Bios and HyperThreading

Question

Dell recently posted saying that although the Intel 850 chipset found in the 8200 supports Hyperthreading Technolgy, they would not release a Bios update so that the 8200 would support HT.

This truly shocks me. First Dell made the mistake of telling all of us that HT was supported, now they say "sorry for being idiots, but what we told you wasn't true because we don't know what we are talking about here at Dell."

One of the reasons I upgraded to a 2.6 400fsb from a 2.0 was because I was led to believe that HT would be supported. Dell is the weak link in this situation. My motherboard supports HT, my processor supports HT, but Dell will not get off their arces and upgrade their BIOS. Why NOT DELL??? Too expensive to help out your customers?

I am really dissapointed in Dell here. I truly feel let down by Dell. Something like this may seem like a small deal to you, Dell, but let me tell you, it's the little things like this that makes the decision to NEVER buy Dell again really easy...

volcano11 · Answer

In my opinion, they never did the bait and swithch on you. Steve

didinanm · Answer

wrong fsb speed... thanks for the info, any idea why Dell did the bate and switch on us???

volcano11 · Answer

If you go over to the Dimension - Upgrade Hardware forum, your can find any post by Spongebob Squarpants, you will find an link to his 8200 page where you can download BIOS version A09 that supports hyperthreading on the 8200. This BIOS was released and posted on the Dell support site, and then later pulled from the support site and replaced with an A09 version that does not support hyperthreading.

Steve

denyboy · Answer

First if you have an 8200 with a 850 chipset it only supports 400mhz processors none of which have HT. Second, if you have an 8200 with a 850E chipset it will support 400 or 533mhz processors and the only processor in that group that is HT capable is the 3.06 -533mhz. So to use HT on the 8200 you need the special bios, the 850E chipset and the 3.06- 533mhz processor. Although the 8200 is a decent computer ( I still love mine) it is old technology now

GvrnrX2 · Answer

Here's the link to Spongebob Squarepants upgrade site http://www.spongebobsupgradesite.com/spongebobsupgradesite/index.html

CMB · Answer

I have an 8200 2.26 533FSB and I did get the BIOS with HT before Dell removed it from their site. BUT I dont believe the bios supports PC1066 RDRam so what would be the point in upgrading?

wero · Answer

CMB can you IM those bios to me to see if mine work

wero · Answer

4600 2.40  533  gonzalo267@aol

didinanm · Answer

with a locked fsb of 533, there is no point in trying to put even faster memory in that system, you will never enjoy the bandwith of the memory with a 533 fsb, hell that PC doesn't even make full use of PC800.

You want your FSB and memory speed to match, to make use of the available bandwith. that's why a 800fsb works perfectly with rambus PC800, and for non rambus users, a 800fsb works perfectly with DDR400 or PC3200. DDR400x2 = 800mhz.

So...if your FSB can't support higher memory speeds, don't bother wasting your money.

didinanm · Answer

umm...memory has nothing to do with Hyperthreading, so if your processor is capable of hyperthreading, you want it.  It will dramatically improve performance when running multiple programs.  Hyperthreading is actually pretty neat.  Your PC acts like there are two processors in there!

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Bios and HyperThreading

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