HP MCP61PM-HM (Nettle2) 5.27 With Unlocked Overclocking Options

[EvergreenPC]

yep .. i have to echo the experiences of others ... flashed the M613Z_19.BIN onto a Nettle2 (rev. 1.0b) and all I got were RAM speed changes and CPU speed tweaks. Tried a Phenom 9600 and an Athlon II 240 and neither would POST. One good thing about this different BIOS ... it greatly improves the overall speed of the motherboard. Using an Athlon 64 X2 4600+ now ... going to try and get my hands on a 6000+ or 6400+ and see if it works.

Any idea why Phenoms don't work ??

[delgriffth]

So I successfully flashed this but my fans were running too loud. I've got the fans set to auto and that slowed them.down from the initial flash but they're still way louder them OEM. So I flashed back to OEM 5.27 with success. However now the bios will only boot in diagnostic even after I've disabled it in bios. Anyone know of a way to A) use modded BIOS and quiet the fans or B) get OEM bios to boot with boot diagnostic disabled. Thanks.

[Oblivious Maximus]

So I successfully flashed this but my fans were running too loud. I've got the fans set to auto and that slowed them.down from the initial flash but they're still way louder them OEM. So I flashed back to OEM 5.27 with success. However now the bios will only boot in diagnostic even after I've disabled it in bios. Anyone know of a way to A) use modded BIOS and quiet the fans or B) get OEM bios to boot with boot diagnostic disabled. Thanks.

I'm happy to see this topic is still going after all these years. I've been running 2 of these boards with 6000+ cpu's and 8GB ram and radeon 4650's for nearly 4 years now with no problems. I no longer overclock them (tops was 3.2)  but they are dependable and trouble free.

The fans can be controlled in bios under system health, I believe. You must enable "cool and quiet". I have installed larger aftermarket coolers and they are very quiet. Somewhere in these many pages the recommended bios settings are mentioned and have worked for me.

For any one with a bricked board due to a bad flash, these chips can be purchased on the popular auction site for 10 - 20 $ US.

They can also be hot flashed using an identical working machine.

[insub]

Has anyone verified that the fastest supported CPU in this board with this modded BIOS is the Phenom II X4 850 or B97? I still have one of these old boards and I'm hoping to get a quad-core in it. I figure if I'm going to spend any cash on this old thing then I'd better go for the gusto and get the fastest possible. The existing CPU with stock 5.27 BIOS is an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHz.

Also, does this BIOS mod make the board DDR3 capable? I have it maxed at 4 GB of DDR2 currently.
Thanks!

[Oblivious Maximus]

Has anyone verified that the fastest supported CPU in this board with this modded BIOS is the Phenom II X4 850 or B97? I still have one of these old boards and I'm hoping to get a quad-core in it. I figure if I'm going to spend any cash on this old thing then I'd better go for the gusto and get the fastest possible. The existing CPU with stock 5.27 BIOS is an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHz.

Also, does this BIOS mod make the board DDR3 capable? I have it maxed at 4 GB of DDR2 currently.
Thanks!

The Phenom II was mentioned (maybe boastfully,as I remember somewhere along this long thread) but I would say it is not useable on this board, though I have not tried it and would not forgo the cost of doing it. 

The 6000+ has been good to me (see recent post) and I just bought a ADA5600IAA6CZ 5600+ for $7.00 US to see how it OC's. I'm sure I'll get 3.0 easily. The best OC was a 4200+ but I don't recall the figures.

If your boards is in good shape you can get a good everyday user with WIN7 64 bit, 8GB DDR2 and any Athlon X2 89W for very little cost. I have ran a Radeon HD 6670 with a 550W PSU with good results, except for 6 repeated boot attempts before post and then everything worked fine.

DDR3 ram will not run on this board. I'm currently running 8GB DDR2 (4x2) 800 on both of mine with this bios.

[insub]

Thanks for the response. 

I've finally finished skimming all 83 pages of posts and as best I can tell:
Only one X4 processor has been reported to work:
POST#577: AMD Phenom I X4 9600 Agena. Also in POST#574 & 433.
And, that post contains a warning that newer manufactured CPU's of that model may not work if intended for AM3 socket instead of AM2+.

There are only a handful of posts that mention any compatibility lists. Of those, some are conflicting, as best I can tell. The best list was in Post #440 where The Wiz recommended the Phenom X4 9500 as the best in that list.

EDIT: I just ordered a X4 9600 on eBay. It's a smidge slower stock speed than my existing X2 5000+, but it has twice the cores. Wish me luck! I'll try to report back whether I'm successful or not.
Considering that the 9600 is confirmed as functional. I speculate that the highest compatible CPU is probably the Phenom X4 9850 95W version (HD9850WCJ4BGH). But, I already ordered the 9600 so I won't be testing that out.

EDIT 2: It turns out that another PC I had on hand had a Phenom X4 9750 in it. I pulled that CPU and installed it in the Nettle 2, but it would not boot as best I could tell. At least, It would not activate the monitor or the power button, both of which come on just fine with the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ installed. At least, if I cannot get the X4 9600 working then I'm only out $20 and a little time, but to be honest flashing this BIOS was strictly to get a quad-core running in it.

[insub]

I tried putting in the X4 9600, but the result is the same as with the X4 9750. It doesn't appear to POST. The fans come on, but that's about it. No beeps, no monitor response, power button does not illuminate. I can't tell if the hard drives are spinning up. The HD activity light does not flicker, but the DVD drive flashes a couple of times.

I have tried moving the Clear CMOS jumper and having the power cord unplugged (battery still in) for a few minutes. And, I tried booting with the RAM, HDs, & Optical Drives removed, but same result. No response from Monitor. Cannot get to BIOS Settings. Doesn't appear to POST. If I press and hold the power button the fans ramp up speed, but it does not shut down like it did when running (X2 5000+).

Am I missing something?
There are posts in this thread that clearly indicate that the Phenom X4 9600 was confirmed to work in this board with this Abit BIOS. Is there some setting I need to change or feature that needs to be activated in the BIOS prior to swapping out the CPU to X4?

Everything works fine with this BIOS and the Athlon 64 X2 5000+.

[Oblivious Maximus]

I tried putting in the X4 9600, but the result is the same as with the X4 9750. It doesn't appear to POST. The fans come on, but that's about it. No beeps, no monitor response, power button does not illuminate. I can't tell if the hard drives are spinning up. The HD activity light does not flicker, but the DVD drive flashes a couple of times.

I have tried moving the Clear CMOS jumper and having the power cord unplugged (battery still in) for a few minutes. And, I tried booting with the RAM, HDs, & Optical Drives removed, but same result. No response from Monitor. Cannot get to BIOS Settings. Doesn't appear to POST. If I press and hold the power button the fans ramp up speed, but it does not shut down like it did when running (X2 5000+).

Am I missing something?
There are posts in this thread that clearly indicate that the Phenom X4 9600 was confirmed to work in this board with this Abit BIOS. Is there some setting I need to change or feature that needs to be activated in the BIOS prior to swapping out the CPU to X4?

Everything works fine with this BIOS and the Athlon 64 X2 5000+.

I have not tried the X4 so my input is somewhat basic. I have 2 of these boards and the first one booted a 6000+  first try with 4 x 1GB ram modules and everything else connected. The next one would not boot an identical (not the same one) processor on several attempts.

 I removed the battery  and set the jumper to clear and unplugged it over night. The next day I moved the jumper back, replaced the battery and unplugged the main components from the board, optical cable, hard drive, front usb ports. The heat sink fan was about the only thing left plugged in along with the power button. I left 1 ram module installed and plugged the power cord in, hit the button and the fan started then after 6 or 8 seconds a beep and it booted to the bios screen. I had to shut it down with the power supply switch. I attached the hard drive, ps2 mouse and keyboard and once back in bios changed a few recommended settings and on to windows. 

This board did complain about the ram when i installed it (one at a time worked) as well as the optical drive, which i eventually changed with good results.  It still intermittently wont wake from sleep and works better with ps2 inputs than usb, it for some reason has never ran as good as the other machine. 


You may consider the Nettle3 board as an option to get your x4 running. 
https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-H...ht=Nettle3

[insub]

I tried putting in the X4 9600, but the result is the same as with the X4 9750. It doesn't appear to POST. The fans come on, but that's about it. No beeps, no monitor response, power button does not illuminate. I can't tell if the hard drives are spinning up. The HD activity light does not flicker, but the DVD drive flashes a couple of times.

I have tried moving the Clear CMOS jumper and having the power cord unplugged (battery still in) for a few minutes. And, I tried booting with the RAM, HDs, & Optical Drives removed, but same result. No response from Monitor. Cannot get to BIOS Settings. Doesn't appear to POST. If I press and hold the power button the fans ramp up speed, but it does not shut down like it did when running (X2 5000+).

Am I missing something?
There are posts in this thread that clearly indicate that the Phenom X4 9600 was confirmed to work in this board with this Abit BIOS. Is there some setting I need to change or feature that needs to be activated in the BIOS prior to swapping out the CPU to X4?

Everything works fine with this BIOS and the Athlon 64 X2 5000+.

 I removed the battery  and set the jumper to clear and unplugged it over night. The next day I moved the jumper back, replaced the battery and unplugged the main components from the board, optical cable, hard drive, front usb ports. The heat sink fan was about the only thing left plugged in along with the power button. I left 1 ram module installed and plugged the power cord in, hit the button and the fan started then after 6 or 8 seconds a beep and it booted to the bios screen. I had to shut it down with the power supply switch. I attached the hard drive, ps2 mouse and keyboard and once back in bios changed a few recommended settings and on to windows. 

I'll give this a try. Thanks for responding!

[Douglabr]

Same happened with me, did successfully update using the first tuto in usb, but im with athlin am2 so wanted back to official, but how i failed making backup, followed the secondary option, in Windows 7 extracted with 7z and installed skipping the warns abou win version. Now after boot getting a black window, did clear_cmos_hp, tested using drivers one by one, but the black screen after boot still showing