Athlon Thunderbird -> Palomino/Tbred - Requires windows reinstall?

[FMann]

I have an older Athlon system utilizing a KT266A based motherboard and I recently upgraded it from a Thunderbird 1.4GHz to a Palomino based Athlon XP 1900+ (a gift). Although the system works fine, I have read online that an upgrade from a Thunderbird to a fully-enabled SSE core (Palomino, Tbred, Barton) requires reinstalling Windows in order to take advantage of full SSE support.

However, after reading some conflicting reports on the web, I put it to the experts in this forum:
Do I have to reinstall Windows with this CPU upgrade for complete SSE capability?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[beatle]

No need to reinstall Windows. I believe some programs may need to be adjusted to take advantage of the chip (if they don't detect automatically). Tmpeg would check certain features off the first time you ran it, then if your system changed, you'd have to adjust them in the program's configuration.

 

[Hender]

If it boots into Windows just fine, then you shouldn't have to reinstall. I've had some funky issues in the past with Windows replacing a CPU, so I usually take the opportunity to do a system reinstall, but your experience may be different than my own.

 

[dguy6789]

yea, im pretty sure you dont have to reinstall windows, ive went from 1800 to 2000 to 2600 all on the same win install and no problems, so i dont think you would need to.

 

[jjyiz28]

jesus christ, talk about some wrong answers.

it may run just fine, but you are not taking advantage of your cpu fully if you don't reinstall. if you stay within the same family, like tbred 1700+, to tbred 2100+, there is no reason to at all, but diff families, yes. its like not reinstalling when you get a totally different mobo that uses a different chipset. sure it might run fine, but you arn't using it fully get it?

i guess the pro's migrated to a different board.

 

[Matthias99]

What exactly would you not be taking advantage of? Unless Windows only detects SSE support on the initial installation...

 

[jjyiz28]

SSE

 

[txxxx]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
SSE

The applications detect SSE - Windows has no use for it ...

 

[jjyiz28]

Originally posted by: txxxx

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
SSE

The applications detect SSE - Windows has no use for it ...

the applications do not make calls to the hardware directly. they communicate with the OS, while the OS communicates to hardware. windows will need to know whether or not your cpu is SSE for apps to take advantage of it. you reinstall windows so that the HAL is changed for a newer cpu with newer instructions.

get it ?

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: jjyiz28

Originally posted by: txxxx

Originally posted by: jjyiz28
SSE

The applications detect SSE - Windows has no use for it ...

the applications do not make calls to the hardware directly. they communicate with the OS, while the OS communicates to hardware. windows will need to know whether or not your cpu is SSE for apps to take advantage of it. you reinstall windows so that the HAL is changed for a newer cpu with newer instructions.

get it ?

Funny. CPU Z seems to be able to detect my XP's SSE on my OS that was originally installed on a Thunderbird.

So does Sandra.

Get it?

 

[AndyHui]

SSE support should be detected and loaded dynamically....that's what 32-bit drivers are all about. You should not need to reinstall Windows. There is no SSE specific hardware abstraction layer.

 

[jjyiz28]

my savior, i gues i was wrong then. =(