[SOLVED] i7 3770s not working on HP Compaq Elite 8300 USDT

Aug 5, 2019
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I tried to upgrade the i5 3470s cpu on my old HP Compaq Elite 8300 USDT to the i7 3770s. The motherboard is LGA1155.

However it never boots with red LED blinking 8 times with beeps. The power supply is the standard 135w (only when I have the discrete graphic card it requires more wattage I read).

BIOS is latest from April 2019. The hp troubleshooting guide says 8 beeps means Video card error which I don't have one on this.

If I remove the memory it blinks 5 times with beeps which as per the troubleshooting guide.

I am just wondering if the cpu not compatible for whatever or the cpu not working? The cpu fan runs and also I can see it heats up as I turn on.

Any help please to troubleshoot?


Thanka,
Manoj
 
Solution
According to HP blink codes, it's a blink (1 second seperation) x3, then the next 5 (2 second seperation), pause repeat 5x then stop.

So the time between the blinks is slightly longer. HP has it written as 3.5 or 4.4, but 4.4 doesn't fit anything remotely close, whereas 3.5 does.

It's HP. They use a custom bios in all their pc's, and what they most commonly do is prohibit some cpus in certain ranges. Like you can downgrade that cpu easily, but upgrades are iffy, because HP sells the 3200 elites that have an i7, but cost more. They want you to buy the more expensive model, not upgrade the cheap model.

I know for fact that a i7-3770k is not supported, even though it's lga1155, it's not microcoded into bios as recognized as a viable...
It's not 8 blinks, it's 3 then 5, I suspect, which would be cpu not detected (according to HP.)

I did find this.

i7 3770s

https://ark.intel.com/products/65524/Intel-Core-i7-3770S-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-compaq-elite-8300-small-form-factor-pc/5232852

before you try the cpu i strongly recomend you update the bios as your bios is a early release

and later bios updates may contain cpu microde fix's/ cpu models

to do the update

you must install this first....... 02.99 Rev.A oct 19 2015 (sp73099) before updating to bios 00.03..06

Fix and enhancements:

  • Customers MUST flash this BIOS first, before flashing to the v03.xx versions.
  • Added enhancement to allow for flashing forward to v03.xx.
  • This is the same version as v02.98.

current bios: 00.03.06 Rev.A released feb 22 2018 (sp85516)

NOTE: Due to security changes, after loading this BIOS, older versions cannot be installed.

Fix and enhancements:
  • Provides the latest Intel Microcode versions 0x1F for Ivy Bridge processors and 0x2D for Sandy Bridge processors.
  • Adds a new BIOS Setup policy to allow the Power On Password prompt when Wake On LAN is enabled. NOTE: This new setting will be enable by default, and will prompt for Power On Password during a Wake on LAN event.
 
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According to HP blink codes, it's a blink (1 second seperation) x3, then the next 5 (2 second seperation), pause repeat 5x then stop.

So the time between the blinks is slightly longer. HP has it written as 3.5 or 4.4, but 4.4 doesn't fit anything remotely close, whereas 3.5 does.

It's HP. They use a custom bios in all their pc's, and what they most commonly do is prohibit some cpus in certain ranges. Like you can downgrade that cpu easily, but upgrades are iffy, because HP sells the 3200 elites that have an i7, but cost more. They want you to buy the more expensive model, not upgrade the cheap model.

I know for fact that a i7-3770k is not supported, even though it's lga1155, it's not microcoded into bios as recognized as a viable cpu. Which makes the i7-3770 /S iffy.

However, HP changed some stuff in their way of doing the bios, so according to dude, you must first upgrade to the last 2.0 bios, then you can jump to 3.0 bios. If there was anywhere where acceptance of the i7 is found, it's probably in the 2.0 bios.

I'd be like you having XP and Microsoft willing to let you upgrade to 10, but you must first upgrade to 7 to add the new drivers etc that 10 skips over.

Since you probably went from that really old bios, skipped over the middling 2.0 and went straight to 3.0, there's probably stuff that got missed. HP states for security reasons you can't now backtrack to older bios, so not sure how that'd work out.

I'd call HP tech support and get verification that that's what had to happen and if it's possible without bricking the bios. Ask for verification in writing, so if it does brick, you have something to fall back on for a replacement mobo.
 
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Solution
According to HP blink codes, it's a blink (1 second seperation) x3, then the next 5 (2 second seperation), pause repeat 5x then stop.

So the time between the blinks is slightly longer. HP has it written as 3.5 or 4.4, but 4.4 doesn't fit anything remotely close, whereas 3.5 does.

It's HP. They use a custom bios in all their pc's, and what they most commonly do is prohibit some cpus in certain ranges. Like you can downgrade that cpu easily, but upgrades are iffy, because HP sells the 3200 elites that have an i7, but cost more. They want you to buy the more expensive model, not upgrade the cheap model.

I know for fact that a i7-3770k is not supported, even though it's lga1155, it's not microcoded into bios as recognized as a viable cpu. Which makes the i7-3770 /S iffy.

However, HP changed some stuff in their way of doing the bios, so according to dude, you must first upgrade to the last 2.0 bios, then you can jump to 3.0 bios. If there was anywhere where acceptance of the i7 is found, it's probably in the 2.0 bios.

I'd be like you having XP and Microsoft willing to let you upgrade to 10, but you must first upgrade to 7 to add the new drivers etc that 10 skips over.

Since you probably went from that really old bios, skipped over the middling 2.0 and went straight to 3.0, there's probably stuff that got missed. HP states for security reasons you can't now backtrack to older bios, so not sure how that'd work out.

I'd call HP tech support and get verification that that's what had to happen and if it's possible without bricking the bios. Ask for verification in writing, so if it does brick, you have something to fall back on for a replacement mobo.
All 8 blinks are same intervals in my case. And yes I did upgrade bios from 2.09 to 2.98->2.99-> then to 3.08.

I am contacting HP to see if they can be of any help.

Thanks for your suggestions.