Is it safe to install SP2

Install the latest BIOS (not sure if it's 1005 or later). Be prepared
for the workarounds if you need them (apparently it's sufficient to
rename "UPDATE.SYS" from SP2 so anything else, just so that it's not
used; originally, people were using the UPDATE.SYS from SP1, but it
appears that having no UPDATE.SYS at all works as well. But do save the
new UPDATE.SYS so that it can be restored once a bios with proper
microcode updates becomes available).

During installation, 1.8 gigabytes of free disk space is required. A
bit more than half of this is freed up after installation, and more can
be freed once you are SURE that you won't need to ever uninstall the
upgrade.


John M. Hunt wrote:

 > I have an ASUS P4P800SE motherboard running Bios 1005. The CPU is a 3.0 Ghz
 > Prescott. The intel CPU interrogator program reports CPU Revision Level 9.
 >
 > Does anyone know whether it is safe to load the SP2 update?
 >
 > Incidentally, I received the SP2 CD from Microsoft in a very prompt
 > manner--the web site talks about 30 days for delivery..
 >
 > John M. Hunt
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2 

Can you expand a little bit and explain what the Intel microcode
issues are with SP2, and what/why people have been doing workarounds
with the update.sys file?

Thanks greatly.


On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 23:41:18 GMT, Barry Watzman
<WatzmanNOSPAM.DeleteThis@neo.rr.com> wrote:

 >Install the latest BIOS (not sure if it's 1005 or later). Be prepared
 >for the workarounds if you need them (apparently it's sufficient to
 >rename "UPDATE.SYS" from SP2 so anything else, just so that it's not
 >used; originally, people were using the UPDATE.SYS from SP1, but it
 >appears that having no UPDATE.SYS at all works as well. But do save the
 >new UPDATE.SYS so that it can be restored once a bios with proper
 >microcode updates becomes available).
 >
 >During installation, 1.8 gigabytes of free disk space is required. A
 >bit more than half of this is freed up after installation, and more can
 >be freed once you are SURE that you won't need to ever uninstall the
 >upgrade.
 >
 >
 >John M. Hunt wrote:
 >
  >> I have an ASUS P4P800SE motherboard running Bios 1005. The CPU is a 3.0 Ghz
  >> Prescott. The intel CPU interrogator program reports CPU Revision Level 9.
  >>
  >> Does anyone know whether it is safe to load the SP2 update?
  >>
  >> Incidentally, I received the SP2 CD from Microsoft in a very prompt
  >> manner--the web site talks about 30 days for delivery..
  >>
  >> John M. Hunt
  >>
  >><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2 

<someone.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:41411692.3256492@news3.news.adelphia.net...
 > Can you expand a little bit and explain what the Intel microcode
 > issues are with SP2, and what/why people have been doing workarounds
 > with the update.sys file?

"explain what the Intel microcode issues are with SP2" Intel and MS aren't
sayin much.
See:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=885626" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=885626</a>
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://cquirke.mvps.org/sp2intel.htm" target="_blank">http://cquirke.mvps.org/sp2intel.htm</a>

Some of us are diligently digging for more.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2 

The issue is that many motherboards don't have the proper Intel
microcode for Prescott CPUs -- either because owners hadn't kept up with
new BIOS' (the "if it aint' broke don't fix it" philosophy, but in this
case it burned them), or even because the motherboard makers themselves
had their heads up their ass (as of the release date for SP2, the
necessary update had not been released at all for maybe half of recent
motherboards, including a number of Asus models -- not withstanding that
this has been coming for 8 months, and there was no excuse for what
happened).

The obvious solution, of course, it to install the latest BIOS on any
motherboard that will take a Prescott (I'd argue, even if a Prescott is
not currently installed).

But that won't help if the latest bios from the motherboard maker still
doesn't include the proper production microcode from Intel.

The incompatability with the beta Intel microcode present in many
production BIOS' is with a module called "Update.sys" in Windows.
Initially people were replacing the SP2 Update.SYS with the one from
SP1, but it apparently turns out that it's enough not to have ANY
update.sys at all, so at least in most cases, you can just rename it to
Update.sav, and then put it back to Update.sys later, after the BIOS
problem is resolved. The problem is, if the incompatability is present,
the system won't boot, so you need to use the recovery console, which
most people dont' know about (if the drive is FAT32 you can boot from a
DOS floppy or CD, but if it's NTFS, as it usually is, that won't help).

There is a writeup on this in the MS knowledgebase. The real "fault"
goes to the Motherboard makers who had their heads up their asses since
January, and to users who don't update their BIOS'.


someone.TakeThisOut@earthlink.net wrote:

 > Can you expand a little bit and explain what the Intel microcode
 > issues are with SP2, and what/why people have been doing workarounds
 > with the update.sys file?
 >
 > Thanks greatly.
 >
 >
 > On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 23:41:18 GMT, Barry Watzman
 > <WatzmanNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@neo.rr.com> wrote:
 >
 >
  >>Install the latest BIOS (not sure if it's 1005 or later). Be prepared
  >>for the workarounds if you need them (apparently it's sufficient to
  >>rename "UPDATE.SYS" from SP2 so anything else, just so that it's not
  >>used; originally, people were using the UPDATE.SYS from SP1, but it
  >>appears that having no UPDATE.SYS at all works as well. But do save the
  >>new UPDATE.SYS so that it can be restored once a bios with proper
  >>microcode updates becomes available).
  >>
  >>During installation, 1.8 gigabytes of free disk space is required. A
  >>bit more than half of this is freed up after installation, and more can
  >>be freed once you are SURE that you won't need to ever uninstall the
  >>upgrade.
  >>
  >>
  >>John M. Hunt wrote:
  >>
  >>
   >>>I have an ASUS P4P800SE motherboard running Bios 1005. The CPU is a 3.0 Ghz
   >>>Prescott. The intel CPU interrogator program reports CPU Revision Level 9.
   >>>
   >>>Does anyone know whether it is safe to load the SP2 update?
   >>>
   >>>Incidentally, I received the SP2 CD from Microsoft in a very prompt
   >>>manner--the web site talks about 30 days for delivery..
   >>>
   >>>John M. Hunt
   >>>
   >>>
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2 

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:4142039A.8000304@neo.rr.com...
 > The issue is that many motherboards don't have the proper Intel
 > microcode for Prescott CPUs -- either because owners hadn't kept up with
 > new BIOS' (the "if it aint' broke don't fix it" philosophy, but in this
 > case it burned them),

That philosophy with respect to mobo BIOSs was defunct 4 years ago.

 > or even because the motherboard makers themselves
 > had their heads up their ass (as of the release date for SP2, the
 > necessary update had not been released at all for maybe half of recent
 > motherboards, including a number of Asus models -- not withstanding that
 > this has been coming for 8 months, and there was no excuse for what
 > happened).

There is significant evidence that the mobo mfgs have NO culpability in this
issue. There is significant evidence that it was internal MS and/or Intel
bungling.

 > The obvious solution, of course, it to install the latest BIOS on any
 > motherboard that will take a Prescott (I'd argue, even if a Prescott is
 > not currently installed).

Always flash the latest BIOS...just because.

 > But that won't help if the latest bios from the motherboard maker still
 > doesn't include the proper production microcode from Intel.
 >
 > The incompatability with the beta Intel microcode present in many
 > production BIOS'

There's no indication that mobo mfgs had a beta microcode; some had NO
Prescott microcode which worked just great in SP1 and W2K3. Many of Intel's
own mobos didn't get the right SP2 BIOS until shortly after RTM. The BIOS
issue was known in June.

 > is with a module called "Update.sys" in Windows.
 > Initially people were replacing the SP2 Update.SYS with the one from
 > SP1, but it apparently turns out that it's enough not to have ANY
 > update.sys at all, so at least in most cases, you can just rename it to
 > Update.sav, and then put it back to Update.sys later, after the BIOS
 > problem is resolved. The problem is, if the incompatability is present,
 > the system won't boot, so you need to use the recovery console, which
 > most people dont' know about (if the drive is FAT32 you can boot from a
 > DOS floppy or CD, but if it's NTFS, as it usually is, that won't help).

There's another workaround. Turn off L1 & L2 cache in BIOS setup and the
system will run DOG SLOW. But good enough until you rename update.sys then
reenable L1 & L2 and be happy.

 > There is a writeup on this in the MS knowledgebase. The real "fault"
 > goes to the Motherboard makers who had their heads up their asses since
 > January, and to users who don't update their BIOS'.

That assertion is OFF and there is NOT the slightest evidence it's true.

someone.TakeThisOut@earthlink.net wrote:
 >
  > > Can you expand a little bit and explain what the Intel microcode
  > > issues are with SP2, and what/why people have been doing workarounds
  > > with the update.sys file?
  > >
  > > Thanks greatly.
  > >
  > >
  > > On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 23:41:18 GMT, Barry Watzman
  > > <WatzmanNOSPAM.TakeThisOut@neo.rr.com> wrote:
  > >
  > >
   > >>Install the latest BIOS (not sure if it's 1005 or later). Be prepared
   > >>for the workarounds if you need them (apparently it's sufficient to
   > >>rename "UPDATE.SYS" from SP2 so anything else, just so that it's not
   > >>used; originally, people were using the UPDATE.SYS from SP1, but it
   > >>appears that having no UPDATE.SYS at all works as well. But do save the
   > >>new UPDATE.SYS so that it can be restored once a bios with proper
   > >>microcode updates becomes available).
   > >>
   > >>During installation, 1.8 gigabytes of free disk space is required. A
   > >>bit more than half of this is freed up after installation, and more can
   > >>be freed once you are SURE that you won't need to ever uninstall the
   > >>upgrade.
   > >>
   > >>
   > >>John M. Hunt wrote:
   > >>
   > >>
   > >>>I have an ASUS P4P800SE motherboard running Bios 1005. The CPU is a
3.0 Ghz
   > >>>Prescott. The intel CPU interrogator program reports CPU Revision
Level 9.
   > >>>
   > >>>Does anyone know whether it is safe to load the SP2 update?
   > >>>
   > >>>Incidentally, I received the SP2 CD from Microsoft in a very prompt
   > >>>manner--the web site talks about 30 days for delivery..
   > >>>
   > >>>John M. Hunt
   > >>>
   > >>>
  > >
  > ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2 

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:56:20 GMT, "Ron Reaugh" <rondashreaugh RemoveThis @att.net>
wrote:

 >
 >"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM RemoveThis @neo.rr.com> wrote in message
 >news:4142039A.8000304@neo.rr.com...
  >> The issue is that many motherboards don't have the proper Intel
  >> microcode for Prescott CPUs -- either because owners hadn't kept up with
  >> new BIOS' (the "if it aint' broke don't fix it" philosophy, but in this
  >> case it burned them),
 >
 >That philosophy with respect to mobo BIOSs was defunct 4 years ago.

Why? What has changed since 2000 to justify that statement? If
anything, some people had to do an update because of Y2K issues. That
was then.


 >
  >> or even because the motherboard makers themselves
  >> had their heads up their ass (as of the release date for SP2, the
  >> necessary update had not been released at all for maybe half of recent
  >> motherboards, including a number of Asus models -- not withstanding that
  >> this has been coming for 8 months, and there was no excuse for what
  >> happened).
 >
 >There is significant evidence that the mobo mfgs have NO culpability in this
 >issue. There is significant evidence that it was internal MS and/or Intel
 >bungling.

That's a plausible statement, especially for MS. Can you back it up
with specific examples or other proof?
 >
  >> The obvious solution, of course, it to install the latest BIOS on any
  >> motherboard that will take a Prescott (I'd argue, even if a Prescott is
  >> not currently installed).
 >
 >Always flash the latest BIOS...just because.

... because ...

Say you flash your wife's system. Yeah, the BIOS was "behind" and in
fact the whole system is a bit behind by today's state of the art.
Now, because of some leeeetle detail, your wife's system stops working
and she can't get email, check on web sites, or do her
brought-home-from-the-office work.

Now what do you say to her? "But honey, Ron Reaugh told me to always
flash the BIOS to the latest version." For her likely response, look
up Lysistrata.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=Lysistrata" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=Lysistrata</a>
 >
  >> But that won't help if the latest bios from the motherboard maker still
  >> doesn't include the proper production microcode from Intel.
  >>
  >> The incompatability with the beta Intel microcode present in many
  >> production BIOS'
 >
 >There's no indication that mobo mfgs had a beta microcode; some had NO
 >Prescott microcode which worked just great in SP1 and W2K3. Many of Intel's

There are a lot of motherboard makers, and you believe you can assert
that ALL of them are blameless in this situation? Pick a
compatibility issue, any issue, and the newsgroups are full of
complaints about compatibility problems.

 >own mobos didn't get the right SP2 BIOS until shortly after RTM. The BIOS
 >issue was known in June.
 >
  >> is with a module called "Update.sys" in Windows.
  >> Initially people were replacing the SP2 Update.SYS with the one from
  >> SP1, but it apparently turns out that it's enough not to have ANY
  >> update.sys at all, so at least in most cases, you can just rename it to
  >> Update.sav, and then put it back to Update.sys later, after the BIOS
  >> problem is resolved. The problem is, if the incompatability is present,
  >> the system won't boot, so you need to use the recovery console, which
  >> most people dont' know about (if the drive is FAT32 you can boot from a
  >> DOS floppy or CD, but if it's NTFS, as it usually is, that won't help).
 >
 >There's another workaround. Turn off L1 & L2 cache in BIOS setup and the
 >system will run DOG SLOW. But good enough until you rename update.sys then
 >reenable L1 & L2 and be happy.

Glad I don't have to do this drill.
 >
  >> There is a writeup on this in the MS knowledgebase. The real "fault"
  >> goes to the Motherboard makers who had their heads up their asses since
  >> January, and to users who don't update their BIOS'.
 >
 >That assertion is OFF and there is NOT the slightest evidence it's true.

Let's hear it from other people in this group. Do you truly trust
your motherboard mfg to always provide 100% perfect support?<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Is it safe to install SP2