So, heres a basic rundown on my problem: i decided to do a little upgrade to my old backup PC which originally had Intel P4 2.8GHz CPU, Asus IS7-E motherboard (bios never updated), 512 RAM. I plugged in an Intel P4 3.40GHz CPU and some more RAM modules. Started the PC, initial black screen showed a message "CPU is unworkable or has been changed. Press DEL to go to soft menu or press F1 to continue”. Pressing DEL got me to the blue setup screen, first option - Soft Menu asking for processor speed with two options: 2,800 MHz (14 x 200; the 200 is variable factor between 100 and 400) and User Defined. Since I installed 3.4 GHz, I tried to get that figure by fiddling with User Defined option. Changing the factor from 200 to 242 gave nearly 3,388 MHz – very close to what the CPU was actually about. Restarting gave me black screen with message that something was wrong with Floppy drive, plus nasty beeping, and the computer never started. Resetting CMOS threw me back at the beginning: "CPU is unworkable or has been changed. Press DEL to go to soft menu or press F1 to continue”. This time I hit F1, Windows XP started normally. I ran a hardware recognition program, it determined the correct CPU (Intel P4 3.40GHz), but speed was at just 2.8GHz, just as the previous CPU. Restarted again – all the same. When changing CPU speed manually, problems with floppy and the PC does not start. Resetting CMOS – new processor recognized but run in the speed of the previous CPU. The question is – isn’t the system supposed to recognize the new CPU and run at its specs? Or, in other words, why the system recognizes the correct CPU, but runs it at a lower speed of the previous CPU, and does not allow to speed it up to its original specs? I hope someone digs in this brick of text and understands it
Try to load the default settings of your BIOS from the BIOS (without resetting via battery or jumpers); What does the manual of IS7-E say? Maybe there's a BIOS update that can fix this; That manual installation wizard looks kinda phony. I wouldn't say that the motherboard did really recognize the CPU completely. It should be much more automatical, since this could've been the first CPU you pop in and having problems like this is just abnormal.
