Intel D875PBZLK

[Wry1]

Originally Posted by dubobo2

yes, my floppy has all 9 files just like you have listed above. Same order, everything. Sometimes i hear the floppy drive read, sometimes not. It doesn't repeat the same sounds every time.

I give, the only other thing to try is if you have another computer to boot the floppy to, give that a try but make sure you hit Cntl + C to cancel the flash if it reads the drive as it should.

Another question is, do you have Windows loaded on the PC you're trying to flash, and will it boot into Windows and run properly?

[CrowdAds]

[dubobo2]

no, there is no windows, no O/S of any kind,no software has been loaded yet.
The floppy drive doesn't even seem to try and read anymore. After i attempt to boot to the floppy, there's no video, nuthin'. I shut down power after waiting about 10 minutes. Then i can get back to the original Bios that came with the board by simply pulling the battery out and waiting 10 more minutes. I wonder if it's possible to damage the Bios chip to a point where i can no longer flash it, but it can retain it's original P05 Bios version.

[Wry1]

Originally Posted by dubobo2

no, there is no windows, no O/S of any kind,no software has been loaded yet.
The floppy drive doesn't even seem to try and read anymore. After i attempt to boot to the floppy, there's no video, nuthin'. I shut down power after waiting about 10 minutes. Then i can get back to the original Bios that came with the board by simply pulling the battery out and waiting 10 more minutes. I wonder if it's possible to damage the Bios chip to a point where i can no longer flash it, but it can retain it's original P05 Bios version.

Sounds like the floppy is not working for whatever reason!

You could go ahead and install Windows temporarily and then use Intel's Windows Express BIOS Flash utility to flash the BIOS and then re-install with the RAID array.

The Windows Express BIOS update utility for that board is at the link below:

Intel® Desktop Board D875PBZ Express BIOS Update P34 [BZ87510A.86A.0125.P34.EB.EXE]

Again, good luck............

[dubobo2]

By the way, there are 3 options in the window that appears when i format my 3 1/2" floppy disk. I just checked "quick format". I'm at a dead end, but thanks anyway for your efforts Wry1.

[Wry1]

Originally Posted by dubobo2

By the way, there are 3 options in the window that appears when i format my 3 1/2" floppy disk. I just checked "quick format". I'm at a dead end, but thanks anyway for your efforts Wry1.

I never use quick format, but don't know if that could be the problem or not.

Good luck..........

[TQ]

I'd do what Wry1 suggested dubobo: install XP, then use Intel's Express BIOS. It should easy.

[dubobo2]

yeah, that's looking like a pretty good choice right about now.

[ronbo 613]

I've had my 875PBZ rig for about two years, never had any trouble with it, but I have burned through two floppy drives. Don't use them much, but they seem to fail pretty regularly. My shop is near the beach, I think they might be rusting out.
Being an old school kind of guy, I've always flashed the BIOS using a floppy disc(the computer is not connected to the internet). Aside from the crappy floppy disc drives, there have been no flashing issues.

[Tenchi Muyo]

Hello!

Is the P4@3,4Ghz with the sSpec Number: SL8K4 compatible with the 875PBZ Rev. 3.03?

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.40 GHz - SL8K4

I'm thinking about to change my 3,2 SL7PN

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.20E GHz - SL7PN

because the Thermal Design Power is lower with the new G1-Stepping.

[TQ]

Originally Posted by Tenchi Muyo

Hello!

Is the P4@3,4Ghz with the sSpec Number: SL8K4 compatible with the 875PBZ Rev. 3.03?

I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

[Tenchi Muyo]

Originally Posted by TQ

I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

I checked the Bios Version of the 865PERL and the 875PBZ.

The last Bios Version is dated 14.02.2005 (PERL)
The last Bios Version is dated 31.03.2005 (PBZ)

So I think the SL8K4 must run on this Board! (I hope so)

[Rathain]

Hello all,

I'm yet another D875PBZ owner new to the board who has come across this monolithic thread (Originally being directed here by a post BTB made on the Corsair forums - I got a google hit on his signature, which was almost identical to mine). So far I have thoroughly enjoyed reading from the first post. I managed to read up until Rev 301 was released in Dec 2003. When I got to that point in the thread, I was seriously kicking myself, as I purchased my rev 204 board in late 2003 and in ignorance proceeded to have all the undervolted performance memory troubles many of you experienced.

I don't really have any questions to trouble you with, but since I've read much of your experiences with the board I thought that I would share my own. I really (stubbornly) liked everything about the board and I wasn't ready to give up on it. After I RMA'd my first batch of memory, some Corsair Value Select which refused to POST after some cursory attempts at troubleshooting, I ended up purchasing 2x Corsair CMX512-3200C2 and lucked out with the fabled Winbond BH-5 chips. I had some initial problems caused by SPD, but once I set them to Corsair's stated spec of 2-3-3-6, I was able to boot with no issues. Down the road I had some stability problems where I would BSOD consistently when I reached a certain amount of allocated memory. At first I was convinced I had a bad DIMM, but after doing some homework (which didn't lead me here, unfortunately), I became more aware of the problems with undervolted memory on the D875PBZ. Reluctantly, I loosened my timings, I can't recall to what exactly, but something like 2.5-3-3-7. Suddenly everything was rock solid. I guess I was one of the lucky ones (Maybe BH-5 chips were a bit more tolerant?), because I had very few cold boot problems that I can recall.

About 1 year ago I decided that I wanted to throw in some more RAM, since I was regularly maxing out the 1GB I had installed. Thinking I would stick with what worked, I bought 4x Corsair CMX1024-3200C2 modules (turns out they were Winbond CH-5/CH-6) to begin the 4GB goodness. Forgetting my earlier troubles ~2 years previous, I set them to 2-3-3-6 and surprisingly had no issues for 11 months. Then the problems began. I began to get unexpected errors in applications, several files were corrupted on my disk, and I began getting BSODs. Sure enough, running WMD and memtest revealed that I had completely killed one of my four DIMMs. Thankfully, Corsair accepted my RMA with little fuss and I had my replacements. Being lazy and realizing that I was no longer utilizing my 3GB of RAM let alone 4, I let the replacement memory sit on my desk for 3 months. Just recently I upgraded to dual Raptor 150s so finally got around to installing it. Surprise - while my old 2GB was humming along fine, the 2x1GB new memory didn't work reliably at 2-3-3-6 (CH-5 vs CH-6, or just luck of the bin? I'm not sure). That brings us to today, when I've been again forced to loosen my timings to (Corsair recommended) 2.5-3-3-7 to be stable with 4GB (with a measly 2GB, my original sticks in Bank A run stable at 2-3-3-6). That's when I stumbled across this thread and learned of the existence of the rev 300 boards.

Stability and price are far more important to me than 1-2% performance, and as such I bought well behind the bleeding edge when I originally bought the board. I started off with a P4 2.66-B, a WD 120JB, 1GB Corsair 3200C2, and an MSI Ti4200. Over the years I have gradually convinced myself to buy enough hardware upgrades that I probably could have built a brand new system from scratch. At this point I've pretty well maxed out the board on upgrades (minus sound), and as of now I'm still happy with performance for modern games (I still run my original tiny Eizo 15" monitor, so things are still pretty snappy). As a testament to my membership in the cult of D875PBZ, I find myself wanting to pony up for a 3 year old rev 303 board being sold on ebay just so I can restore my 2-3-3-6 timings and properly power my memory, which appears to warrant at least 2.75v.

I'm very curious about all your experiences with the BadAxe chipset as compared to the D875PBZ as I begin to look towards upgrading, but I'll read up some more and take it to that forum. I also have much to learn about silent computing and have already latched on to some of Ralf's threads on spcr. Thanks to all of you for keeping this informative thread alive for this long. Intel could learn a lot about their own product and their mistakes by reading your posts.

- Rathain

[TQ]

Welcome, Rathain. How delightful that your first post is to this long-lived thread.
My wife and I have built numerous D875PBZ based systems over the years and I have three of them still in service, including the one I'm on now, with which I make a living as a producer of radio and TV voice-overs, as well as music content creation.
I dinked around with similar memory issues with before I finally settled on looser-than-SPD timings. I have 2GB of Mushkin memory in a 4x512 configuration (two of the DIMMS are BH5) and the system is fabulously stable and has been for years. The DIMMS are positively ancient and were purchased when 2 GB kits (2x1024) were a rarity, if available at all.

My 975XBX-based system also runs with loose timings (5-5-5-15), as I have discovered that the secret to a stable, smooth running system isn't in juicing the DIMM voltage, but forgoing your mentioned 1-2% performance boost and going with something looser than SPD.

I am very happy with both of my Intel-based systems and never consider any other manufacturer.

Again, welcome. Enjoy ABX. There's a lot of good people here.

[JimTram]

Thanks for your informative post Rathain and welcome to the thread. Similar to many others, I think the 875 still rocks. I can't add too much in regards to the BA2, however on the 875 end of things after much trial and error - what is in my sig, still to this day runs the power hungry games and sims, i.e. FEAR and MFSX well enough for my liking. I have to settle for 40-50FPS as opposed to a 100 or so.

I agree with you. For the most part the premium one pays for the super high-end RAM may not be worth the performance post.

On more than one occasion I was a mouse click away from a 975, still not worth the upgrade at this point. I have STALKER preordered so I'll see how that goes. Vista is another story at this point.

Regards,

Jim T.

[TQ]

Hey, Jim...did you read that nVidia's going to release some AGP/DX 10 parts?
More life for the 875!