Bios notes for CPU upgrades

Hi,
I thought I should bring this back up for P78xx owners. especially for those upgrading the existing CPU's. Originally we have L2 cache size of 3MB but the majority of upgrades have 6MB L2's.

A bit of background first. I purchased my P7805 with the bios version 9c.11.00. Shortly thereafter 9c.12.00 was released and I upgraded accordingly. With the upgrade there seemed to be no apparent system enhancements.

Within a short period of time I went to a P9600. This had the larger L2 of 6MB and higher clock speed from 2.2 GHz to 2.66 GHz. you could definately feel the increased CPU performance but the memory responce still seemed lackluster. Memory cached programs just did not seem they were all that much faster to pop than with the P8400 etc.

Eventually 9c.17.00 was released. as soon as I could that was installed as well. Imediately after boot I noticed programs and other data in cache were much snappier. I thought this to be placebo effect so I reflashed 9c.12.00. Another bootup confirmed it had become less responsive, the snap was gone.

To be sure it what was going on I found the old P8400 and installed it. I started getting used to it for a day with 9c.12.00. After that 9c.17.00 was installed. With this there was no noticeable improvement of the system. This confirmed that 9c.17.00 seemed to have no benefit to the 3MB L2.

After another day I installed the P9600 again. The snap was back in the system. Apparently Gateway quitely enhanced this versions bios to better optimize, or properly function with, the 6MB L2. At least this was true for me and my original P7805 main board.

The moral here is if you upgrade the CPU be sure to upgrade the bios. Those still using 3MB cached proccessors may not benefit but the 6MB L2 people could be adding some snap to memory performance...........................

 

I need to get on it! I'm still running the factory bio's from day 1.

 

same here!!!! I think .10 on mine.

 

Factory bios is either 9c.11.00 or some had 9c.12.00. Interested in what you have. I had posted about the above LONG ago but figured Id' re-do it as I am sure most either missed it, forgot about it or it was irrelevant at the time etc......................

Edit; I have done some further surgery to improve cooling. Have to take some pics but it seems worth while...................

 

I took a look and it is actually 9c.08. Guess I should bump it up to .17.

 

I have 9c.11

 

Once you upgrade there should be a nice snap to the desktop. Then again maybe not, since the x9100 is so fast to begin with the snap may already be there from bruit force..................

 

The deed is done. I was paranoid to hit the enter button, as I always am with a BIOS flash. You just never know. Everything went great and The seat of the pants feeling is definitely snappier.

Bluetooth did not come back on after the flash, kind of stumped me for a couple of minutes till I did the function & bluetooth keys.

 

glad to hear it worked out for you. I used to have to find a reason for everything and this snappier feeling would have o be explained. Now I just make sure it is reallt there and then accept it for what it is...........

 

Oh cool, I will talk to the person to update my bios when he puts my x9100, and under clock it as well.

 

I don't think you want to under clock but maybe under volt?