PII 940 and Asus MB question

[beeyang78]

I just ordered a new PII 940 processor after the price cut and now I need to upgrade my old processor with my new one which was an 140 Watt Phenom 9950. My MB is an Asus M3A and this is the tricky part. I had Bios version 501 installed when I first bought the board. I upgraded the Bios to the latest version 1001 thinking I would need to do that before it would take the new cpu. I tried to boot up with my 9950, but the Bios said that the CPU was not supported. So why is it that it worked when I was at an older BIOS. Anyways, I downgraded the Bios to whatever version was on the CD which was version 301. It boots up again fine but I am wondering if anyone has already tried installing a PII 940 on an ASUS M3a MB before? If you have, which Bios version works? I wouldn't mind doing a trail and error test run, but my cooler is anying to take off and put back together again because I have to take out the MB from the case everytime I take it out. It has screws that are used to hold it in place. Long story short, I just want to know if I am okay with the ASUS MB or do I have to upgrade my MB also? If so, which board would work best. I just want a cheap board with no frills like crossfire or dual SLI. I have an ATI 4850 and I think it should be fine for now. Thanks in advance!

 

[badge]

ASUS product page does not show BIOS support for the 9950 or the PII 940. BIOS version 1101 is the latest and shows no support for your processors. Sometimes the voltage regulators will not properly support a given CPU. If you read the product page forum, the messages support what I said.

http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M3A&product=1

http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=149&l3=592&l4=0&model=1934&modelmenu=1

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M3A

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20080906052115140&board_id=1&model=M3A&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=M3A&board_id=1

 

[beeyang78]

That's true and I read that, but the board does work with my 9950 and has for over a year now. So why would it work if they aren't supported? It's been fine and I have never had any issues with it at all. I guess I will have to just try it and see. It would be nice to know ahead of time but trial and error seems to be the case for now. I guess just because it's not supported doesn't mean it will not work as the case of the 9950. I think I will try with the old BIOS version first and just work my way up if I have to. Does anyone have the 501 Bios ROM they could give me? I would love to have that version instead of 301. It's not on the Asus site. Thanks for the reply.

 

[badge]

ASUS makes no mention your Mb supports 45nm PII processors. And there is no official BIOS release to support it. I doubt very seriously your board will support the PII 940. Ha, I wish my 945g rev.1 would support C2D. That's why I responded to this, I was researching a similar issue. You should post your question on the ASUS product page forum.

If you look at this list, there is one board with the 770 chipset that supports 45nm. I would venture an educated guess that particular board has the voltage regulators necessary and is possibly a (hardware) upgraded rev. 2 MB.

http://event.asus.com/mb/AM3_CPU_Support/

 

[PoSSe]

I have an M3A with an x2 5000, I also have a PII 940 sitting here, I'm trying to find out if I can use it with this board.
I'm tempted to install M3A78-ASUS-1001 bios update.

Anyone got it working with this board? If so can you tell me what I need to do?

Thank You.

 

[badge]

PII940 is not supported by M3A

I'm tempted to install M3A78-ASUS-1001 bios update.

The reason for M3A non support is not that ASUS has not issued a BIOS to support the PII940, the likely cause is the voltage regulators your board came with will not provide the 125w the processor needs.

 

[PoSSe]

Ok, I researched the asus forums and some users have it working. The board was originally sold to support 125w but at sometime asus decided to say it didn't. Anyway I downloaded and installed the newest bios drivers 1102 (for the M3A) shut it down and installed the 940 and it booted right up. I just typed this on my new setup.

Thanks for the reply.