E5440 on Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2 Rev 1.4

[Vicky_31]

I am looking to purchase E5440 with E0 stepping for replacing my Core2Duo E7500 on the existing system. I would like to know if this is a good choice?
Can I boot up the BIOS without a graphics card or is it mandatory to have one for Xeons? (My mobo does have an onboard graphics, will that suffice?)
My current BIOS version is F7(which is the latest available), will I need to add Xeon Microcodes even if I am gonna be using it for basic purposes only?
Will Intel's Stock Cooler be good enough if I am not looking for Overclocking it atleast for now?

Thanks and Regards..

 

[Vicky_31]

someone please reply..

 

[calebjo]

1.no need for graphics card just for testing. your mobo already have gma x4500 on the chipset. so yeah you can use onboard graphics to test.
2. yes you can test without having to update the microcode. but if you want to get optimal support you know what to do.
3. stock cooler is fine i guess. as long as you don't overclock. hint: stock cooler from a pentium 4 is better than the latest stock cooler nowadays. it's still quite thick and has copper core in the middle.

 

[Vicky_31]

1.no need for graphics card just for testing. your mobo already have gma x4500 on the chipset. so yeah you can use onboard graphics to test.
2. yes you can test without having to update the microcode. but if you want to get optimal support you know what to do.
3. stock cooler is fine i guess. as long as you don't overclock. hint: stock cooler from a pentium 4 is better than the latest stock cooler nowadays. it's still quite thick and has copper core in the middle.

Thanks a lot for your reply, though I already did the mod with a xeon E5420 and it worked without any bios tweaking. The PC booted just fine but not for long. Since I was running Windows 10 64 bit and after 2-3 reboots the pc ran into a boot loop and I couldn't go past the Windows 10 logo. In despair, I reverted to my windows 7 64bit installation and it was working optimal.

Later I found the issue pertained to a missing instruction set CompareExchange128 which needed Xeon microcodes to be added in the bios to run any 64 bit versions of Windows 8.1or higher.

I flashed my bios with Xeon microcodes and CompareExchange128 was restored post which windows 10 64 bit installation went past smoothly and now I am successfully running the creators update version released this July.

I will try overclocking with a copper coil aftermarket cooler and see how it goes.

 

[calebjo]

glad to know that. sorry for not having found your post earlier. and sorry there's no other members here reply to you. maybe they are too busy witht other things. but i think it's good for you though. curiousity makes us learn things and not depending on others. good job mate.