All,

That information is not available to me.

HI Chris much appreciated the quick reply, So what are we supposed to do if you dont even know ?? i think its a bit bad of Dell to release upgrades and not tell there staff, Is there anybody i can email direct that may be able to tell me and possibly you so you know because i want to upgrade but i want to know what to please advise.

Kindest Regards

As a general rule, if you are not experiencing any problems and the BIOS update is not stated as "urgent" then it is not necessary to update it.  I have updated my BIOS twice on my Inspiron 530.  One was stated as "urgent" and the other time was because I was upgrading my memory so I wanted to have the latest BIOS version.  Outside of memory upgrades, I would not be too concerned about it since I would not see any benefit to it based only on "supports new CPU" if you are not experiencing any problems.  The last BIOS version (1.0.12) said exactly the same thing.  At least the (1.0.11) stated as "urgent" showed support for a specific CPU.  However, it's up to you.  Just don't lose power during the process which is always my worry since it happens often. 

Going strickly by the release date of the latest Athlon 64 X2 processor, the 5050e is the only AM2 socket processor released since the 1.0.12 BIOS update.

just a quickie do you find your 6400 chip runs hot if not how have you updated it so it doesnt please cos thats the chip i want to run:emotion-4:

Long story short, when I first put it in I was creating DVDs from my photos and it got real hot.  Installed a Zalman 9700 and it was good most of the time.  Later installed an Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 89W 3.1Ghz Brisbane and finished by photos.  Put the 6400+ back in, with original heatsink, and its been fine.  So if you game or run other heavy usage apps it does get hot.  All I do now is email, internet and every so often burn a CD and it doesn't get over 55°C.

I'm wondering (actually hoping) that this bios update will allow socket AM3 chips to be used.

According to wikipedia - AM3 chips will run on AM2 motherboards with a firmware / bios update.

AM3 was released 2/9/2009.

10 days later - we have a new bios update released.  And it says "supports new CPU".  Could it be the new AM3 chips?  Can anyone confirm this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socket_am3

Can we get an update on this?  what suppoprt does 1.0.13 specifically add?

jwhst19,

They have not sent that out. is there a specific processor you want to try in the Inspiron Desktop 531?

Supposedly AM3 processors will work on AM2/AM2+ with a BIOS update.  There is a question if this is indeed that BIOS update.