October 5, 2009 7:46 PM updated: October 6, 2009 9:15 AM

Ok well I finally got it once I got a PS2 Keyboard. I am now the proud owner of a ex485 with a e5200 installed. I am a little perplexed about one thing though. It is only showing that I have one thread not two. Is anyone else seeing this with a E5200 installed. I would of done the E3300 as suggest for heat reasons but I didn't have one locally to buy.

I took notes and tested blind updating the PECI setting a few times. The steps are as follows

Press the Delete button several times when you start the system to get into bios. You will see the power light on solid the network will be off and the health was flashing the aqua color(I think the blind update for the power setting said it could be red to depending on timing, but not sure,I only saw Aqua). If you are doing this blind you probably should wait a few min before going any further just to make sure that you are in the bios. Once in the bios steps are as follows
Press the Right arrow key once
Press Enter once
Press Down 4 times
Press Enter once
Press Down once
Press Enter Once
Press F10 to save and restart

I believe the above are correct but I will take no responsability if you mess up your MediaSmart server. Try those directions at your own risk. I wasn't able to do this until I got my VGA cable. I was also unable to get my server to use any usb keyboards. I had to barrow a old PS2 keyboard from work. I would suggest testing with a USB keyboard if you can't seem to get one to work then just get the VGA cable with the PS2 ports.

The temps are actually pretty good. They are ranging from the very low 50's up into the low 70's which for me, was the same I was seeing with the celeron 440 so not to bad. I am going to let the video converter run overnight and see how the temps are doing tomorrow after a real stress test.

A little bit strange but this morning I found the system running at 66 degrees instead of 70ish.. looks like ambient air temp probably made a big difference, but seems to be running great.

Mavrrick

HTPC1(Phenom 9950/8GB/HDPVR/HVR-2250)(Bedroom computer and TV with 24" Dell Ultrasharp)
HTPC2(Athlon II 7750/2GB/HVR-1800)(Serves living room TV)
MSS EX485 with Pentium Dual Core E5200(2x1.5TB,1x750GB)

October 5, 2009 10:17 PM updated: October 6, 2009 8:17 AM

It does seem that it can produce some heat now but ironically it seems that with the higher CPU temps pushing the fans faster my hard drive are cooling down allot. I was actualy really nervous with as hot as they were getting(before cpu upgrade), but with the cpu driving the internal fans to around 1800 to 1900 rpms the hard drives have dropped 10+ degrees. I am actually thinking in my cases that is a big bonus. I have 2 1.5 segate 7200.12 and then the 750 that came in it. the 1.5 aren't very cool running drives. they would get in the high 40's allot and have seen them hit 50+ a few times. It may seem crazy but i am actually thinking it is kinda of a double bonus with the HDD cooling improving so much from.

My brother worked for AMD a few years back and he explained to me about how they determine clockspeed a CPU is rated at. Basically as long as you are within spec, expect a long life. Hey the top temp for the Pentium dual core e5200 is in the mid 70's so as long as I stay were I am at it is all good.

Mavrrick

HTPC1(Phenom 9950/8GB/HDPVR/HVR-2250)(Bedroom computer and TV with 24" Dell Ultrasharp)
HTPC2(Athlon II 7750/2GB/HVR-1800)(Serves living room TV)
MSS EX485 with Pentium Dual Core E5200(2x1.5TB,1x750GB)

October 6, 2009 3:24 PM

techaholic said: So effectively we have an EX495, just need the 3.0 upgrade for the new look and feel and updated features, however the esata multi probably still will not work on a 485!

Yep very true. I may be alone in this sentiment but I feel like if i really need more then the 4 drives i will probably build a DIY Home Server. I worked up how hard it would be to get a system built with like 13 3.5 hotswapp bays and it isn't to bad. Just costly.

 Basically get a system with 9 external 5.25 drive bays like an antec 900 and then get 2 of the 3x5.25 to 5 3.5 converstion enclosures and then you can also get a 2x5.25 to 3  3.5 drive bays conversion enclosure and tada you have 13 hotswapp sata bays. Add in a additional controller and you are set.

What attracted me to the MSS was the size and powerfootprint. I was tired of running my desktop to host things throughout the house, and my desktop is a gaming rig(not power friendly). The idea of a server with a 60 watt footprint really caught my eye. The new E5200 cpu offsets it a little bit but only by like 20 or so watts. Still well below my desktop rig with a phenom 9950 and radeon 4870. Those two have huge appetites even when idleing the gaming rig idles in the 290 range.

Either way when i start to really need more then 4 drive I will probably do a DIY home server. I expect that as long as drive storage keeps increasing then I should always be able to stay within 4 drives.

Mavrrick

HTPC1(Phenom 9950/8GB/HDPVR/HVR-2250)(Bedroom computer and TV with 24" Dell Ultrasharp)
HTPC2(Athlon II 7750/2GB/HVR-1800)(Serves living room TV)
MSS EX485 with Pentium Dual Core E5200(2x1.5TB,1x750GB)

October 8, 2009 10:30 AM

That is an interesting update. Doesn't seem to hard, and you don't even have to open the case(although you do to swapp the cpu). I would suspect as long as you specifically do what you stated above it should be fairly safe. Just make sure you have battery backup hooked up when applying the flash to protect against a power outage. One big advantage is you don't have to worry about the setting for peci or core multiprocessing going away if the bios gets cleared for some reason(battery dieing).

Mavrrick

HTPC1(Phenom 9950/8GB/HDPVR/HVR-2250)(Bedroom computer and TV with 24" Dell Ultrasharp)
HTPC2(Athlon II 7750/2GB/HVR-1800)(Serves living room TV)
MSS EX485 with Pentium Dual Core E5200(2x1.5TB,1x750GB)

October 9, 2009 9:42 AM updated: October 9, 2009 9:45 AM

Cadman said: ... replaced the processor with a E3200 that I picked up locally for $50 (Fry's Electronics) ... It's a 2.4ghz Dual Core with 1gb of cache. It also supports virtualization. Really sweet processor for $50...

Cadman, did you find that the temperatures to be the same if not lower than the Celeron 440?  I found the E3300 ran a bit cooler for me than the Celeron 440.

HP EX485, 2GB RAM, Intel Celeron E3300 2.5GHz Dual-Core Processor, 4 x 2TB WD Caviar Green

October 9, 2009 12:36 PM

Nice work on the bios without the cable fix. E3300 chip coming on Monday. Question: Any idea what might happen if I flash the bios with settings listed above and restart with optimal settings with the 440 chip still installed? Will the server boot up? or is it critical to shut down after flashing new bios and then immediately put new chip in? Also, I will be installing e3300 chip not e3200. Would the bio settings still be the same (specifically enabling speedstep=01)? Thanks!

HP EX485, Intel e3300 2.5 ghz dual-core, 2 gig memory, two 1TB WD Caviar Black, One 2TB WD Caviar Green.

October 9, 2009 1:26 PM

PECI - Proprietary Environmental Control Interface

There's an interesting forum post on the underlying purpose of this BIOS setting:  http://forum.xcpus.com/intel/7784-intel-thermal-management-design.html

Is it possible that this BIOS setting was already enabled on some machines (since some folks didn't need to manually enable this when upgrading to E5200)?

October 9, 2009 1:37 PM

Cadman said:

Shane said: Nice work on the bios without the cable fix. E3300 chip coming on Monday. Question: Any idea what might happen if I flash the bios with settings listed above and restart with optimal settings with the 440 chip still installed? Will the server boot up? or is it critical to shut down after flashing new bios and then immediately put new chip in? Also, I will be installing e3300 chip not e3200. Would the bio settings still be the same (specifically enabling speedstep=01)? Thanks!

No.. The settings are the same between the E3200 and the E3300, as the only differnce in the chips is the different CPU multiplier that adds 100mhz of speed. And you definitly want the Speedstep option on with the E3300, otherwise the chip will never ramp up its speed on demand as others have reported in this thread. As for booting the C 440 with these setttings, I'm not sure, as I didn't try, but I should work... It will just ignore the features the C 440 cant support (VT, SpeedStep, Dual Core) as this setting just allows these options to work if they are present in the chip.

Thanks Cadman!  One more question for you:  Should speed step be enabled=01 in both failsafe and optimal settings?

HP EX485, Intel e3300 2.5 ghz dual-core, 2 gig memory, two 1TB WD Caviar Black, One 2TB WD Caviar Green.

October 9, 2009 2:27 PM

I will be trying this BIOS mod soon and installing a E5200. Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread.

October 9, 2009 3:20 PM updated: October 9, 2009 3:40 PM

Shane said: Nice work on the bios without the cable fix. E3300 chip coming on Monday. Question: Any idea what might happen if I flash the bios with settings listed above and restart with optimal settings with the 440 chip still installed? Will the server boot up? or is it critical to shut down after flashing new bios and then immediately put new chip in? Also, I will be installing e3300 chip not e3200. Would the bio settings still be the same (specifically enabling speedstep=01)? Thanks!

It should work just fine.  I have the VGA cable, made the changes to the BIOS, booted the system,  and seen it running fine with the changes using the 440 CPU.

HP didn’t make this system to do what we are doing to it (i.e., upgrading the processor).  That’s why they didn’t put the VGA/PS2 connections on the back of the machine.  While I would love to have everything handed to me free of charge, I would like to comment that the VGA cable that is being sold by a 3rd party is a quality product at a reasonable price.  I bet if you took the time to design and produce a quality cable, create a nice silk screen printed circuit board, assemble all the connectors, packaging, handling, etc. for what will most assuredly be very small number of sales that the amount of profit is small compared to your time spent.  It is your choice to buy or not, I can’t say it’s overpriced because I don’t think that I could make a living off of the profits.  I sure didn’t want to take the time to put one together myself.  So, I appreciate his effort in creating a quality product for my time of not having to do it.  I also like the fact that I can access the system directly instead of through a web interface.  I believe there has been at least one person that has put M$server 2008 on the machine.  Try doing that with a blind install, it wouldn’t be fun.  Just don’t blame the 3^rd party guy because he was gracious enough to provide us with an option to even buy a cable, where one didn’t exist before.  :-)

HP EX485, 2GB RAM, Intel Celeron E3300 2.5GHz Dual-Core Processor, 4 x 2TB WD Caviar Green

October 13, 2009 10:28 AM updated: October 13, 2009 10:30 AM

Well, the e3300 is in. Booted and working without a problem. Temps according to HP are coming in around 50 C but I expect them to drop after arctic silver sets in and I will test temps with other software when I have time. Only problem at this point is that when I went to shut down the server it appeared to shut down when done from my laptop but all it really seemed to do was remove itself from the network. When I visually inspected the server it was still running with only the network light not lit up blue. I had to hold the power button in on the back of the server for 5 secs to force it to turn off.

Any ideas or changes that I can possible try in the bios?

Also, whs is saying I have a Pent III Xeon or something installed....strange. It is showing both cores thankfully.

Otherwise things seem to be working fine although I can't say I saw much of a speed increase with PS3 Media Server streaming and remuxing HD .mov files on the fly to my PS3. I seemed to have the same slow 5 sec or so buffer time. I was really hoping to cut that down a bit with the upgrade. Only thing left to do is try a Ram upgrade at this point but for some reason I doubt that will help. Suggestions on RAM and Bios changes for a proper shut down would be appreciated.

Thanks again to all for the help!

HP EX485, Intel e3300 2.5 ghz dual-core, 2 gig memory, two 1TB WD Caviar Black, One 2TB WD Caviar Green.

October 17, 2009 12:27 AM

First off, thanks to everyone who has posted. This has become a very informative thread! I was compelled to boost the processing power of my EX485 and decided to go with, like many, the Intel e5200.

I just installed the new processor and the server would not post. No hard drive lights lit and and an ever-blinking far right blue light was the result. I replaced the celeron 440 and the server booted fine. Thinking maybe a connection was loose, I tried again - no luck. The server (thankfully) is running again on the original 440 processor now.

Amazon is sending me a new e5200 (packaging on previous was horrible) but it will not arrive until Tuesday.

I performed the BIOS update as described by Cadman (thanks). I'll post the screenshots. Is it possible that one of the settings could be off?

Thanks in advance all,
Joe

October 19, 2009 8:40 AM

VMCPC SD said: Well, I can't get any of the screenshots of the original or modified BIOS ROM to upload to this site.   Here are the settings that I have (just to clarify what I did and verify that it is correct.) Settings on MODIFIED ROM: Setup Configuration > Advanced > CPU Configuration Control Group Structures  --  Failsafe  --  Optimal Virtualization  --  01  --  01 Hyper Threading  -- 01  --  01 Single Logical Processor  --  00  --  00 Core Multi-Processing  --  01  --  01 PECI  --  01  --  01 SpeedStep  --  01  --  01  ____ In AFUWIN (32), can anyone elaborate on the re-flashing step? I opened the modified rom file (EX485_DualCore.rom) and selected flash... then shut down.  Do any of the Block, CMOS or Misc. options need to be checked under the setup tab?

I think I had the "block" box checked when flashing - also make sure to select "restart with optimal settings".  Again, I had to do a hard shut down as my server wouldn't fully shut down and restart on its own (I think this might be a e3300 issue).  I'm wondering if you need to "disable speed stepping" with the e5200.  Cadman may be a better resource for you on this one but that's what I would try.  Good luck.

HP EX485, Intel e3300 2.5 ghz dual-core, 2 gig memory, two 1TB WD Caviar Black, One 2TB WD Caviar Green.