socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 630 motherboard compatibility

[oldteck9756]

hi guys I have a working socket 775 pentium 4  630 cpu.  it comes from my grand fathers old computer. the mother board has failed because the capacitors have become lumpy. i think there are about 12 or 13 of them. as I am not sure that that is all that is wrong with the board I decided to buy a new mother board I have found an eBay listing for one costing only 14 british pounds it is the: Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2L Rev 1.0 LGA775 Motherboard No BP. i know that the cpu is in working order because i tested it in a dell optiplex pc and i was able to install windows 10 on it  and it ran a bit slow but over all i was happy with it.

I would like to know if the chip set and the board are compatible to help me make further decisions in terms of buying it.

my overall aim is to restore my grand fathers old pc for sentimental reasons and have a windows 10 pc running on bare minimum requirements. 

[AlHill]

Your biggest obstacle is to determine if the processor is supported by gigabyte bios.

The processor must be socket, chipset, AND BIOS compatible.  Only gigabyte can help you with the latter.

[oldteck9756]

ok thought so...

thx

I could not find a Gigabyte forum (if there is one) 

please can you give me a link to the forum if there is one.

[AlHill]

Better than that, here is a list of supported processors for your board:

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-945GCM-S2L-rev-10/support#support-cpu

[oldteck9756]

thank you for your help it was very much appreciated.

now I know for sure my processor is supported. I only have one more question and it is what is f4 in the "since bios revision" section

thx again for your help 

[AlHill]

"F4" is the bios revision.  So, for your processor to work, the board must have "F4" or greater ALREADY installed.  If not, the processor likely will not work.

So, lets say the board has "F3".  You would need a processor that is support on "F3" or earlier.  Using that processor, you would update to "F4" or greater, then you could install the processor that you want.

[oldteck9756]

ok thank you

i will wright to the seller and check.

[oldteck9756]

also I have just noticed that the web page you posted lists no bios es older than f4 

is f4 the oldest bios?

if so then I dont need to contact the seller

My last question is that were they all the processors and bios revisions listed or are there more?(not listed on the webpage)

[AlHill]

No, f3 is the oldest.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-945GCM-S2L-rev-10/support#support-dl-bios

As far as I know, the list is complete.

[oldteck9756]

ok i will contact the seller and come back to this thread if i encounter any problems

once again thank you

[oldteck9756]

i just looked again at the websight and again noticed that that the f3 bios is not listed 

and because of that i wondered out of interest which processors are compatible with the f3 bios? 

i am not looking to buy one of these it was just a question hanging around in my head.

[oldteck9756]

hi the ebay seller has written back and said that he does not have access to the board(s) I was expexting this as I am pretty sure that the seller of those board(s) is a big company rather than a individual person.

the name of the seller is: pcbitzuk 

and the company is: PRM GREEN TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

they responded fearly quickly so they seem reliable 

[oldteck9756]

hi i contacted gigabyte about my problem and this is what they wrote back :

Hello,

You can't update the BIOS if the system doesn't boot up.

According the to CPU Support List, the supported CPU required minimum F4 BIOS. Non of CPU listed is required F3 BIOS. Therefore we believe the motherboard should have the minimum F4 or above BIOS.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-945GCM-S2L-rev-10/support#support-cpu

Have you install the Pentium 4 630 on this motherboard and see if it works?

as I do not have the board this last comment dose not matter.

[AlHill]

I suspect the board will likely have F4.   You should have no problem.

[oldteck9756]

hi i will go ahead and order the board i will poast a comment later giving you an update on what has happened.

thank you for your time and help so far.

[oldteck9756]

i have received the board and will be testing it shortly as i am short of time i will leave this short the mother board came i have looked at it briefly it looked fine apart from one thing the board came with a processor a peniteum d as i am sure it did not say this in the listing I am happy that I received another cpu (always handy for ( diagnostics)

[oldteck9756 · Accepted solution]

the mother board and cpu are working as expected the pentium d which I received with out knowing i was going to also works to I am happy that all is well and working I am currently running 4 gbs of ddr2 ram and windows 10 on a hdd and the performance is surprisingly good.

thank you for all your help it has been really helpful.

[AlHill]

Glad all is working.