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I bought a new dual-core Pentium 4 CPU (E5400) for my PowerEdge 850 (800Mhz FSB), and it's not even going through the POST. What am I missing? I updated the BIOS to the latest version (A04), and no luck.

   http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedge/en/850_specs.pdf
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The E5400 is not considered a Pentium D processor..ark.intel.com/… – Moab Aug 2 '10 at 15:20
My understanding is the core2 processors requires a special voltage regulatior on the motherboard, since Pentium D processors did not need this it will not be present on the motherboard, so no you cannot update to any core2 processor, you are stuck with Pentium Dual cores. I bios update will not solve it either, its a hardware issue. – Moab Dec 6 '10 at 17:18
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The Pentium you bought is one of the new(ish) ones derived from the Core 2 line.

Just because it physically fits in the machine does not mean it is compatible. Sometimes you can get lucky and other times like now - unfortunately you are not lucky!

If it isn't working with the latest BIOS update, it means that it is not compatible - you can live in hope that they release an update in the future, but it is unlikely to find a machine/chipset that is compatible both with Pentium 4s and Core 2 era of CPUs

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