Can my Vista PC support an 8.1 upgrade?


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I have Windows 8 running on an Optiplex 745 (which I upgraded with a Q6600), it's an even older chipset than your P45 and it works perfectly well with the stock Windows drivers. Even if Intel have stopped officially supporting the chipset you will find newer versions of Windows have no issues running on those chipsets. Any CPU with SSE2 and hardware DEP (so Athlon 64, or Socket 775 Pentium 4) or newer will be able to run Windows 8.1 no problems.

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Still I cant seem to resolve this error. I'm currently running Windows 8.0 64bit, but this error is stopping me from upgrading. CPU-World also say my CPU is supported, still the error wont let me install.

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Still I cant seem to resolve this error. I'm currently running Windows 8.0 64bit, but this error is stopping me from upgrading. CPU-World also say my CPU is supported, still the error wont let me install.

 

Check your BIOS settings and make sure you don't have NX (No Execute) turned off. It's required.

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Still I cant seem to resolve this error. I'm currently running Windows 8.0 64bit, but this error is stopping me from upgrading. CPU-World also say my CPU is supported, still the error wont let me install.

 

I'm not sure what could be causing that error but I found a workaround here

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One final thought: Did you fully update the board's bios? It shouldn't affect the things that Windows 8 needs to work but it's probably worth checking anyway

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One final thought: Did you fully update the board's bios? It shouldn't affect the things that Windows 8 needs to work but it's probably worth checking anyway

Don't really know how :/ How would I go about doing that?

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For almost all board manufacturers these days you will be able to download an EXE that you can flash. Just throw an install of Windows 7 (or vista, whatever you have to hand) and run the bios update from within windows, it will flash the bios for you. Same section as you'd download the board drivers from usually (Look for winflash, you don't want the DOS flash)

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I have been reading up on updating bios, seems like there's a lot that can go wrong, so its a last resort. I have tried investigating if my Cpu is compatible so I tried Microsofts Coreinfo v3.2, which states that my CPU doesn't support CMPXCHG16B which is one of the requirements for Windows 8.1 64bit. The strange thing is cpu-world says the opposite, that the core 2 duo E8400 does support CMPXCHG16B. To make it worse, the official information available on Intels site, is really scarce regarding specifications.

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I have been reading up on updating bios, seems like there's a lot that can go wrong, so its a last resort. I have tried investigating if my Cpu is compatible so I tried Microsofts Coreinfo v3.2, which states that my CPU doesn't support CMPXCHG16B which is one of the requirements for Windows 8.1 64bit. The strange thing is cpu-world says the opposite, that the core 2 duo E8400 does support CMPXCHG16B. To make it worse, the official information available on Intels site, is really scarce regarding specifications.

I think there is an errata which can cause CPUID to return incorrect values that is fixed by a BIOS (microcode) update.

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So this actually might be resolved if I update BIOS?

This is my motherboard http://www.gigabyte.se/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2741&dl=1#bios

So I just choose the F4 version or which one should I use?

Thanks for the help btw!

 

You want version F4 from 2009. It's the latest one and it looks like it's an EXE so you should just be able to run it and it will reboot and update the BIOS firmware.

 

The fixes from the older ones listed should be in the newest one and looks like your problem may have been fixed in F3 since there's a microcode update for CPU support.

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You want version F4 from 2009. It's the latest one and it looks like it's an EXE so you should just be able to run it and it will reboot and update the BIOS firmware.

 

The fixes from the older ones listed should be in the newest one and looks like your problem may have been fixed in F3 since there's a microcode update for CPU support.

Thank you! I read some where that you should be wary of updating bios through Windows, do you guys know anything about this?

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Thank you! I read some where that you should be wary of updating bios through Windows, do you guys know anything about this?

 

It's not 2002 anymore.  The Windows-based firmware updaters pretty much have had the bugs worked out by now.

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The erratum I am referring to is "AW67 Enabling PECI via the PECI_CTL MSR Does Not Enable PECI and May Corrupt the CPUID Feature Flags" from http://www.intel.eu/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/core-2-duo-e8000-e7000-45nm-process-spec-update.pdf

The bios update actually fixed that issue :)

I updated my bios to F4 version, and today I saw this list http://uk.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2741

It has my CPU marked with F1 and F3 is it implying that I should use F3? Should I downgrade to F3, or can I be safe with F4 or what is this list about?

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The bios update actually fixed that issue :)

I updated my bios to F4 version, and today I saw this list http://uk.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2741

It has my CPU marked with F1 and F3 is it implying that I should use F3? Should I downgrade to F3, or can I be safe with F4 or what is this list about?

 

No. It says "Since BIOS version" in that column, meaning that's when the support/feature was added. I would stay on the most recent version.

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Okey, thanks! Didnt see that..

I tried doing a full reset on Windows 8 before, and bumbed in to another error, and now my desktop wont even boot as theres no OS on the hard drive.

The strange thing, is that I tried creating a bootable USB & DVD, but neither work.. Just gets stuck on the windows logo, then shows this error.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/7328/w3jn.jpg

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This is so strange, I tried the same thing once more with the bootable USB. And it worked, so I have Windows 8.1 installed now. But Im suspecting the installation is corrupted since I cant even install chrome. And refresh still boots me to blue error screen..

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