P4S533X Support for Celeron D

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sam Cheung
  • Start date Start date
"Sam Cheung" said:
So ASUS will no longer support their older mother boards!
Click to expand...

Asus does support their older boards, but there are obviously
limits, and the limits are not documented for us to judge.
Celeron D was supposed to be a drop in replacement,
but some early experience with them, was systems would black
screen if they were inserted. A BIOS upgrade fixed that problem.
But the thing is, don't expect Asus to put BIOS support for a
processor into a new version of the BIOS, if the current supply
characteristics of the Vcore regulator are not up to the task.
And that is the part that we cannot judge. If Asus documented
the upper current limit for their Vcore regulator, then we
could tell you whether it was safe to use a Celeron D or not.
In some cases, it is possible to reverse engineer the design
and make some educated guesses, but guesses do not provide
precise numbers, suitable for making decisions. In some cases
the older Celerons used 40 amps, and some of the new ones run
around 60 amps, and it is hard to say whether Vcore is rated
for that or not.

In any case, you should be taking this up with Asus tech support.
A few of their phone support staff are apparently excellent, and
know a few things about the boards that aren't documented. So,
they may know whether a Celeron D is definitely impossible to use
in there or not. If you try the email route, you may be less than
impressed.

There are always users, who by accident or on purpose, test
processors they are not supposed to be using in the motherboards.
Sometimes, these experiments become a trend (like using XP-M
mobile processors on AMD boards), but never get official support
from Asus. But, in this case, I've never seen any info concerning
hacking Celeron D support for a BIOS, so I'm unaware of anyone
trying this on any board, let alone the P4S533-X. Try a search
in Google, then look in the private forums, to see whether this
experiment has been tried.

If you are doing an upgrade, what is wrong with a P4 Northwood
3.06/FSB533/512KB cache processor ? I would expect more performance
from that, then the fastest Celeron D. The Celeron D has a longer
pipeline, so the 256KB cache on it, is equivalent to the 128KB
cache on a Northwood Celeron. The 512KB cache on a P4 Northwood
should work better than either type of Celeron. AFAIK, production
has stopped on the 3.06Ghz, so you may have to shop around a
bit to find one.

If you look in Pricewatch, there are a few companies offering
3.06GHz processors. (Note - this list includes Xeons, as well
as regular processors, so examine the details carefully. You
can look up the processor models on processorfinder.intel.com
and you can phone the vendor and ask for SSPEC or order code,
to verify you are getting a Northwood regular desktop processor.)

I hope I've hacked this frame properly. The entry at the top of
the Pricewatch list, is our good friends at Powerleap. They sell
upgrades for old computers, and have a habit of buying up a
load of processors, just before they go out of production. They
had 2.8GHz/FSB400 processors for a previous generation of
FSB400 only motherboards, and now they are offering the
3.06GHz/FSB533 for $199 plus shipping. If you check the prices
of various models of 3GHz processors on Newegg, this price is
roughly in the same range, so they aren't gouging customers (yet).

http://www.pricewatch.com/h/prc.aspx?i=3&a=4981

The phone call to Asus is a toll call - there is no 1-800
for that service that I am aware of. If tech support is
busy, and they expect your call to take a while, they will
offer to phone you back. Sometimes they do phone, and sometimes
not. Like any support service, there are never enough of them.

Good luck,
Paul
 
Paul,

Thank you for the details. The problem is - I have already bought a Celeron
D 2.8GHz and could not use it on the ASUS 533 Motherboard. I sold my old
1.7Ghz to a colleague and was hoping to upgrade to a 2.8 GHz Celeron. No
display and I thought the shop sold me a defective CPU and I drove 60kms one
way, only to discover, this so called Hyper-threading MB does not support
Celeron D! Now this machine is idle at my basement.

Now I am using a slow 900MHz AMD Athlon on another ASUS MB with Windows98.
Its extremely slow especially with video stuff.

Please provide me the ASUS e-mail address you mentioned below that I can get
support. Thanks.

Sam
 
I guess its hopeless for ASUS to support this motherboard. ASUS is no
longer supporting their BIOS upgrade. Why should I pay more for ASUS!
 
"Sam Cheung" said:
Paul,

Thank you for the details. The problem is - I have already bought a Celeron
D 2.8GHz and could not use it on the ASUS 533 Motherboard. I sold my old
1.7Ghz to a colleague and was hoping to upgrade to a 2.8 GHz Celeron. No
display and I thought the shop sold me a defective CPU and I drove 60kms one
way, only to discover, this so called Hyper-threading MB does not support
Celeron D! Now this machine is idle at my basement.

Now I am using a slow 900MHz AMD Athlon on another ASUS MB with Windows98.
Its extremely slow especially with video stuff.

Please provide me the ASUS e-mail address you mentioned below that I can get
support. Thanks.

Sam
Click to expand...

There is a contact link on the main web page of each site.
This is an example:

http://usa.asus.com/contact/contactindex.htm

tsd AT "asus.com" is the main email address. Due to the volume
of spam, the chances of getting an answer are limited, and
the respondent may not have English as their main language.
That is why the results can be frustrating, and phoning the
tech support in North America may yield a more useful (and
more expensive, in terms of phone bill) dialog.

When I wrote to Asus, to complain about web site problems,
it took three or four days for a response, and I didn't
get any email back. Just the site got fixed.

You have to remember, that at their peak, Asus was selling
2 million motherboards per month, and the company at one
time reported it had 5000 employees. Most of those will
be in manufacturing. There aren't that many people in
support, and the number that speak English will also
be limited. Personally, I would be surprised if I got
any answer to an email inquiry at all. Thus, the phone is
the best route to take, if you really need an answer
about a product.

The cpusupport web page makes it pretty clear what
products are supported. You can even select "Celeron D"
from the processor list, and find a cheap Celeron D
compatible motherboard, to use your processor.

Not all Asus motherboards are winners. I like the more
expensive ones, because they have the Voice POST, that
can give a little more info when the board is failing.
Boards with dual channel memory, lots of BIOS options
for modding stuff - those are what I would look for.

And, like everything computer related, when Asus products
first come out, they have many rough edges, caused by the
BIOS not being finished development. No matter which
motherboard maker you select, Google and make sure that
the BIOS receives frequent updates (Asus server boards don't
get that), and the manufacturer is responding to customer
complaints. Selecting a mature motherboard will mean that
development is finished, and the board is at its best
(like the P4C800-E I got). That is the best you can do.

HTH,
Paul
 
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