E5450 G41MXE 771/775 Mod

[XigXag]

Hi all.

I wanted to build a gaming PC on the cheap and read up on modding a 771 processor and 775 board for compatibility and decided to give it a crack, first tried with an IPMEL-AE board which I already had with limited performance if I could make it to the desktop (would often hang on the 'starting windows' screen'. Now I've got a Foxconn G41MXE board which I've modded to fit the E5450 and had no luck. I've also fitted a Q6600 which also didn't POST despite being officially supported.

I've attempted to update the BIOS with no luck (both by USB and DVD), I'm just left with a flashing underscore on a black screen. Anything I'm missing?

Any ideas?

The Q6600 should work, but doesn't. I'm assuming it's struggling with the Quad cores as it works fine with my OC'd Pentium E2160 on 333mhz bus and 3GHz core speed.

 

[XigXag]

Found out that I'm going to have to update to latest BIOS in order to support the Quad core 65+ TDP processors.

Anyone got any suggestions for updating the BIOS? Been trying to use the 3 files downloaded from the foxconn site but AFUDOS is sh*te and just hangs on the black screen with the flashing underscore. I've turned BIOS write protection off, legacy support on and also tried with a DVD aswell.

This is just making me want to put an axe into my computer at the moment so any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[XigXag]

Right, updated the bios to the latest release and it still won't post with either the Q6600 or the E5450. It will post with both pentium e2160 and e5300 though.

Anyone know if it there's an option in the later bios update which i've missed and need to change the value of in order to run a quad core?

Bare in mind I have put the E5450 into another board to see if it will post and it does, I can see the specs in the BIOS, however that board won't run the processor properly, hence the new board.

 

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The moment I've got it all up and running I intend on coming back to this thread to fill in what I've done to get it going. You know, in case anyone else has problems similar to mine. It also helps me keep track of what I've done lol.

I think the Q6600 may be duff as I've just tried it in an old work 775 socket computer and it also wouldn't post.

Performance shouldn't be too bad anyway, specs:
Xeon E5450 3GHz
Sapphire HD6950 2GB
8GB DDR3 1333MHz Crucial Ballistix
Arctic Freezer 13 CPU Cooler
Corsair CS600M (or something)
Some crappy old 7200rpm 150GB HDD (lol)

Once again, though. If anyone has any bloody ideas to get this thing to boot it would be massively appreciated!

 

[XigXag]

Right, bit of an odd one here. I've managed to get it working with the E5450 perfectly fine. Problem is, I've had to use my old Hynix (or something) 2GB 1333mhz RAM to get it booting. So that's 2x 2GB 1333MHz and recognised as such in the BIOS.

Now does any body have any clue at all as to why it won't even POST with my 2x 4GB 1333MHz Crucial Ballistix and the Xeon together? I just get the Smart LED feature producing the code that indicates there is no RAM fitted. Bare in mind the Crucial RAM worked perfectly with both of my Pentium Dual Cores (E2160 and E5300) but neither of my Quads either as 1 stick on it's own or both together.

This really is peculiar.

Gonna do a quick WEI test to find out how it's performing artificially and later on I'll be on BF3 for some proper benchmarking.

 

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It's all together and working on the ****** RAM. Can happily play BF3 on Ultra at 30-50FPS. Not bothered overclocking tonight as I've had a few and can't be arsed with the resets/trail and error.

Fox Update says I'm on the latest drivers/firmware, I only realised this program existed after I'd flashed the BIOS and by then I was up to date.

Surely the processor has bugger all to do with the compatibility regarding the RAM, all about the motherboard. The G41MXE should support my RAM, see no reason not to. It's running on 1333MHz RAM at the moment, just 4GB instead of 8GB.

For anyone that's interested, I may be attempting to overclock both the GPU and CPU tomorrow if I have time. GPU I'm aiming for HD6970 specs (dont suggest the shader unlock, already bricked one BIOS on the card. Thank god for dual BIOS!) and I'll be happy if I can reach 3.6GHz on this board with the E5450.

 

[XigXag]

fox one wont overclock your cpu that much i have already tryed with autoclock on fox one! i had a similiar problem with ram on my g31mx board had to change to different ram windows 7 was saying 4gb but only 2.75 usuable, it was reserving extra ram for graphics card as hardware reserve. have you looked in ms config?

Yeah, I'm planning on steering clear of Fox One and seeing how far I can get with the BIOS. Even a slight overclock will keep me happy.

It's no problem with Windows 7 recognising the RAM as it had already recognised all 8GB when I was using the Pentiums. The problem is it won't even boot with 4GB sticks and the Xeon but will with 2GB sticks.

I had not even considered the reserve memory for graphics as I'm using a 2GB HD6950 and it just never crossed my mind. That'll be something to try when I get home.

No I've not, what parameters could I change from msconfig which may help?

 

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seems strange ill have keep an eye o nthe thread see if you manage get the 8gb to work one the reason i was going for this cheap setup was to have 8gb ram as it was going to be a media center pc once ive built my new pc out of interest how much has it roughly cost you to build

I'm going to return the Crucial RAM I've bought in exchange for some Kingston KVR1333D3N9, which according to the Foxconn website is officially supported by the G41MXE. I've also been speaking to someone on another forum who has also completed this mod and am pretty sure is running 8GB DDR3, so I'm going to find out which RAM he's running.

I'm not entirely sure to be honest, what started off as an attempt at a cheap build quickly turned into a headache, money has been spent lol. But only really on second hand/refurbished parts and deals I've come across. Maybe £250? Not really that bad considering the performance. (and my first attempt at building a PC, jumped straight in the deep end lol)

My intention was to stick with the mobo/cpu combo untill it could no longer deal with the games I want to play and then move onto something a lot more current, FX6300 or something. I opted for DDR3 as I honestly have no DDR2 lying around and 8GB DDR2 is far more expensive than DDR3.

Yeah turns out the G41 really doesn't like overclocking, i think it may be part fault of my ****** ram though. Only took it up to 350 bus speed last night and it would hang on startup. Not too bothered though, running BF3 on ultra the GPU runs at 100% and CPU at around 90%, so the GPU will be the next to OC.

Honestly it's been a headache, but if you don't mind putting the effort in, you'll probably be more than happy with the outcome, especially if you run it with a 270x, a friend has one and it's amazing (apparently).

 

[XigXag]

yes mate its meant to be equiv to a 7870 so i beleive will be looking at the 4gb version for more v ram im just waiting to see wether intel replace my i7 if they dont ill defo be doing the mod because it going be a muck around also as i have a 775 phase change cooler i got cheap off the bay i still not got round to using seems a good little system bringing old tech to life only let down i suppose is no hyperthreading but thats not a problem not many games use that many cores

also you will have let me know how you get on with the kingston as the intel board i will be getting is funny with ram also and im sure that is the kingston ram i will have to use

4GB version's probably a good shout. Yeah it's worth doing if you fancy a little challenge, definitely get better performance for the money you pay compared to something a little newer. I've not got as far as ordering the kingston ram yet as I've been a bit busy with work/college but it's top of the list. Also going to be getting a 1TB Seagate SV35 HDD later next week which I'm also hoping will improve performance.

You're bloody right there Mrjobby, highest I can go stable is 343MHz for a whacking great OC to 3.08Ghz.. Ahwell, this board was the cheapest option while retaining DDR3 RAM.

On the plus side, OCing the HD6950 to 840MHz Core and 1250MHz mem with a 1.11VDDC has raisied graphics performance slightly.

Benchmarked with 3Dmark and real life tests on BF3.

 

[XigXag]

Right, some updates here.

Fitted the new 1TB Seagate SV35 and that's noticeably increased speed on the computer, boot time is less than half of that with the old 160GB Barracuda.

Bought 2x 4GB GSkill Ripjaw 1066MHz RAM after speaking to someone on another forum who went through the same problem as me and overcame them using this RAM. Unfortunately, it just resulted in the same old LED flashing sequence meaning it's detected no RAM. I've tried setting the RAM speed to 800MHz, I've tried putting the jumper on both the standard and OC setting on the board for the RAM, I've even tried manually setting the timings to 8-8-8-24 (Stock 7-7-7-18) and that just resulted in a black screen, no flashing LED sequence weirdly. All of this was done by putting my old RAM back in to reset the settings and try again. As you can imagine, I'm pretty fed up with that now...

As before.. Any help would be much appreciated.

If not, I'll probably buy an i7/FX8350 and new board in a month or 2 lol.

 

[XigXag]

Right, this will probably be my last update regarding the E5450 as I've just acquired an i7 for cheap lol.

It actually turned out better than I thought, I've been mostly playing CS:GO recently without the FPS ever dropping below 100, but what's surprised me the most is it's ability to play both Arma 2 and DayZ on very high settings with draw distances turned up and resolutions on 100% without a problem, a DayZ server I joined had an FPS monitor and was showing between 35-50fps solid.

I noticed there aren't really any threads regarding these old Xeons and gaming so to anyone else thinking about doing this mod, for whatever reasons (cost was mine, first gaming PC), you'll probably be more than happy with the outcome, it can happily run multiple tasks even with a game in the background without a glitch, but I wouldn't expect modern day i5/i7 performance out of it.