Monday, May 7, 2012

Dell Optiplex GX620 WILL NOT work with Core 2 Duo Processor

I installed a Core2Duo in my GX620 and it refused to boot or even POST. I installed a Pentium Dual Core in my GX620 and it refused to boot or even POST. Neither of these processors will work. They are from a different series of processors. I know it is not on the approved processors list from Dell. Yes it will take a Pentium D which is dual-core, but it is a different flavor of dual core. Yes the Intel 945 Express chipset on the motherboard should be able to run these CPUs. But a C2D is incompatible with the GX620. The BIOS will not allow it.

Yes I tried it. No it does not work. Yes everyone is right that you should probably spend the money on a motherboard and processor bundle and upgrade instead of changing your processor . . . but I had these in house so I did it.

2 comments:

madness2 said...

Did yo try updating the bios to the latest a11?? cause the E6600 Core 2 duo with fsb 1066 did work in mine. running with a GT220 1GB too.. Woks like a charm!

Vote For David said...

The computer already had the A11 BIOS before I tried the processor swapping. It is possible some later production might not have had crippled chipsets, but it seems at least very many do.

I'll do you one better than that: some GX620s won't even work right with a Pentium D! I have worked on at least two of them that would not read the temperature from a known-good processor properly, and the CPU fan would always run at maximum speed. The heat sink stays cool, but the thing never quiets down. The hippest CPU those could take and retain fan speed control is a Pentium 4 with Hyperthreading.