Support for Sempron 145 for ASRock N61P-S

[thedukesd]

If posible please help me use my Sempron 145 on ASRock N61P-S. It should be posible cause the vcore, multiplier and other stuff can be done by N61P-S. Due to unknow reason ASRock didn't updated the bios for this motherboard since last year and they never answered to my support requests .

ASRock N61P-S latest bios: http://europe.asrock.com/downloadsite/bi...(1.60).zip

I am having problems finding an donor with AMI bios for N61P-S that support this cpu, they all kinda dropped support for nforce 430 probably due to several problems that this chipset has (several freq are higher then they should be, a bit ignoring the bios settings, several problems with pci latency, i have also an ASUS M2N and this one has a lot more problems then N61P-S, I'm not even able to use an sound blaster 5.1 live on the asus m2n i hear machine guns if i try to play a sound if the sb is put in m2n, in N61P-S it seams it works fine but the Audigy 2 ZS that I have don't work in both of this MB machine guns sound if i try to play a sound on both..., the sound cards don't have any problems cause they work fine on my old BX motherboard (10 years old pc and it's still working) and on my K10N78D).

I found a motherboard with Award or Phoenix bios (not sure witch one of those 2 is) in case it can help (probably the bios modules are not compatible with the ones from AMI bios) GA-M61PME-S2P (rev. 1.0) that support this cpu : http://download.gigabyte.eu/FileList/BIO...2p_f7b.exe

Maybe potential AMI donor (i said maybe potential cause I'm unable to find the list with the cpu supported by the bios, based on the fact that the motherboard is AM2+ and that the bios is from 2010-09-02 (september 2010) it may support Sempron 145 ) MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 : http://download1.msi.com/files/downloads...309v26.zip
L.E.: I did more research and it seams that the MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 support Sempron 145 since 7309v24 so it should be support in the bios in the link above. (source: http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-MSI/K9N6PGM2-V2.html)

[presola]

I see this ASRock board has some newer-than-AM2 CPUs supported - have you tried running the Sempron with the current BIOS?

On a side note - Creative's drivers are a pain in the A, so I suggest you try daniel_k's modded drivers - they might solve the sound stuttering problems.

[thedukesd]

Random results when trying to run it with the curent bios (better said sometimes it refuses to start (no post, no beep, monitor in standby), sometimes it starts and seams to work without problems (there is no problem with the cooling, i don't use the cooler that comes with sempron 145 (the cooler that came with my sempron 145 don't cover all the cpu, maybe it needs to cover only the center part but i don't really like taking chances and anyway the part that is not covered will get a lot hotter then the rest))). Atm the N61P-S has another CPU on it.

A question:




In both bios the first 2 patches have the same microcode id and same date, but the 3rd one has the same microcode id on both but not the same date. More if i extract each of them the first 2 are identical on both bios but the 3rd one is not dispate the fact both have same microcode id. Why they have the same microcode id when it's not the same thing? (It's the same microcode id because it support the same things but different date cause it's just a fix?)

Regarding my problem with nforce 430 and creative sound cards, well max i was able to get is to make them work right without using hardware acceleration (problems happens with all the driver combinations, in fact i didn't saw any changes by using diferent driver versions combinations). It's a know problem and from what I read it's not happening to all the users.

[presola]

(better said sometimes it refuses to start (no post, no beep, monitor in standby)

I've never heard a board refusing to start sometimes because it lacks microcode, but otherwise boot normally, all with the same processor. IMO that's a hardware problem - most likely a crappy power supply.

[MrTangoWhisky]

I had a very similar problem! It was a problem with the mass-connections between the board and the case. So I dismounted everything of the case and made a "naked computer" and there was no more problem except there was a -5V on the PSU-chassis! so try it out...

[thedukesd]

The power supply is kinda crappy (it's an ANS 450W but it looks like an no-name, the voltages are stable if i look in Everest), but the system is stable with an Athlon 64 LE-1640.
On paper Athlon 64 LE-1640 and Sempron 145 should require same W (maybe i read/understoond wrong the things about both cpus that i found on net).

The Sempron in fact has 2 cores. In the case of the Sempron I have, second core is not stable (unlocked on my K10N78D failed to load any OS (both win xp and ubuntu (live cd) were stopping while loading), lowering the ddr freq and increasing the vcore didn't helped to much, the system was still randomly restarting after os loaded, prime was reporting errors (by not doing both of them the system was still failing to load ubuntu/win xp)). During the attempts to unlock it (without increasing the vcore or lowering the memory freq) the system refuses to start (monitor in standby, no beep), started with second core unlocked but after reboot second core was not anymore unlocked. I have no idea how the bios of my N61P-S is trying to start the sempron, if somehow is trying to start the second core then it will probably fail to do it. (No idea how the sempron is made only to use 1 core, but the conection are not hardware cut cause else it would had never unlocked the second core).
It's posible that the sempron somehow don't like the memory on my N61P-S. (I had a strange experience with my asus m2n, 4x 1gb, only 2 module are same type but all of them have same latencies, the strange part is that the 2 identical modules refused to work in dual channel but if I combine them with the other 2 they work in dual channel, if the 2 modules are put to work in dual channel the system refuses to display something don't even beeps).

A couple of things about the N61P-S bios 1.50 and 1.60 that I observed while I use the Athlong 64 LE-1640:
1) if i let the memory freq on auto it set it to 490 mhz (2*245) (cpu/11) , to make the ddr2 800 mhz work at 770 mhz (cpu/7) i have to set it to manual 800 mhz
2) if i let the Legacy USB support to Enable ubuntu hangs while trying to initialise usb; if i set it to bios only and i try to boot linux from usb it hangs again while trying to initialise usb; with Legacy USB support Disabled Ubuntu works without problems (windows is not affected with USB support set Enabled or Disabled)

[presola]

Neither of those two boards (N61P-S / M2N) have ACC/UCC, so neither of them is trying to start the 145's both cores.

ANS is a no-name power supply. I personally don't find myself rich enough to buy cheap PSUs

[thedukesd]

The pc with n61p-s is my father pc, the funny part is that i use an ups for it. (Actually i bought the ups to use it for my wireless router, there are some Voltage spikes on the electrical line from time to time causing the router to restart and i end up using it for my father pc too). Unless something bad happens with the psu (something getting damaged inside the psu due to unknow reasons) it should be fine.

Here is what i have atm:
my pc: ASRock K10N78D + athlon x2 4000+ + 4gb+ hd4650
father's pc: ASRock N61P-S + Athlon 64 LE-1640 + 2gb + hd4350
unused components: ASUS M2N (it has a couple of problems this mb, the onboard sound clicks at least once in 15 minutes, i can't use almost any pci creative sound card (the only one that works on it is Audigy SE (probably variants of it like X-Fi Xtreme Audio, Audigy LS, etc. works too)), the integrated lan usually dc the conection 1-2 times in 12 hours, it reconects instantly (tryed with all the drivers I found on the net nothing seamed to stop it from doing like this)) + Sempron 145 , gt7300

Cause the sempron 145 don't want to unlock and cause of the cpu tests i did it looked to be under my athlon x2 4000+ my idea is to find a way to run the Sempron 145 on the ASRock N61P-S and to make a 3rd pc using the Athlon 64 LE-1640 on the Asus M2N. (I think that the N61P-S has higher chances on running right the Sempron 145 then the M2N has).

If I got it right by looking at a couple of bioses I think:
Microcode id 1041 is adding support for Sempron 140 (and a couple of others)
Microcode id 1043 is adding support for Sempron 145 (and a couple of others)

No idea if they work with the curent agesa on the n61p-s agesa. I have no idea how to read the agesa version from a rom file. No idea if a previsous microcode updates is need or the microcode updates are completly independent, probably cause i have no idea what the a microcode update is actually doing. No idea what will happen if Agesa is not supporting a cpu but the microcode id is supporting that cpu, probably the unsuported cpu by agesa will not be initialised at all.

If posible can you try to update only the microcode to support the Sempron 145? I can give it another try after I flash it, maybe the first time something was not well seat in the N61P-S and that's why the monitor remained in standby from time to time (it can be the wireless card that sometimes moves a bit from the pci slot, i always said that i have to bend a bit the wireless card bracked but never did it; probably cause my father is using that pc ) and to be honest I didn't checked if all the pci devices were seen or not by windows when it started with the sempron 145.

[thedukesd]

I tryed to update the microcode myself, here is the bios that resulted:
http://www.2shared.com/file/qw31MxD5/N61PS1.html

Here are pic with
- the original bios



- the updated bios (I didn't changed something else, just replaced the 041B and 1022 module and added the 1043 module) (the entire P6 Micro Code is now same as the one u can find in ASRock K10N78D ( nForce 720D ) and ASRock N68S31 ( nForce 630a ) (cause those 2 motherboards are using the same microcode I think the microcode is not dependent on the chipset the motherboard is using) )



It starts without problems. Everything is set right by the BIOS (except the memory speed, but this is not a problem caused by what I did it was doing the same before, I have to set the memory manual to 800Mhz). The unganged/ganged options popup in bios so the bios realised that it's an AM3 cpu. Atm I'm running prime95 to test the system stability.

One single thing the bios is reporting the cpu as: AMD unknow processor. Is there any way to make it display the right name?

L.E.:
Prime95 ran only 1 hour without problems (I know this don't mean there are not problems but well at least it means there are no major problems, I will let prime run 4-6 hours).
It passed IntelBurnTest without problems:



Here is how the temperature looks in Everest Ultimate in idle:



in full load the cpu temperature stabilized around 36 C (the cooler is the box cooler that came with Athlon X2 4000+, as I said in the first post the cooler that came with Sempron 145 don't cover all the cpu so I don't trust it)

Screenshot from CPUZ:


a bit unstable the vcore displayed in CPUZ : 1.32-1.37 V (better said it changes a lot and seams not to stay more then 10-15s at the same value), anyway it looks to be close to 1.35V so I think there will not be problems cause of this.

A picture took from bios:

[MrTangoWhisky]

One single thing the bios is reporting the cpu as: AMD unknow processor. Is there any way to make it display the right name?

As far as I know you also have to update the AGESA!
Maybe the real cracks in here can tell you something more...