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How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 7:37 pm
by ammonite
Hello,
I have this old Asus F3sv laptop.
It features Intel 965 mobile chipset and came with Intel Core2Duo T7250 CPU.
I acquired Intel T8300 (penryn core - 45nm) and tried to upgrade this laptop.
I have latest BIOS, but Asus never made one with penryn support for this laptop.
However BIOS does not register new CPU, it reads it as Intel T8300 (that is ok) but it is locked on 1.2Ghz (half speed)
and current speed is registered as 100Mhz.
Anyway, it does not work as it should.
Also, I could not load acpi-cpufreq module for dynamic freq change.
I tried to update microcode from OS, following instructions from Intel website.
And it does not fix the problem.
I'm new in this stuff, how do you usually solve this problem?
Can this manufacturer limitation be fixed?
By modding/updating BIOS?
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 9:18 am
by edwin
I guess it is running at 400MHz FSB only somehow, most likely because that is the lowest speed available in the bios. Normally when you change your CPU on any Asus board it will complain it's crashed and you need to put the automatic settings back in as it has gone to fail-safe mode. Check in your bios for use default settings or something similar.
The other thing that might be happening is it is being clocked back, the Intel Speedstep technology being active. See this note:
http://support.gateway.com/s/issues/250431610.shtml
Use benchmarking software to stress it out, you'll see it will run full speed
http://www.futuremark.com/download/pcmark05/
or if using windows 7:
http://www.pcmark.com/benchmarks/pcmark7/download/
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:19 pm
by ammonite
Thanks for the reply.
I did "Default settings" first, just in case of this behavior that you mentioned with Asus.
But that did not fix the problem.
Speedstep technology is being utilized via acpi-cpufreq module in Linux (think of it as driver for dynamic freq).
However, since CPU is not correctly recognized this module can not loaded.
(fails as "device does not exist").
So I hope bringing support for this CPU in BIOS will resolve this issue?
I did stress CPU, just to check this.
I'm not sure is CPU is on highest clock, since that is also checked via cpufreq module.
But it did perform quite well.
However I will try to find some tool that can check it without this module.
But, I would like to resolve this issue with cpufreq first, because it enables me to use speedstep.
Without speed step I would be locked to some freq and would waste battery.
Do you have some idea how to bring support for CPU into BIOS.
Thanks.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:26 pm
by edwin
what does
modprobe acpi-cpufreq
give for output?
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:18 pm
by ammonite
Ok, I see you know about this so I will post details.
At least the important ones.
Code: Select all
modprobe acpi-cpufreq
FATAL: Error inserting acpi_cpufreq (/lib/modules/3.2.0-2-amd64/kernel/drivers/cpufreq/acpi-cpufreq.ko): Input/output error
Code: Select all
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 23
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8300 @ 2.40GHz
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 2394.321
cache size : 3072 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl aperfmperf pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 lahf_lm dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority
bogomips : 4788.64
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
cpufreq-info reports something strange:
Code: Select all
analyzing CPU 0:
no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
maximum transition latency: 4294.55 ms.
analyzing CPU 1:
no or unknown cpufreq driver is active on this CPU
maximum transition latency: 4294.55 ms.
Updating microcode from OS makes no difference.
P.S.
By looking at bogomips : 4788.64, I presume that it works on max frequency.
My T7250: bogomips : 3989.99
This looks like realistic performance gain.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:48 pm
by edwin
cpuinfo is reporting the correct frequency for your T8300 as well (2.4GHz)
http://ark.intel.com/products/33099/Int ... MHz-FSB%29
Can be you are bitten by this bug:
http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux. ... ufreq/4190
Or cpufreq really is just listening to whatever the bios tells it. In that case we will have to find out if the 0676 microcodes for this line of CPUs is actually present in the bios or not yet, and we may have to patch it. All of that however will be entirely at your own risk...
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:27 pm
by ammonite
Thanks,
I will see details about this bug latter (but it is eons old, 2006).
However, speedstep-centrino module is depreciated. I tried with it, but got the same result as with acpi-cpufreq.
About BIOS, ok how to check is microcode in my BIOS?
Is there any linux native tool?
If not I have winXP in virtuabox, but I don't think it can "see" host OS motherboard.
And yes, I'm willing to test this on my risk.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 10:43 am
by edwin
Have to see if I can collect the files needed (bios rom, cpu codes and the toolset) and maybe, just maybe I can botch something together.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 3:58 pm
by ammonite
It is not that bug, checked it.
Here are collection of BIOS images:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9689469/asusbios.tar
F3Sc209AS.zip -> is image of this old/semi-functional MBO I have, could use it for testing (same chipset)
F3Sv208AS.zip -> my current MBO in laptop, latest BIOS (and the same is running now)
F3Sa303AS.zip -> image from similar Asus MBO but with support for penryn CPU (at least that is what I've read).
Latest Intel microcode:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_ ... ldID=14303
If you don't have time to play around, just point me in right direction and maybe I can learn to do it myself.
Thanks once again.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:16 am
by edwin
did you just copy the file there or did you perform all the necessary steps?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microcode
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 1:41 pm
by ammonite
Did it all.
On debian you install microcode package and it adds a daemon in etc/init.d/ to perform microcode update every boot.
Very simple and working (at least that is what dmesg says), that is why I wonder why CPU is not recognized even after the update.
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 11:12 am
by edwin
Hmmm ok, it seems there needs to be rudimentary support for the CPU in the bios. I'll see what I can do...
Re: How to solve this? Asus laptop CPU upgrade
Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2012 2:19 pm
by ammonite
Hello,
Any news? Did you bump into some difficulties?
