Intel Pentium D 2.8 gHtz Socket 775 reports it's an AMD 64x2 !

Hello Fellow Nerdist.

I have an odd one here. I have a P5LP-LE motherboard that was shoehorned into an older HP A1412n Case. it is socket 775 and has a Pentium D 2.8GHz processor. In windows 7, Linux Mint Live CD and MRI Live CD by Eurosoft it is reporting that it is an AMD 64x2. I have never seen a processor with an Identity crisis like this before. I am going to toss in an Intel Pentium 4 or a dual core but my question is could this be a Motherboard Issue? Could I bork my test chip? (even though that's why I use a test chip first)

Use this and see what it reports.
Speccy - System Information - Free Download

afaik, the processor contains the ID string for itself. But this same ID code is compared to a list of accepted codes by the BIOS (so it won't run unsupported processors). I know ninjas that mod the bios (the list of ID codes) to mount and run unsupported processors. Within reasonable limits anyway.

Can you have a look at what the BIOS says in the HW info page? It should identify it correctly otherwise it shouldn't boot. Might be a BIOS issue (someone modded the bios or it corrupted on its own)

I know of Core duos being reported as whatever in XP, but not in 7. They issued a patch for XP, but I don't know if it was due to buggy processor ID or an error in windows XP.

It was indeed the Processor. I put in a Pentium 4 3.8 with hyperthreading and it is reporting fine as well as running good. I think I may have a memory issue now but that's minor. I got further info from the owner and it was repaired at another shop it seems the heat sink assembly had two broken mounts and the machine was over heating, causing freezing, shut downs and not responding's. They replaced the heat sink assembly for 95.00 but it was still having the same symptoms. customer got upset that they didn't fix it and couldn't figure out why it was freezing and shutting down so they brought it to me.

Layback Bear: I would like to run speccy on it to see what it says but I am afraid of doing damage to other components.

I don't understand. I have never known Speccy to damage anything.

agree with above. speccy just polls devices for their IDs and specs.

I would try placing that processor on another board, and see if it still tries to pass itself as an AMD processor. That's the only way to be sure it isn't the old board that somehow fails to identify this particular processor as I said above.

I wasn't worried about Speccy doing the damage, far from it I did however want to keep the burned cpu from doing any damage or further damage to the mobo and /or other components. I might try using speccy on a tosser board if the owner doesn't want the burned parts.