detecting Processor

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jamie
  • Start date Start date
J

Jamie

more often then not my POST screen does not detect my processor but device
managaer does, I know this isn't that big of a problem but I was wondering
what causes it.
 
Jamie said:
more often then not my POST screen does not detect my processor but device
managaer does, I know this isn't that big of a problem but I was wondering
what causes it.

And the processor is?
 
Jamie said:

Hmm. Does the POST say ANYTHING about the processor? Does it complain
about the processor? Does it actually say "undetected/invalid" or some
other message, or does it simply skip listing the processor during POST?

I wouldn't worry about it TOO much, as perhaps the BIOS has somehow
hidden the info for some reason.
 
no it just skips the message lately and I was wondering what could be the
cause. I mean the processor is fine and whatnot . So what setting would
the BIOS have for that or is there one?
 
Jamie said:
no it just skips the message lately and I was wondering what could be the
cause. I mean the processor is fine and whatnot . So what setting would
the BIOS have for that or is there one?

Does it at least show the devices being detected (eg. hard
drives/optical drives)? Many BIOS' have the option to display a splash
screen and avoid printing the info that might "intimidate" computer
n00bs. In any case, check your BIOS settings for anything related to the
startup of the computer.
 
ya i have the "full screen display" off it shows all 4 IDE channels even
though I am only using 2. it is only recently it hasn't been showing the
processor
 
Jamie said:
ya i have the "full screen display" off it shows all 4 IDE channels even
though I am only using 2. it is only recently it hasn't been showing the
processor

Only recently? If you haven't been picking at the BIOS or modifying the
hardware to cause this change to occur, I'm afraid I'm out of ideas.

Cross your fingers and hope that nothing's wrong.
 
it works when it wants to, no biggie. I have RAM that is being replaced
mabe that is the cause I have no clue. I'm not worried it isn't like it is
a big issue or anything, thanks for the help
 
With Athlon XP's (and many others AMD CPUs, dont remember when they started,
but it is not so important now), BIOS automatically detects the CPU and sets
its namestring (both).
(yes, it is the namestring returned by CPUID instruction)

Windows (and many many other programs!) takes namestring set by BIOS and
displays it.
So if your system (Windows) says that you have "AMD Athlon 2800+" or
something this style, everything is OK.
(if it returns AuthenticAMD, something went wrong... try updating your BIOS)
BIOS just only doesn't display this string.

It can be up to 47+nul chars long (nul is used for termination)


Source:
AMD Processor Recognition Application Note, pages 97-100 ( 20734.pdf )

Have a nice day
Zdenek Sojka

Here is code to set namestring when booted from floppy and then
automatically continues boot from HDD:
(changes namestring to AMD Athlon XP 4200+ :-)
You need some software to compile this (NASM) and some to write to floppy
(rawrite)

org 7c00h

BOOT:
jmp near PRES

db 'SmatZ! '
dw 0x0200 ;bytes / sector
db 0x01 ;sects / cluster
dw 0x01 ;sektoru pred FAT (tento sektor)
db 0x02 ;pocet FAT
dw 0x00e0 ;polozek / root
dw 0x0b40 ;sects / partition
db 0xf0 ;deskriptor (typ) media
dw 0x0009 ;sect / FAT
dw 0x0012 ;sect / cyl
dw 0x0002 ;heads
dw 0x0000 ;skryte sektory
dw 0 ;special hidden sectors
dd 0 ;big total number of sectors
dw 0 ;fyzicke cislo disku
db 0x29 ;signatura rozsireneho boot-sektoru
dd -1 ;serial number
db 'NameString ' ;volume label
db 'FAT12 ' ;system souboru

PRES:
jmp 0:INIT

INIT:
pushad
push ds
push es
push fs

push word 0xb800
pop fs

mov dword [fs:0],0
mov dword [fs:4],0

xor ax,ax
mov ds,ax
mov es,ax

mov si,0x7c00
mov di,0x8000
mov cx,0x80
rep movsd

mov word [fs:0],0x0f30

jmp 0:MAIN+0x400

MAIN:
mov word [fs:2],0x0f31


mov ecx,0xc0010030

..l
mov eax,[ecx*8+NameString-0x10030*8+0x400]
mov edx,[ecx*8+NameString-0x10030*8+4+0x400]
wrmsr

inc ecx
cmp ecx,0xc0010036
jb .l

mov word [fs:4],0x0f32


mov dx,0x0080
mov cx,1
mov ax,0x0201
mov bx,0x7c00
int 0x13

mov word [fs:6],0x0f33


pop fs
pop es
pop ds
popad

jmp 0:0x7c00

NameString:
db 'AMD Athlon(tm) XP 4200+'
%if ($-NameString) > 47
%error "Prilis dlouhy retezec. Maximum je 47 znaku."
%endif
times 48-($-NameString) db 0

times 510-($-$$) db 0
dw 0xaa55
 
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