Flashing a bios

[Laser861]

I'm thinking about building a new computer and I want to use a Intel D850MV motherboard and a Intel Northwood 2.0 ghz processor. The company that I'm planning to purchase the two items from are advising that the bios on the motherboard may need flashing to support the northwood processor. They are also advising that installation of a processor with an improper bios may damage the motherboard and processor. My question is how do I check to see if the motherboard does indeed need the flash to support the processor? If the motherboard does need flashing how do I accomplish this without installing the processor?

[HAL9000]

You pretty well need the older processor to boot it to be sure what BIOS revision it's running. From there, you can update the BIOS, then when you're done, swap the chip for the new one. Since you most likely don't have a older P4 chip, you could probably hit up one of the local computer shops to do the deed for you (for a price of course).

[Toaster]

The 850MV board is "Northwood" compliant provided it uses the later (478 pin) socket. While the system board may require a BIOS update, it should boot without error but simply erronously report the CPU type.
I don't recall my Intel board numbers right off hand so your best shot is going to the Intel site to get reliable information. Keep in mind that I don't believe that any of the older 423 pin boards are "Northwood" compliant.

[HAL9000]

I don't think so either since I have yet to see a 423 pin Northwood.

[glc]

I just built a system with a 2.4 Northwood on a D850MVL. With the shipped P05 bios it booted fine but reported the CPU as a 2.3, I did the online bios flash from Intel to P08 after I installed Windows and it fixed that problem. Easiest bios update I have ever seen.