Z92Km boot failure info
I bought a US Z92Km Asus laptop in early July, and figured I'd be clever and throw a ML-44 in the poor machine. The ML-44, for the less up-to-date on AMD processors, has a 2.4GHz max clock speed, 1MB of L2 cache, and a power consumption rating of 35W, like the other ML processors. It also suffers from the halt on boot glitch when running off battery, and it clocks the processor down to 1GHz, which is beyond just annoying when I spent an extra $100 for a faster processor. I also happen to know assembly language and low-level processing, and I can see what's happening on my unit. It goes like this: the processor id is read properly. It is displayed. The BIOS prepares to take over the PowerNow battery management to allow the OS to change the clock speed through ACPI, and something in the BIOS coding short-circuits. On AC, the BIOS outputs diagnostic messages to the screen because the processor is not offically supported and the combination may fail. On battery, the BIOS tries to modify a PowerNow setting and fails. It then issues the halt command, stopping everything. After booting, it underclocks the processor to prevent damage to the board. Any unsupported processors *should* recieve the same reaction. Check to see what the clock speed is and if it changes. If you've got the same problem I do, the BIOS is not coded for that processor and there's nothing that can be done short of recoding the BIOS (which I'm trying to talk to Asus about, but I've already had trouble keeping the processor models straight, so I look like a goon already). If I manage to get a BIOS development package from them, the laptop may yet be capable of running with unsupported processors. Otherwise, I'd say the chances Asus would take such a risk on hundreds of warranteed machines is about a million to one against. There's always the possibility that the cooling system won't keep up or the BIOS will misinterpret a processor warning and fry everything. Try to sell the darn processor before the price drops. I hate to say it, but that's the only option that's guaranteed a decent margin of success.
