Some people are running tualatins in their SE440BX-2 boards, so there should be at least one BIOS that won't complain about it. Tualatin is made for 1GHz, the coppermine is just struggling there.
The only uncertainty that remains is the increased current draw from the 1GHz CPU.

PS. Some SE440BX-2 are told to not support any coppermines at all.
"- Coppermine processors on rev 754552-200 or later, 754558-200 or later, A01450-200 or later."
It is in these "intel specification update" pdf's.

I'm not sure, but iirc Intel boards had BIOS's that wouldn't boot with specific CPU's, even if they would work just fine otherwise. So unless you can somehow put a modded BIOS in there, chances are the Intel board won't work with your CPU because Intel didn't want you to (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong though).

@gerwin, my SE440BX-2 is a later revision using the 2nd latest bios. Bios is dated in 2000. It also states that it supports coppermine cpu's which the 1ghz cpu is. I just can't see why intel, if releasing a bios update after the 1ghz cpu was manufactured, wouldn't add it to their support list. This is what makes me think that it may actually be supported.

Similar to how my oem asus basswood lga775 board originally had a core2duo e6300 but then I upgraded it with a core2quad q6600 and it's worked perfectly ever since. The cpu support list stated quad cores weren't supported at all but it has been very stable.

@Tetrium, this is exactly what I'm worried about. I've read from people using faster Pentium III CPUs on their boards that it comes up with an error message on boot complaining about the cpu not being supported. The threads I've read through though have been for the earlier revision boards and not my board unfortunately. And I'm yet to find someone try the coppermine 1ghz cpu.

I guess I could always use a powerleap or similar slot 1 to socket 370 adaptor but I've always worried about the lifespan of these.

I'm running the Dell OEM version with this board (Rev A00 AA 722394-111) and the latest BIOS with a 1Ghz Slot CPU fine.
The PC was originally a Dimension 500Mhz. Dell only allowed 3 numbers so now boots up reporting its a Dimension @00 but all the CPU stats correctly report 1Ghz

I remember reading somewhere that for the actual Intel boards the latest BIOS would generate unsupported CPU but the previous BIOS would not. Not sure how true that is?

@chinny22, I've heard that the dell oem version was actually a SE440BX-3? Can you confirm this? I also heard the oem version was slightly different lacking an isa or pci slot.

My current bios is P16. Are you running the P17 bios?

Yes its a BX-3 which is What Intel called OEM boards. Dell did a few funny things with theirs such as the non standard Power connector and Diagnostic LEDS, plus onboard Yamaha sound.
My Gateway P2 450 (My 1st PC) back in Oz also had a BX-3 but that was more in keeping with Intel's board, just with a Ensonic/SB PCI64 on board.

Not sure about the missing slot? I have AGP, 4 PCI and a shared PCI/ISA from top to bottom.

I'm not at home with my PC this week but from a quick google I'm on Dell's Bios A11 dated 10/25/00 The site I found that on may help you a bit as it mentions BX2 and 1Ghz CPU's
http://www.roberthancock.com/dell/xpstproc.htm

@chinny22, mine has 2 ISA slots. I being a shard PCI/ISA slot.

Thanks heaps for the link. Very informative read. Looks like my motherboard should support the slot 1 1ghz cpu no problems. I feel a little more confident putting my money on the line now. I think I'd rather try anyway as otherwise I'd always have it on the back of my mind.

Will be sure to post my results soon 😀

I know what you mean. I should hopefully be scoring a Proliant 1600 in the next few weeks. Depending on its revision it may/may not work with a 1GHz cpu but I cant NOT try!
The BX boards were just so awesome!

I think out of all my retro boards, my Slot 1 BX boards are my favourite. All round awesomeness! It's like a happy medium. Being able to use cpu's ranging from 233mhz all the way through to 1ghz or higher using a slot adaptor. Want a slow enough pc for older games? just use a 233mhz cpu and turn off the caches. Want usb? you go it! Did I mention no more setting jumpers? BX boards also tend to come with DDMA and NMI so PCI sound card dos emulation also works fine for those not wanting to use ISA sound cards. The combination of AGP/ISA/PCI is also great. So many positives and options for the perfect retro rig 😀

Woo Hoo!!! Just tried my intel slot 1 100fsb 1ghz cpu in my SE440BX-2 running P16 bios and it booted up fine 😀

Bios correctly displays 1000mhz too!

Guess we can put this to rest. Check it out!

I should also add that this is the serial number for my board as from what I've read and what's stated above not all versions of the intel SE440BX-2 will support the coppermine processors.

Just checked my Win95 machine that uses this mb and it does have support for the coppermine voltages. Don't have said chip available to test.

I putter along at a nice relaxed 233mhz on a p2 chip. Like baby bear's pudding, it is juuuuust right for my legacy machine. 🤣

Two ISA / 4 PCI / AGP - numbers on the box are same but for third line as follows: BLS204700488 - the BIOS revision is P16, same as yours.

@JoeCorrado, 233mhz is perfectly fine for most dos games. At least you have the option of using a cpu up to 1ghz if you want that extra speed. P2/P3 CPUs are cheap as these days so it won't cost you an arm and a leg if you decide to make the upgrade.

Nice, Love seeing these legendary Intel boards reaching their maximum potential.
With that CPU, add a ISA sound card and it can play anything late Dos
Chuck in 3dfx and Gforce card and the same machine can be used for any 9x games that hate XP
Think I'm in love 😉

It depends on the voltage controller:

The SC1185 can handle Cumines. Older 'PII only' controllers can't.

Is there any way to downgrade or modify the BIOS on the boards not officially supporting Coppermines? Mine ran fine with Coppermine before upgrading the BIOS, but it didn't recognized it. After upgrade it just halted with a message that the CPU wasn't supported.

@Kamerat, I've heard that after the bios has been upgraded, even downgrading it will still give the cpu error you're receiving so unfortunately you may be out of luck sorry. You could always try though because it can't do any harm provided you know what your doing bios wise which I'm guessing you do.

What do you mean though when you say it ran fine using coppermine but didn't recognise it? Did it work or not before the bios update? What coppermine cpu were you trying to use?

Kamerat wrote:

Is there any way to downgrade or modify the BIOS on the boards not officially supporting Coppermines? Mine ran fine with Coppermine before upgrading the BIOS, but it didn't recognized it. After upgrade it just halted with a message that the CPU wasn't supported.

With the similar Intel SR440BX and coppermines: Any BIOS newer then version P06 will give this message at boot:
"Warning : This motherboard is not compatible with this processor's voltage requirements. The system has been halted." etc.
The easiest way to deal with it was to flash BIOS version P06 again, and settle with that.

The SE440BX-2 board is not entirely the same as the SR440BX, so I don't know if version P06 goes for both of them...

borgie83 wrote:

@Kamerat, I've heard that after the bios has been upgraded, even downgrading it will still give the cpu error you're receiving so unfortunately you may be out of luck sorry. You could always try though because it can't do any harm provided you know what your doing bios wise which I'm guessing you do.

What do you mean though when you say it ran fine using coppermine but didn't recognise it? Did it work or not before the bios update? What coppermine cpu were you trying to use?

It did work before the upgrade, also tried downgrading but I was refused to do that. Attatched photo of post before upgrade.