Attachment uploads are currently disabled. This is a temporary situation and will resume as normal in the coming days.
UNSOLVED
Dimension 8200/ Bios A09 Hyperthreading
In the "Memory Descriptions: Dimension 8200_4550 memory information" thread at the top of this forum it says:
Dell is not planning to release a BIOS update for our Dimension 8200 systems in order to enable Hyper threading. The early release of the 8200 A09 bios stated that hyper threading was supported. Dell apologizes for the confusion and misunderstanding, but in fact the information in the A09 BIOS release notes was incorrect. The 8200 does not support Hyper-Threading processors. Dell is correcting the notes on the A09 BIOS and is writing an article for the Dell Knowledgebase that will be available in the next week that will provide a better explanation. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes.
I was wondering why the 8200 does not support Hyper-Threading processors and where I can find the article that was supposed to be added to the Dell Knowledgebase.
JOKERSWILD
2 Intern
•
1448 Posts
508
0
Posted March 26th, 2004 01:00
I have the a09 hyperthreading bios dell put out that day. I downloaded it from Spongebobs website. Sponge as well as others have been using it for quite awhile now, but it only works with the 3.06 cpu. Dell won't support it but who cares. I'd give you his website but I rebooted and lost it. Maybe someone else has it.- The A09 on sponge's site was an official Dell released bios. If you check the release notes it will tell you what it supports. Dell later pulled the bios from their site, reissued A09 without HT and said a mistake had been made. Their official word is it does not support HT, however users with the 3.06 533mhz are able to enable HT. The bios is a stable bios. I have a 1.8 400mhz and have been using the bios since it was released . You would also have to make sure your board is an 850E chipset capable of a 533mhz processor
I would say that is correct. If your computer shipped with a 533mhz processor you have an 850E chipset. Mostly all that shipped after mid May 2002 came with the 850E chipset. You can tell for sure by examining the chipset. Be careful if you run a program to determine your chipset. Even the Intel chipset utility will give you a wrong reading if you have a 850 chipset(it will report it as a 80850E) That said, it has been reported the utility on the Powerleap site will report correctly.
- When I look under the "Original Configuration" section for my system on this support site it says:
1T751 Assembly, Card (Circuit), Planar (Motherboard), 850E, Transformer Sky Dive Minitower, Dimension
I assume that the 850E is indeed referring to the chipset - Yeah I read about all those things saying if you got your system after this date its that chipset and blah blah blah. I got mine about July 2002 and its a P4 2.0 Ghz with a 400Mhz FSB. I'll definatly physically check the board before buying any cpu upgrade
I upgraded my original 1.9 GHz Dimension 8200 by changing the mobo to a 1T751 and used the a09 BIOS from sponge bob's site. Hyperthreading works but the only processor that supports it is the 3.06GHz 533MHz.
You can also look at the white Dell sticker on the mobo for part number if you don't want to pull up the heatsink that is over the northbridge chip. There seems to be a collection of part numbers for the 850E mobo's. I know of at least three.
Dimension 8200
Pentium 4 - 3.06Ghz 533Mhz with/Hyperthreading Enabled
1024MB ( 1 Gig ) Samsung PC800 40NS RDRAM
120GB Western Digital Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Cache
160GB Western Digital Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Cache
128MB ATI Radeon 9800 PRO Graphic Card
Liteon 16X DVD-Rom Drive
Sony DRU-500AX Dual Format DVD-RW
RATOC Systems USB 2.0/Firewire PCI Card With Front Bay Adapter
Silencer 400 Watt ATX Power Supply
THX Certified Sound Blaster Audigy II ZS Sound Card
Creative Inspire 7.1 T7700 Surround Speakers
Dell P992 19" CRT Monitor
Win XP Home SP1
Logitech Elite Cordless Duo Keyboard
Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse
10/100 Pro Ethernet Card
Motorola SB5100 Surfboard Cable Modem
SourWorm
11 Posts
508
0
Posted March 26th, 2004 01:00
Yeah I actually did find his site, curious to hear from other people who were able to get it and have it working. I still want to hear an official response from some Dell people though.
I am thinking of upgrading my processor and I'll go with the 3.06Ghz cpu if Hyper-Threading will work, but I'll probably go with the 2.80 Ghz if it doesn't work since the price difference in my opinion won't be worth it without HT.
Message Edited by SourWorm on 03-25-2004 11:02 PM