Merom in M90. Works with E1705 as well... - Page 3

Thanks, it's a difficult time to buy a notebook unless you are willing to forgo a merom upgrade later on. I'm in Hong Kong and the XPS is almost twice the price of the E1705 with the same specs apart from the videocard.
Are the XPS excempt from coupons? I've not found any that work on it

I certainly hope that the Merom is compitable with the A01 BIOS on the E1705...

That is not true.

Run 3DMark05 on a 1.86 then run it on a 2.16.

In my 9300 I saw a 400 point difference between 1.86 and 2.4 pinmod. I saw a 200 point difference between 2.0 and 2.4.

3DMark06 is very CPU intense.

Does 64-bit support work correctly?

Operaman, thanks for the rep. I had to go figure out why my green line had gotten longer.

I've never heard of printkey, but it probably works as good or better than what I offered. I use this one because I've used it for years and it serves me well (started using it back in the days if Civ III PBEM gaming.


There are 3 possibilities.

1. They will "nerf" to use an MMOG term the Merom functionality with the 1705 (unlikely as they will probably offer a Merom upgrade with the existing hardware which is still top of the line in a laptop)

2. They will release a BIOS with a version greater than A01 that incorporates 7900gs functionality and Merom functionality (most likely, IMHO)

3. You will be able to use A00 and a 7800GTX in your 1705 (sell the 7900gs, but the 7800GTX) with a Merom

There is very little risk to purchasing the 1705. Use it for six months and see what happens. Sell it for 800 bucks or more with the remaining warranty and buy a new one if the merom support is not where you want it to be. Then you've only spend 400 bucks on a laptop for six months' use.

I figure a good rule of thumb for a "frugal" gamer is to spend less than 1k per year on hardware. The 400 bucks for six months of use falls in this category.

Good luck

What I don't understand is why they would 'nerf' Merom functionality at all. The system supports it already and the CPUs are due to ship in eight weeks. It seems highly bizarre that they would cripple the functionality right now, especially when stories of the performance increase circulating the internet can only be good news for Dell.

My T7200 should be arriving in the next couple of days. I will happily test both the A00 and A01 BIOSs so long as someone tells me how to restore A00 in the event of A01 being 'nerfed'...

I'm also interested in x64 functionality. Can someone try out the x64 trial and let us know?

Can we reverse the bios? I have the a01 on my M90, is it possible to upload a00?

If soo, operaman, can you post it for us?

Thanks

I honestly don't know why it wouldn't.

I think it will work. I just wanted to run through the possibilities to show everyone that buying a 1705 is not a bad idea, even if for some reason they kill the merom functionality with current machines (and honestly that would be a bad PR idea as well as generate more work for them.)

Wow! I am impressed!

I now have Merom working in my E1705. You must upgrade to the A01 BIOS otherwise you are CPU-limited to a x6 multiplier - 1.0GHz in my case.

A01 also means you can run Merom and the 7900GS together in theory (I only need an X1400 so cannot confirm but see no reason why not).

I am also having zero issues with my 2x1GB 667MHz RAM, unlike operaman.

This is fantastic news! I hope Merom compatibility holds true with retail samples as well.

I see no reason why not

Turns out the problem with BIOS A00 is that it incorrectly reads the CPU's minimum and maximum speeds - they show as 0GHz! This changes in A01 to read the correct values and SpeedStep does the rest for you.

That's a bit of a relief

We must remember that the Inspiron 9400/E7105 predates both the M1710 and M90. My guess is that the BIOS revision needed for those new models was retrofitted to the E1705...

So, M1710/M90 A00 = 9400/E7105 A01

The Merom T7400 didn't work in my 9400.
I use the AO1 bios though.
Upgraded to 7800GTX with 130 watt supply.

howcome ?