dual core convertion

Toxicseagull

Toxicseagull

Toxicseagull

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Joined
18 Sep 2006
Posts
122
hey, after reading around these forums a lot ive decided to join up, with a slight prompting as i have a issue i need to sort out, and you guys seem friendly and helpful.

i currently have a athlon 3200 64 and a a8n-vm csm asus (skt 939) motherboard. whilst not exactly amazing is perfectly fine as i do not OC or mod my hardware.

due to the recent price drop of athlons and my student like budget i have put off buying a duel core, but now i have my eye on a X2 4200.

now what changes will i have to do to my bios etc for this to work ok?
is anyone in the know if i need to update my bios to allow dual core? if so what version?
also is it true to utilise dual core effectivly you require XP pro? (i am not going to buy vista anytime soon)

any pointers for a relativly noobish pc builder are much appreciated in this step.
i have looked at the Asus website but it is one of the most unhelpful and frustrating websites ive come across in a long time.

again aprreciate any help :)
 
Welcome to the forums. I'd recommend a 3800 over the 4200 as it has the same amount of cache and is likely to overclock as well or if you don't want to overclock then try to save the extra for the 4400 as it has 1mb cache per core rather than the 512kb of the 3800 and 4200.

You don't need XP Pro for dual core, you do however need it for a multi-CPU system e.g. where you have separate physical processors. :)
 
yeh im confident it can support dual core..its just is there anything else i have to do apart from slot the thing in? software wise or anything?

also what PSU Wattage would you recommend... im runing a 400W with a 7600GT, athlon 3200, 1 gb ram, 2 HD's, 2 cd drives.


~edit~ thank you semi pro :) , again any news on any software change i would need to make? what do you think about power supply as mentioned above?
 
When you say 400w, what manufacturer is it? There is a world of difference between a 400w PSU from a generic brand and one from a decent manufacturer. It will probably be fine as they don't use hugely more power but of course because there are two cores it does mean more power required.

You may have to get a re-activation code for Windows from Microsoft when you install the new CPU or then again it may just blithely carry on, Windows can be strange like that. Your motherboard doesn't appear to make any mention of a specific bios revision being needed so I'd say that it should be fine but you may want to check your manual to see if earlier revisions supported X2 natively(from memory I think they were released after X2s started appearing so it should support it without any hassle).
 
im afraids its a "x-power" 400w. it claims 75% effeicenty and seems to (using asus probe) push 20 A along 12v rails so seems ok enough. but it is one of the things to be on my "to do list".

will a repair install be enough for windows or a full reinstall? as i have a OEM disc.....
another question if you dont mind.
can you describe whats the differeance apart from price betwen retail and oem? is it number of times a key can be used before you need to ring microsoft?


thank you both again for answearing
 
doran1801 said:
i would vote for a 3800 i have one and it has ran fine at 2.8 for weeks now at temps of 30-40c
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not on tht mobo m8 its not exaclty a overclocking one i think the oc options are just fsb increase and thts it lol
 
Toxicseagull said:
will a repair install be enough for windows or a full reinstall? as i have a OEM disc.....
another question if you dont mind.
can you describe whats the differeance apart from price betwen retail and oem? is it number of times a key can be used before you need to ring microsoft?
Click to expand...

My mum has the same motherboard with an X2 3800+ and it works great.

XP Home will support dual core fine and you shouldn't have to reinstall Windows. Just need to fire it up, Windows will detect a hardware change and then prompt you to reboot. After that you should be good to go.

As for the difference between retail and OEM, there isn't a lot in it. After a few activations you have to call Microsoft regardless of which you own. The only real differences, other than price, are that a). retail comes with a box and b). Microsoft won't give any support to end users for OEM versions. No big deal.
 
I swapped out a 3700 for an X2 3800, as stated above, windows detected it and asked me to reboot, once that was done everything worked perfectly without any other changes having to be made
 
Cal_G said:
I swapped out a 3700 for an X2 3800, as stated above, windows detected it and asked me to reboot, once that was done everything worked perfectly without any other changes having to be made
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You should install the AMD X2 driver and then run the AMD dual core optimizer after installing an AMD X2 CPU :)
 
Minstadave said:
You should install the AMD X2 driver and then run the AMD dual core optimizer after installing an AMD X2 CPU :)
Click to expand...

Did in the end and noticed no difference at all, worked fine without it ;)
 
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