret asking, but (1) what exact model HP is it, (2) what is different to the shipping configuration (hardware/software), and (3) did it ever work at 3.0 GHz?
Edit: asking because that could well have been a Vista or XP machine...
bfg-9000 wrote:Yeah, the only real driver you'd need would be a video card and if you can find a PCI card with drivers, that would seal the deal on that.As a matter of fact, someone did manage to get Windows For Workgroups 3.11 running on a Core 2 but obviously with unsupported drivers. The video driver was for a VM and he had to build his own sound card, but at least there are official Intel gigabit DOS drivers (I used to use those with a Ghost floppy!).
In contrast, the hardware mentioned in my last post is fully supported by both official Win9x and Windows 10 drivers.
LoneWolf15 wrote:Has someone mentioned removing the CMOS battery yet, metering it, and if necessary replacing it?
A failing CMOS battery can sometimes cause quirky behavior, and a CR-2032 is cheap.
After that, I'd ensure the BIOS is defaulted, the system is cleaned thoroughly to get rid of any dust, and I'd remove the heatsink/fan, clean it and the CPU, and re-apply thermal compound.
I'd also inspect the system board very thoroughly for bad or leaking capacitors.