Bios FJ440ZX

Old motherboards never die they just need an updated bios.

The FJ440ZX board is an Intel OEM product which we reviewed several years ago, it is now listed as a discontinued motherboard on Intel's own web site. We expected to have problems when we tested a Celeron™ 533MHz due to the BIOS that was supplied when the motherboard was new, being out of date by then. What we needed was the updated BIOS for this motherboard as detailed on the Intel web site. Unfortunately we hit a brick wall with support for the motherboard from Intel, it goes like this. The FJ440ZX is an OEM product supplied to us for review, as an OEM product Intel do not support the end user. Intel support here in the UK maintain we obtain support and the updated BIOS from the OEM supplier. The supplier to us in this instance was Intel!

We pointed this out to Intel support and its technical people here in the UK and we were told, we can do nothing to help you, the motherboard is an OEM product and the support can only come from the OEM for an end user and not Intel. And so on and so on.

The original BIOS that came with the motherboard did correctly identify the CPU as a 533MHz and the system was far more responsive than when the Celeron™ 466MHz was in residence, all testing was carried out with this board. Unfortunately the computer did only fire up once about every 6 times its turned on, the other 5 times it will freeze, once running however all seems ok. This we put down to the version of BIOS it was running not fully supporting the 533MHz Celeron™, hence the need for that updated BIOS.

The is a lesson to be learnt here, Intel's OEM products are supported only by the OEM. Or to put it another way only the OEMs can get the current BIOS for the FJ440ZX motherboard. Which leaves us with a mother board that still needs a BIOS update.

Intel Support Update 5th April 2000, we received an updated BIOS from Intel 4F4JZ0XA.86A.0006.P05

The computer now seems to be working perfectly with the a Celeron™ 533MHz and FJ440ZX Intel motherboard finally happy with each other. Please note the new BIOS update number 4F4JZ0XA.86A.0006.P05 only officially supports up to a Celeron™ 500MHz and NOT the 533MHz as fitted. However the BIOS identifies the Celeron™ correctly as a 533MHz and so far, I have come across no problems. But you have been warned!

Update: this Celeron 533MHz has now been running without any problems in its Intel motherboard now for many months, I have received several e-mails from guys around the world that have attempted to get the FJ440ZX motherboard to run with an Intel Celeron 600MHz and above, apparently none of these has meet with any measure of success.

For more info have a look at http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/oem/#FJ440ZX which has the technical product specification for this motherboard in two PDF files.

We therefore asked Intel to send us a newer bios version for this discontinued motherboard so that we could help those needing it. That version was P05-0006 and supports Celeron cpu's up to 500MHz. 4F4JZ0XA.86A.0006.P05

All the usual disclaimers re installing a bios on a motherboard hold true. You do so entirely at your own risk, no support is available from this web site or Intel. Updating a bios on any motherboard can result in that motherboard becoming useless and you may not be able to reinstall the old bios.

Our advise is not to change the bios unless you have a very good reason to do so and are prepared and accept that you may end up with a none working motherboard. You have been warned, don't blame us or Intel if things go wrong. We would also strongly suggest you read the articles Intel have published on how to update their motherboards with a new bios.

It would seem the was a later release with a P05-0007 but this seems only to go up to a 500MHz Celeron the same as the PO5-0006, we do not have this version.

To download PO5-0006 click HERE

Best of luck, the bios update worked for us.

We would like to here from those that have used this download and any problems or successes you have had.

24.10.2001

From Ike

I am however having a problem updating. Did you move any Jumpers when You updated??? Any tips would be appreciated. It gets to 50% and acts as though it is searching for another driver on drive A:. Then it tells me that a files are invalid. Maybe I am missing something. I created bootable floppy and copied files to the floppy. The Intel site was not much help on this matter.

I had a hunch that maybe the file did not unzip correctly. I unzipped the file again and copied it to disk and it worked like a charm. The only complication I encountered was that you must enter the bios and hit F9 for system defaults and then change the operating system to plug and play. I was very impressed with the 533Mhz performance. Just for kicks I installed a 566 but it would only boot about once out of 4 tries.

Thanks Ike, it would seem that the maximum speed this motherboard is stable with is a Celeron 533Mhz. We can personally testify that it will run a Celeron 533Mhz for months on end without any problems.

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