dell workstation 400 dual processor issue

[notnkansasanymor]

Hello All,
I have a bit of a confusing issue. I have an old Dell Workstation 400 that had 1 P2 300 Mhz processor and a bridge installed on a two processor motherboard. Original set up contained the 300 processor in slot 1 and bridge in slot 2. I have attempted to add two P2 333 processors, have changed the jumper setting to allow 333, and have configured the OS to recognize multiprocessors, and it will still only boot on one processor, the 333 processor in slot 2. I can interchange the processors and I still boot and run on the processor in slot 2. If I put one of the 333 processors in slot 1 and the bridge in slot 2 I cannot boot at all…no POST beep or anything. The processors are the same stepping, family, and model---x86 Family 6 Model 5 Stepping 2 333~. The BIOS should support this…it is a Phoenix BIOS Version A05. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bronibbear]

As far as I know you can’t utilize the dual processor system using the Win9x family. You must have at least WinNT 4.0, 2000 or XP to run them.

 

[Crashman]

Doesn't this board have removable Voltage Regulator Modules? If so, you need 2 of those to run the thing with 2 CPU's. See if there's an empty slot bracket, around 2 inches long, anywhere on the board.

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[notnkansasanymor]

There aren't any VRMs on the board. The OS I am running is 2000 Server so it should recognize the 2 CPUs. The odd thing it that the P2 333 will work in slot 2 but not the primary slot (i.e. if I put one in slot 1 and one in slot 2 the one in slot 2 works). However, the p2 300 will work fine in slot 1 with the bridge in slot 2, so I know I do not have a bad slot. I have additionally swapped the P2 333s in slot 2 and both of them have worked so I know I don't have a bad processor. Any additional ideas would be welcome.

 

[jclw]

Try asking at <A HREF="http://www.2cpu.com" target="_new">2cpu.com</A>

*Dual PIII-800 @900 i440BX and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[notnkansasanymor]

Thanks. I will post there and see what happens...