First Vista problem? speedstep not working?

**Husar** · 03-27-2007, 20:57

Well, I was wondering why my CPU fan was so loud even after the PC was idle for a while, in XP the clock speed of my E6600 would go down from 2.4GHz to 1.6 in idle mode. So I downloaded CPU-Z to check that and saw that no matter which energy saving mode I use, it always stays at 2.4GHz which is no good of course, since it costs more money and makes the fan rotate louder.

I just saw that my BIOS is version 1.5 and the newest is 2.6, maybe an upgrade could fix that problem?(if it goes wrong, I'd finally have a good reason to get that NForce 6 board I wanted all the time

)
There are also two drivers Vista could not install, does speed step need any special drivers maybe?
I checked the BIOS settings already, it was still turned on there.

I don't have much insight on these power savong mechanisms and couldn't find much in google, the Microsoft knowledge base for Vista seems to be still growing, so I'm asking whether anyone here has an idea why Vista does not step down my CPU before I waste any money and/or hardware for nothing?

**BlackAxe3001** · 03-28-2007, 03:43

Hey Hus, check this out. I don't have vista, but I ran across this:

http://www.vista4beginners.com/power-management

Basic stuff I guess, but worth a shot.

**Husar** · 03-28-2007, 09:35

Well, I already was there but the after the PCI-Express part follows the searching and indexing part, meaning that the Processor settings are omitted for me.

I read somewhere that the BIOS has to be capable of doing it, so upgrading that may help, but I'd like to be sure before doing that, maybe I should try to contact AsRock.

**caravel** · 03-28-2007, 11:42

Does the board have a dual / backup BIOS? If it all goes wrong you may be able to restore the old one. Also it may be worth checking the version history for the newer BIOSs. It's often not worth upgrading if you don't see your particular problem addressed in the list of fixes.

As I've said before though, if you do decide to upgrade it won't go wrong if you do it booting from an MS-DOS boot disk and write down all of your settings before hand, then reset to the factory defaults before and after the upgrade. Always making a backup of the old BIOS and having it ready to run from a bat file on a floppy is also a very good idea. Reading up on the subject and going through all of the readme files thoroughly is also a good idea. It is critical that you download the correct firmware for your BIOS. If your board is say REV0 and you download and upgrade using the firmware for REV1, there are two possible scenarios. Either the flash upgrade tool will reject the image and you've had a lucky escape, or it will flash the wrong image anyway, and it's goodbye to your board. This is the result of the Flash ROM being a different type, size or from a different supplier, hence the hardware revisions

**Husar** · 03-28-2007, 12:36

Well, here is the page for BIOS upgrades for my current board, I think my BIOS version is 1.5.
I've done a BIOS upgrade with a simple flash tool before, it allowed me to do it until there was no error found, but it was a tool from AOpen and it was old.
I still don't have a Floppy drive, so making a boot disk or backup disk would be a bit hard for me. The notes on what they fixed are a bit short for my taste, they could include what I want or not, but a somewhat detailed instruction how to do it, which looks as easy as that AOpen thing, if not easier.

The problem is, I'm an idiot, so if I will screw it up I am going to spend 200EUR for a new NForce6 board, I just need a reason.

**caravel** · 03-28-2007, 13:27

Originally Posted by Husar

Well, here is the page for BIOS upgrades for my current board, I think my BIOS version is 1.5.

You need to be sure which BIOS you have currently and which board revision you have. There appears to be no revisions to your board, though it's a good idea to make doubly sure of this.

Originally Posted by Husar

I've done a BIOS upgrade with a simple flash tool before, it allowed me to do it until there was no error found, but it was a tool from AOpen and it was old.

Having to make several attempts is not usual. I would suspect that you were trying to do it from windows (?) and a background process may have corrupted the flash process.

Originally Posted by Husar

I still don't have a Floppy drive, so making a boot disk or backup disk would be a bit hard for me. The notes on what they fixed are a bit short for my taste, they could include what I want or not, but a somewhat detailed instruction how to do it, which looks as easy as that AOpen thing, if not easier.

If you have a USB flash drive you should be able to boot DOS from that and just place the flash image and tool in the root of you C: partition. I would avoid the windows based flash process like the plague. There are sites that allow you to make boot disks, typically you'll only need command.com, msdos.sys, io.sys and two empty text files called autoexec.bat and config.sys to boot to a basic dos prompt the rest of the files that the bootdisk containes won't be necessary.

Originally Posted by Husar

The problem is, I'm an idiot, so if I will screw it up I am going to spend 200EUR for a new NForce6 board, I just need a reason.

Well have you looked at any other possible causes? If it's not working in Vista but was working in XP is it not possible that Vista has broken support and that upgrading the BIOS won't resolve it.

**Husar** · 03-28-2007, 19:41

Originally Posted by Caravel

Well have you looked at any other possible causes? If it's not working in Vista but was working in XP is it not possible that Vista has broken support and that upgrading the BIOS won't resolve it.

Well, there wasn't much info to find about this, probably because Vista is relatively new. And I called myself an idiot because I'd go for a 200EUR board instead of a cheaper one, just to make sure you didn't get that wrong.

I was considering a new board anyway for other reasons, so maybe I'll just try the upgrade from Windows somewhen and get a new board if it won't work.
Concerning the boot disk, I've had one years ago when I was still playing DOS games, but how exactly would a disk save me if the BIOS doesn't work anyway? Or does upgrading overwrite only parts of the BIOS?

**caravel** · 03-28-2007, 21:34

Originally Posted by Husar

Concerning the boot disk, I've had one years ago when I was still playing DOS games, but how exactly would a disk save me if the BIOS doesn't work anyway? Or does upgrading overwrite only parts of the BIOS?

Well if you flash with the wrong BIOS there is pretty much nothing that can help you. If something else goes wrong, for example you can't get something to work or some settings get mucked up. You can stick the boot disk in and boot from that and restore the old BIOS.