You got me curious, how did you get the P5WD2-E to run a C2D?
I have the Premium variant (so P5WD2-E Premium) with a Pentium D and a few Conroe E6xxx C2Ds that were leftovers from E8xxx and Q9xxx upgrades.

I flashed BIOS from Asus P5W DH Deluxe ,and did pin-mod, almost same as from first post, minus isolated BSEL pin (right bottom corner)
For some reason it works only with Conroe and Allendale CPUs.

Vlad94 wrote on 2024-01-02, 22:23:

After that, I thought... maybe it is possible to run C2D on i915 chipset that way, I tried Gigabyte GA-8I915PL-G ,but it didn't even showed any POST codes on card, even non-core2 BIOS should at least display codes, so I thought i915 is truly hardlocked to Pentium 4/Celeron D.

Back in the day, the word on the street was that the i915/i925 had deliberately removed dual-processor/core capability because Intel was upset that some rogue motherboard makers were making dual-processor systems with the 865/875 instead of buying the more expensive chipset with the more expensive official dual processor ability. Not sure what CPUs those boards were running, either - was there still a way to use ordinary consumer CPUs in a multiprocessor rig (as was common in the second half of the 1990s... and continued to be the case in Mac PPC land at that time), or were they using Xeons?

And then, of course, not that long after, they released dual-core chips originally with the 945 chipset and had to put that feature set back in.

Who knows how true this is, but that was the explanation given for the fact that you could have LGA775 i865 and i945 boards supporting dual-core chips just fine, but not i915...

Hey, that's pretty cool. I wish that my 925XE based Dell would have allowed a like-socketed Core 2 Duo back in the day.

This is like CoffeeTime, except with Core 2. It's WolfTime, woof!

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-03, 00:01:

Back in the day, the word on the street was that the i915/i925 had deliberately removed dual-processor/core capability because Intel was upset that some rogue motherboard makers were making dual-processor systems with the 865/875 instead of buying the more expensive chipset with the more expensive official dual processor ability. Not sure what CPUs those boards were running, either - was there still a way to use ordinary consumer CPUs in a multiprocessor rig (as was common in the second half of the 1990s... and continued to be the case in Mac PPC land at that time), or were they using Xeons?

I heard that too, but if I remember correctly, mainboard manufacturers knew about i915 dual-core CPU support, just Intel didn't let them made Pentium D board with that chipset, and in Core 2 times, i915 was dead already so no one bothered.
(or actually ASRock wanted to do i925x Core 2 board in 2006, it supports Cedar Mills officially, but bios is fully compatible with Conroe (still needs pin-modded CPU), even speedstep works, board is 775XFire-VSTA, but I don't want to spoiler too much for now 😜)

VivienM wrote on 2024-01-03, 00:01:

And then, of course, not that long after, they released dual-core chips originally with the 945 chipset and had to put that feature set back in.

Actually 955x is first chipset for dual-core CPUs officially, one month older 😁

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2024-01-03, 00:37:

Hey, that's pretty cool. I wish that my 925XE based Dell would have allowed a like-socketed Core 2 Duo back in the day.

This is like CoffeeTime, except with Core 2. It's WolfTime, woof!

I wish Core 2 Duo for my Optiplex GX280 too, but BIOS is problem sadly, without reverse engineering it adding code for Core 2 initialization would be impossible, thanks Intel.

Heh I remember reading about CoffeeTime, it was impressive research too 😀

Now time for second topic, Conroe and 925X chipset.
I used Core 2 Extreme X6800 (only C2D with unlocked multiplier) and ASRock 775XFire-VSTA board.

This board is interesting one, it have official support for Cedar Mill CPUs, and newest BIOS is from 20 December 2006.
When I saw i925x board with such new BIOS I thought "it must have code for Core 2 initalization", and I was right! I just needed to add microcodes. 😁

BIOS works flawlessy with Conroe based CPUs, Wolfdale is different story, sometimes it doesn't POST and seems to be not so stable. But that's ok I already have 2 i915/i925 boards with Wolfdale so why not Conroe this time 😀
I tested C2E X6800 on different board to see how much I can overclock it with acceptable voltage, 3.6GHz at 1.45v (stock voltage is 1.35v) is best I can get. Still solid clock for (originally) Pentium 4 only board 😁
This board does not POST with 1066MHz FSB CPUs so I did BSEL mod to lower it to 800MHz. This is how pinmod looks like:

Some pictures from Windows and BIOS:

Some great work Vlad!

I am still using P5GD1-PRO as my filestocking machines board with Celeron D 340. As u might guess, that thing is pretty lazy. That doesnt matter as I only backup my files to this pc, but as I saw this thread, I wouldnt mind having c2d there and get some extra juice while keeping the old rig alive. 😁

I am not that tech person when it comes to modifying bioses, but I could try atleast. I have c2d e4500 and 4600 cpus lying around, both seem to be Conroes. Would these maybe work with my board with sufficient bios update (I guess p5gd1 vm and pro are pretty much same thing?), or would it be better to aim for Wolfdale? (I think I even got e8400 somewhere, dont know if that would be overkill for that board 🤣)

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-09, 20:49:

Some great work Vlad!

I am still using P5GD1-PRO as my filestocking machines board with Celeron D 340. As u might guess, that thing is pretty lazy. That doesnt matter as I only backup my files to this pc, but as I saw this thread, I wouldnt mind having c2d there and get some extra juice while keeping the old rig alive. 😁

I am not that tech person when it comes to modifying bioses, but I could try atleast. I have c2d e4500 and 4600 cpus lying around, both seem to be Conroes. Would these maybe work with my board with sufficient bios update (I guess p5gd1 vm and pro are pretty much same thing?), or would it be better to aim for Wolfdale? (I think I even got e8400 somewhere, dont know if that would be overkill for that board 🤣)

Thanks and welcome to forum! 😁

With BIOS from P5GD1-VM you can only use Wolfdale based CPUs, Imo best option is to get cheap E5800 like i did, it will run downclocked to 2.6GHz (667MHz FSB) ,still better than any Pentium 4. And you need to use throttlestop software to set multiplier, it is stuck at 6x without that.

BTW today I got three of E6500K with unlocked multiplier so it will be even better when overclocked to 3.6ghz at 1.3v, but I didn't tested them yet in i915 board. 😜

Vlad94 wrote on 2024-01-09, 21:34:

Thanks and welcome to forum! :D […]
Show full quote

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-09, 20:49:

Some great work Vlad!

I am still using P5GD1-PRO as my filestocking machines board with Celeron D 340. As u might guess, that thing is pretty lazy. That doesnt matter as I only backup my files to this pc, but as I saw this thread, I wouldnt mind having c2d there and get some extra juice while keeping the old rig alive. 😁

I am not that tech person when it comes to modifying bioses, but I could try atleast. I have c2d e4500 and 4600 cpus lying around, both seem to be Conroes. Would these maybe work with my board with sufficient bios update (I guess p5gd1 vm and pro are pretty much same thing?), or would it be better to aim for Wolfdale? (I think I even got e8400 somewhere, dont know if that would be overkill for that board 🤣)

Thanks and welcome to forum! 😁

With BIOS from P5GD1-VM you can only use Wolfdale based CPUs, Imo best option is to get cheap E5800 like i did, it will run downclocked to 2.6GHz (667MHz FSB) ,still better than any Pentium 4. And you need to use throttlestop software to set multiplier, it is stuck at 6x without that.

BTW today I got three of E6500K with unlocked multiplier so it will be even better when overclocked to 3.6ghz at 1.3v, but I didn't tested them yet in i915 board. 😜

Hmm, sounds like a plan. Do you think my pro version of the board is basically same as the vm version you have? Cant even access Asus spec pages anymore.

I just checked and I got e8400 which is Wolfdale too, do you think there would be a chance to get that working? E5800 has 800mhz bus speed as e8400 is 1333mhz already, I guess the board doesnt like too high bus speeds since yours didnt boot even with 800mhz...

I also managed to find e3200 celly which also is Wolfdale with 800mhz bus. Maybe that could be the first to try.

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-10, 15:07:

Hmm, sounds like a plan. Do you think my pro version of the board is basically same as the vm version you have? Cant even access Asus spec pages anymore.

I just checked and I got e8400 which is Wolfdale too, do you think there would be a chance to get that working? E5800 has 800mhz bus speed as e8400 is 1333mhz already, I guess the board doesnt like too high bus speeds since yours didnt boot even with 800mhz...

I also managed to find e3200 celly which also is Wolfdale with 800mhz bus. Maybe that could be the first to try.

BIOS from Asus P5GD1-VM worked for me even on Asus P5AD2-E Premium, which is 925XE board with DDR2! So yeah for 99% that BIOS will work with Asus P5GD1-PRO.

E8400 is pointless cuz it will work at 1.5GHz with 667MHz FSB, E3200 will work at 2GHz, not bad but i'm not sure if Wolfdale Celerons will work, didn't tried myself.
So testing E3200 with pin-mod from first post from this thread is first thing you can try 😜

Vlad94 wrote on 2024-01-11, 02:12:

BIOS from Asus P5GD1-VM worked for me even on Asus P5AD2-E Premium, which is 925XE board with DDR2! So yeah for 99% that BIOS wi […]
Show full quote

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-10, 15:07:

Hmm, sounds like a plan. Do you think my pro version of the board is basically same as the vm version you have? Cant even access Asus spec pages anymore.

I just checked and I got e8400 which is Wolfdale too, do you think there would be a chance to get that working? E5800 has 800mhz bus speed as e8400 is 1333mhz already, I guess the board doesnt like too high bus speeds since yours didnt boot even with 800mhz...

I also managed to find e3200 celly which also is Wolfdale with 800mhz bus. Maybe that could be the first to try.

BIOS from Asus P5GD1-VM worked for me even on Asus P5AD2-E Premium, which is 925XE board with DDR2! So yeah for 99% that BIOS will work with Asus P5GD1-PRO.

E8400 is pointless cuz it will work at 1.5GHz with 667MHz FSB, E3200 will work at 2GHz, not bad but i'm not sure if Wolfdale Celerons will work, didn't tried myself.
So testing E3200 with pin-mod from first post from this thread is first thing you can try 😜

Almost forget to answer on this 😁

Yeah I'll start with E3200. Did you mod bios (add micro codes) at all or did u manage to get that E5800 work with stock bios?

About pin mod, did you just use tape or is there "easier" way? I never had to modify my CPU's in any way, I've only sanded my Q6600 to achieve little lower temps. Although I could update it to LGA771 Xeon aswell some day....

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-18, 19:24:

Yeah I'll start with E3200. Did you mod bios (add micro codes) at all or did u manage to get that E5800 work with stock bios?

About pin mod, did you just use tape or is there "easier" way? I never had to modify my CPU's in any way, I've only sanded my Q6600 to achieve little lower temps. Although I could update it to LGA771 Xeon aswell some day....

Microcodes are not getting loaded for Wolfdale CPUs on this BIOS anyway, so you can use stock one.

For isolating I just used regular tape, for connecting, hmm... you can use silver conductive paint (for permanent use) or copper conductive tape (to test if it works).
At least I did it that way 😁

It'd be neat to get these CPUs working on a board with an ISA slot.

- Alex

ajacocks wrote on 2024-01-19, 16:31:

It'd be neat to get these CPUs working on a board with an ISA slot.

- Alex

i915 board with ISA? Must be some industrial one.

I've seen a few. And much more common than any of the later 775 boards.

- Alex

This is INSANE! I never thought it would have been possible!!
I have an HP Pavilion zd8000, and it would seriously benefit from this. Only problem is that the motherboard is proprietary (I have preserved a schematic for it though) and the BIOS is a Phoenix cME FirstBIOS which... you can't really modify too much I believe.

https://archive.org/details/hp-pavilion-zd-80 … ta-nt-2-rev-2-b
Would someone be kind enough to look through this and see if there's a possible way I can do a pin mod to get something like an 800FSB 45nm Pentium dual-core or a Core 2 Duo of some sort to work on here? It would be a HUGE upgrade. Not so sure about C2Q and that's really asking too much since that's extremely overkill for a laptop from 2004. As for the BIOS I use a no-whitelist one. I'd also love to find a way to remove the artificial 2.5GB RAM cap without making the computer take several minutes to POST.

Thanks in advance. I'm not really getting my hopes up high for this one but it would be amazing to have such an upgrade on here.

Vlad94 wrote on 2024-01-11, 02:12:

BIOS from Asus P5GD1-VM worked for me even on Asus P5AD2-E Premium, which is 925XE board with DDR2! So yeah for 99% that BIOS wi […]
Show full quote

Bapsu wrote on 2024-01-10, 15:07:

Hmm, sounds like a plan. Do you think my pro version of the board is basically same as the vm version you have? Cant even access Asus spec pages anymore.

I just checked and I got e8400 which is Wolfdale too, do you think there would be a chance to get that working? E5800 has 800mhz bus speed as e8400 is 1333mhz already, I guess the board doesnt like too high bus speeds since yours didnt boot even with 800mhz...

I also managed to find e3200 celly which also is Wolfdale with 800mhz bus. Maybe that could be the first to try.

BIOS from Asus P5GD1-VM worked for me even on Asus P5AD2-E Premium, which is 925XE board with DDR2! So yeah for 99% that BIOS will work with Asus P5GD1-PRO.

E8400 is pointless cuz it will work at 1.5GHz with 667MHz FSB, E3200 will work at 2GHz, not bad but i'm not sure if Wolfdale Celerons will work, didn't tried myself.
So testing E3200 with pin-mod from first post from this thread is first thing you can try 😜

Just tried to flash newest bios for p5gd1-vm (1015 version) to my p5gd1 Pro board but afudos says my romid is wrong which it actually is since im attempting to flash wrong boards bios. Did you use afudos from Asus pages or something else to flash? And generally since you've managed to flash wrong boards bioses, how u got that done? I also tried newer version of afudos but that one told me it's not compabtible with the bios....

k24a1 wrote on 2024-02-01, 00:28:

This is INSANE! I never thought it would have been possible!!
I have an HP Pavilion zd8000, and it would seriously benefit from this. Only problem is that the motherboard is proprietary (I have preserved a schematic for it though) and the BIOS is a Phoenix cME FirstBIOS which... you can't really modify too much I believe.

Modifying Pentium 4 BIOS to initialize C2D would require some serious reverse engineering, init routines are far more complex. Only way to have C2D on i915/925 is to use BIOS from asus p5gd1-vm or asrock 775xfire-vsta, but for 99% they will not work on laptop.

k24a1 wrote on 2024-02-01, 00:28:

Would someone be kind enough to look through this and see if there's a possible way I can do a pin mod to get something like an 800FSB 45nm Pentium dual-core or a Core 2 Duo of some sort to work on here? It would be a HUGE upgrade. Not so sure about C2Q and that's really asking too much since that's extremely overkill for a laptop from 2004. As for the BIOS I use a no-whitelist one. I'd also love to find a way to remove the artificial 2.5GB RAM cap without making the computer take several minutes to POST.

C2Q and... Pentium D are not possible on i915/925, those chipsets really have SMP capability removed, trick with C2D is their cores are interconnected, so it literally bypasses missing SMP capability to run more than 1 core 😉
Running C2D should be possible on any P4 chipset, I want to try with i845, but lga775 boards with that chipset seems to be rare 🙁 Only 3 of them exists, one is ASRock with AMIBIOS so it should init C2D somehow, C2D on 2002 chipset lmao 😂

Bapsu wrote on 2024-02-01, 18:43:

Just tried to flash newest bios for p5gd1-vm (1015 version) to my p5gd1 Pro board but afudos says my romid is wrong which it actually is since im attempting to flash wrong boards bios. Did you use afudos from Asus pages or something else to flash? And generally since you've managed to flash wrong boards bioses, how u got that done? I also tried newer version of afudos but that one told me it's not compabtible with the bios....

You need to use afudos but engineering version 😜 I added it into attachment.
Usage: afudos /i[filename] /pbnc /n

Hahaa, thank you 😃 I guessed I need something like this. I'll give that one a try later on!