Upgrading 9262 from E8400 to Q9650

I am thinking of upgrading the cpu on my 9262 from the E8400 to the Q9650.

I have heard that in order to be able to do this, I need to have a motherboard above 5.2 and BIOS at or above 20aS. I currently have BIOS of "20aS LS1", and am not sure about my mobo version, will open up the chassis and have a look.

My biggest question is whether or not I need to to re-install the operating system when I do this upgrade. I was hoping that I would NOT need to re-install the OS, that I could just Shut Down the OS, swap the CPU, power up, re-install the latest Intel Chipset Driver, and be good to go.

Is this actually possible or do I need to re-install the OS when I do the upgrade?

 

I don't think you would need an OS reinstall just because you changed a Processor.But BIOS, most likely.

 

You need BIOS version .22 and KBC/EC firmware version .13N in order for there to be no problems using an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650.

There is no need to reinstall your OS after swapping out CPUs.

 

I read another post where someone mentioned that Sager sent them the .20 BIOS for installing the Q9650, but this could've simply been before the .22 were released.

That being said, wasn't it stated once that the .22 BIOS have some stability issues?

I've downloaded the .22 BIOS along with the .13N EC from the BIOS thread in this forum, but am just a bit hesitant to install them if stability is at risk.

Is anyone here running the .22 BIOS? Any issues at all?

 

I'm using an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 with the latest BIOS and KBC/EC firmware. No issues.

The only problems I've had are with graphics drivers, but that's far beyond BIOS problems. You'll be alright. Just triple check all of the instructions, files, etc. in the how to flash your BIOS using a USB stick.

 

Cheers, will do. Thanks for the help.

Quick question: did you get your .22 BIOS from Sager directly, or did you download them from the link provided in this forum (the big Clevo BIOS post)?

 

I actually got version 20 from Sager, later upgraded to v22 that I downloaded from Clevo (?) or other reliable source elsewhere in these forums?

 

Any issues with the v22?

 

Here's the BIOS thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/416916-clevo-bios.html

Look for D901C.

 

None, works fine!

 

Good stuff to know. I am about to build a new desktop system and plan to drop my old Q9650 into my lappy. Thanks for the info hanko and ettornio.

 

I'm going to do the upgrade tonight, but before I do I just want to ask one final thing that's been troubling me a bit.

Two days ago Sager tech support replied to my request for the latest BIOS which would work with the Q9650. They sent me the .20aS BIOS, not the .22. I followed up to ask if these were the best BIOS to use for the Q9650 and they said yes.

Why would Sager tech support be sending the 0.20 BIOS when there are clearly newer (0.22) BIOS floating around?

 

Sager only officially supports up to the Q9550, which is the .20 BIOS. Support for the Q9650 was added in BIOS .21 and issues with it were resolved in BIOS .22+KBC/EC .13N. Don't worry about it. Everything will work fine with the latest BIOS.

 

I took your advice and flashed to 0.22 BIOS with 0.13N KB/EC, no problems.

Installed the Q9650 this morning, first boot, no problems.

Ran CPU-Z, problem?

Under Clocks it says:

Core Speed: 2000 MHz
Multiplier: x6.0
Bus Speed: 332.5 MHz
Rated FSB: 1330 MHz

Isn't the core speed supposed to be 3000 MHz?


* EDIT *

I left CPU-Z open while browsing the web for answers, and I can see the core speed jump between 2000 and 3000. Is this normal?

 

Yes, it is normal. That's Intel's SpeedStep technology in action. The CPU lowers its multiplier when it's not doing anything, or isn't doing anything demanding. Once you give it something to do that requires effort, it will increase its multiplier to x9.0 which will give you a core frequency of ~3000MHz or so. Fire up a modern game, or shoot some 1080p video at it (GPU acceleration disabled) and watch it jump to 3GHz and stay there for as long it is needed.

 

Cool, many thanks!

System is running fine now, but unfortunately it is running too hot. When I installed the Q9650, I used Nanotherm Silver XTC as my compound, I had an unopened syringe of the stuff, however, it was quite old, probably from 2003. Still, it was never opened, so I thought I would give it a go. The only other compound I had laying around was generic Koolance cloned Arctic Silver, called something like "silver compound", but it is also quite old, maybe from 2004.

My temps while gaming, at full fan speeds are ~65 degrees C.

However, the other culprit is that when I put the nanotherm on, I smeared a thin line on the CPU itself, but then put a fair amount on the heatsink using the credit card method. I think I should have used the credit card method for both the heatsink and the cpu...

 

I allways apply a rice crumb of "arctic silver 5" on the heatsink only, and use the credit card method to spread it out. Works great!