BIOS problems - clock and multiplier oddity

[GreetingsNerdlings]

I'm having some problems getting my BIOS settings optimized for my setup, and have confused myself pretty good in the process.
So, here's my setup:

-shuttle ak31 3.1 mobo
-1G athlon (266)
-ati all-in-wonder radeon 32mb
-512k generic pc2100 memory
-lite-on dvd-rom
-plextor burner

Now, the BIOS defaults at a 100Mhz clock speed, and the multiplier set to default (with choices from 5.5x to 14x). I wanted to raise this to the supported 266MhzDDR setting, so I tried setting the clock to 133Mhz and the multiplier to 7.5. I saved and exited, and the box wouldn't post. Cleared CMOS and it came back at the defaults. I wanted figure out why it wouldn't work, so i loaded a couple apps in windows that would tell me what was going on with my cpu and bus settings. I got HWINFO32, and WCPU310. Now, when I go into HWINFO, it tells me that my FSB is at 200Mhz, and that my multiplier is at 5x(default?). Then, WCPU310 tells me that my FSB is 200, and my multiplier is 10x(default?). Both apps told me that the cpu was running at 1000Mhz. I was under the assumption that the cpu speed was dependent on the clock speed (100Mhz) times the multiplier (10x?), and the FSB for a DDR board is double the clock speed (200Mhz). Is this right? Thinking that it was, I figured I could go into the BIOS, change my multiplier from default to 5.5x(the lowest it goes) while leaving the clock at 100Mhz, and then check out what was going on with the apps- I figured the apps would tell me my multiplier was 5.5x, FSB 200Mhz, and cpu 550Mhz. When I did, however, the thing wouldn't post. So I cleared CMOS, and here I am, totally stumped. Oh, and everything that needs to be seems to be rated for the 266Mz fsb - RAM, CPU, and of course, mobo. What's the skinny?

ps. I apologize for the novel.

[minotaur_23]

http://www.spacewalker.com/english/readmeak31v3x.htm
There seemed to be issue with FSB 100mhz and DDRs on BIOS rev.

[GreetingsNerdlings]

yeah, i've got that latest bios revision. it seems to me that all it did was set the default to 100Mhz, so it shouldn't have any effect on changing it. plus, i have been able to raise the clock to 103Mhz, which actually sets the cpu speed to 1032Mhz. does this make sense? it is like my multiplier is at 5x (and the clock is 206Mhz).

[saphalline]

Did you try using the pencil trick to unlock the multiplier? If not, then you might want to know that all CPU's from AMD & Intel have locked multipliers that can't be changed just by a setting in the BIOS. Intel are permanently locked, AMD Athlons can be unlocked by using a pencil to reconnect the L1 bridges. Basically this means that unless you specifically tampered with your Athlon's core, the defaults were given to your mobo by the processor and your mobo can't change the multiplier - it can only change the FSB.

Sounds like those info programs you ran just confused you, huh? WCPU310 is correct, it's a 100MHz DDR FSB with a 10x multiplier which gives you a 1GHz Athlon. Since the multiplier is locked, you can't just tell it how fast to run, that's why it didn't POST after you made those changes. There's actually nothing wrong with your CPU! :D

So what's wrong? Someone sold you a 200MHz FSB Athlon instead of the 266MHz FSB Athlon that you thought you were buying!! :mad: How long have you been using it? Has it always been this way? Can you still get your money back? Where did you buy it?

I mean, it could be a BIOS problem, or a new problem with your supposedly 266 Athlon, but I doubt it, especially if this is the way it's always been running.

[mjc]

Also look in your BIOS options, you should have the option to set the memory at FSB+33MHZ...that way you can run the memory at the correct speed and still have your CPU running correctly.

[GreetingsNerdlings]

oh boy. no i never unlocked it. its been running with these bios settings since i bought it. it was my first go at building my own and i bought the mobo, cpu and ram already assembled from multiwave. i was afraid to do anything with the bios before knwoing what i was doing, and it took me about a year before i decided to try and optimize my settings. so, how can i find out whether i have a 200mhz or a 266mhz clocked cpu? the cpu id is 642 and the extended id is 742. do i have to take the hs/fan off to find out?

mjc, my bios ram setting, if i remember corectly only has 2 options: [host-clock] and [by spd]. I reckon if i have it set to [host clk] it'll run it at 266 if i can get the fsb up to that, right?

thanks for the help guys.

[gwallen4]

GreetingsNerdlings,

I've got the same board, with Bios Version AK31S2EF, XP1700+ (1466MHz), 266 FSB. CPU clock 133, multiplier default (11x).

In my Bios, the CPU clock has options to set it anywhere between 133 and 166 in 1 MHz intervals). Yours sounds like you can set it only between 100 and 133, so I would guess that your CPU is a 200MHz FSB model. Bios must be detecting what type of CPU it is(200 vs 266) and offering only CPU clock choices that can reasonable be supported.

Your default multiplier would be 10x giving you 100 x 10 or 1 GHz.

I've looked through BIOS settings and I also don't see any way to set the memory for 133 with a 100 CPU clock like MJC suggested. Might be a handy feature on some other boards though.

[GreetingsNerdlings]

naw, i have the option of setting my clock speed up to 166mhz, i just can't get anywhere near 133, and i think saphalline is probably right about me getting a 200mhz chip from mwave. i called them, and they told me they couldn't exchange it because i'm 6 DAYS past my warranty period. They refused to acknowledge the fact that they screwed up big time: they sent me a processor with a 200mhz fsb instead of 266 like i ordered, plus, they sent me generic ram instead of the kingston i paid for, and when i got the bundle in the mail, i knew even less about what i was doing than i do now, so i had no idea they had gypped me. anyway, enough flaming about mwave.

about the dram speed, i think the options are [host clock] and [by spd].

[gwallen4]

Strange that you had trouble with Mwave. They have a pretty good rating:

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2089.html

But then, I've never used them. Digiconcepts has slightly higher prices but I've found them really helpful and honest:

http://www. digiconcepts.com
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller906.html

[saphalline]

about the dram speed, i think the options are [host clock] and [by spd].

Dug around for my mobo manual, it says SPD stands for serial presence detect which I think is a fancy way of saying that your mobo will run the RAM at its rated speed instead of forcing it to run at the host clock speed. In this case, that means running your RAM at its rated 266MHz speed instead of the 200MHz DDR FSB speed. That should clear up your RAM speed problem.

As for your CPU, have you thought of upgrading? :rolleyes: You can get a retail boxed AthlonXP 1900+ for less than $100 on either Newegg or Googlegear, so why not? Then you can run your RAM at host clock again and have everything at 266MHz DDR just like you intended.

What prompted all this fiddling anyway? Had you really noticed that your PC was running at the slower FSB speed? Or were you just trying to do some tweaking?

[GreetingsNerdlings]

haha, as a matter of fact i was thinking about upgrading. i'll probably go for a 1600+ since its less than 60 stones at newegg (never gonna buy from mwave again thats for sure). do you think that the difference between 1600+ and 1900+ will be noticable enough to warrant the $30 or $40 price difference? i'm mostly looking for performance increases for gaming (morrowind's my current addiction. i've also been dipping into the starcraft expansion a little, but video performance for that isnt critical). plus i've got the all-in-wonder radeon 32mb ddr vido card, so i don't really know where the performance bottleneck is gonna be. i tried to overclock it a little with powerstrip, and just raising the clock and the memory by 1mhz gave me crazy artifacts. i don't really know what i'm doing with that, but i figured i'd give it a shot. i thought i had read somewhere that people had been able to ovreclock that card pretty well, so i just gotta figure out how.

the reason i decided to look into this was actually so that i could optimize my box, i had the parts (or at least i thought i did), and i figured, why not use them to their potential. plus i was thinking about overclocking a little, just to try it out, learn a little more about computers, as well as getting my games to run better so i could hold out for the prices to go down on the radeon 9700 pro, the kt333 or kt400 to be really reliable (i'd like something with supported agp 8x for the 9700 pro), and the 333mhz fsb athlons to come out. when that all happens, i wanna really upgrade.

the thing about setting the ram to spd, isn't the performance gained by raising the speed on the ram while having the fsb still at 200 gonna be negligible? isn't there some latency or something involved with mismatched timings between fsb and ram speed? does it matter if the ram is higher than the fsb, or the other way around, or even both? do you know of any apps i could use to check the performance or quality of my ram? i've got a stick of generic that mwave stuck me with (instead of the kingston i ordered) and wanted to know if i should get some crucial or corsair.

if you couldn't tell, i'm still learning, so please excuse all the questions.

[GreetingsNerdlings]

i actually just found an article at anandtech where they took a bunch of video cards and compared their performance when scaling the cpu clock (FSB remained 133 mhz throughout the test, just changed multipiers). they didn't actualy show the results from my card specifically, but it seemed to me that a card like mine might have slight, but not significant increase in performance if my cpu is faster than 1ghz (just measured by fps), maybe a little more as detail goes down. here's the article if you're interested:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1650&p=1

[Paleo Pete]

do you think that the difference between 1600+ and 1900+ will be noticable enough to warrant the $30 or $40 price difference

Nope...your human senses can't tell the difference in a few milliseconds. We have a 1.2GHz machine and a 1.53GHz sitting on the shelf for display, I'm thinking about taping a $20 bill to the underside of a glass display case top and giving it to the first person who can tell me which is which...that bill would stay there forever...

[Reid]

Originally posted by Paleo Pete


I'm thinking about taping a $20 bill to the underside of a glass display case top and giving it to the first person who can tell me which is which...that bill would stay there forever...
Seems like a person would have a 50% chance of getting it right. I think the one on the left is faster :)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Right? :confused:

[GreetingsNerdlings]

anyone wanna split that $20?

[saphalline]

Originally posted by GreetingsNerdlings
the thing about setting the ram to spd, isn't the performance gained by raising the speed on the ram while having the fsb still at 200 gonna be negligible? isn't there some latency or something involved with mismatched timings between fsb and ram speed? does it matter if the ram is higher than the fsb, or the other way around, or even both?
Latency unfortunately takes a huge toll on the DDR technology, something like 15-20%, which makes sense 'cause of the delay in phase shift, maintaining the correct degree of signal strength/separation with the rest of the bus timings and all that... but that's better left in physics class! :rolleyes:

Anyway, yes it's better to have the RAM and the fsb at the same speed. If you lower the RAM speed (vs the fsb) then system performance goes way down. If you speed up the RAM (in this case to 266 vs 200 fsb) then you gain a tiny system speed boost, but even then only in games and video crunching where the whole system is stressed. When the RAM and fsb aren't in sync, they can't effectively communicate so the boost isn't as much as the numbers tell you.

That's why the KT333 & KT400 chipsets aren't all that great compared to the KT266A, 'cause the AthlonXP's fsb has been stuck at 266MHz (133 DDR) since it's release. All the hype about using DDR333/400 RAM is a wash-out. Even the later Athlon T-birds had the same 266 fsb so AMD hasn't made an fsb speed increase in quite awhile... Until the latest AthlonXP 2800+, which uses the new 333MHz fsb (166 DDR). In about two months, when you can actually find a 2800+, we'll finally be able to use DDR333 RAM to its fullest! But of course, the KT400 chipset already allows you to use DDR400 even tho a 400 fsb is a ways off. :rolleyes: Does TFC2 ring a bell? :p

As for the upgrade, hmmm... up to you. If you're planning on replacing your current mobo to take advantage of AGP 8x, don't go too far with what you've got now. As I said, the 333 fsb AthlonXP's have been released and are coming down the buying pipe. Once they're affordable (another 2 or so months), then an AthlonXP + DDR333 combo is gonna be killer! If you really need a processor boost now to hold you off, get the cheapest AthlonXP you can get for now, which on Newegg would be the 1600+ model. Then you won't hesitate for one micro-moment when you have to chuck it to make room for your new parts. :cool:

[GreetingsNerdlings]

'cause the AthlonXP's fsb has been stuck at 266MHz (133 DDR) since it's release. All the hype about using DDR333/400 RAM is a wash-out.

what about for overclocking? if you can get your fsb up to 166(333ddr) then wouldn't you actually benefit from having ddr333 ram? thats sort of what i was counting on. i went ahead and picked up a new cpu, newegg's already sent it out :D i love those guys. i went for the 1800+, with a really overboard hs/fan combo (thermalright slk-800 with 80mm vantec tornado and a fan speed conroller). i figured in a little while($$$), i'll swap out my generic stick of 266 for some crucial or corsair 333 and try and overclock a bit. my ak31 allows me to set fsb to 166, so i was hoping that if the cpu makes it, it'll be synched with the ddr333 ram. does that sound like it'll work?

about the mobo upgrade, i'm not going to do a full overhaul until a few things happen, which will prolly be sometime next year. i'll likely end up splurging on the ati 9700 pro all-in-wonder card cuz i love having tv on my puter, and the gaming, oh the gaming. just recorded porn 'n' chicken to my hd (if youre familiar with comedy central youll know what i mean). and after i glue back the pieces to my piggy bank, i'll need to save up a bit before i can afford another cpu and mobo. by that time, im hoping the kt333 or kt400 boards and 333mhz cpus are a little more reasonably priced.
funny, all this stuff probably wont happen for another 6 months, but im already salivating. this is why i dont get any work done.

Does TFC2 ring a bell?

huh? maybe i'm missing the acronym, but nope.

[GreetingsNerdlings]

HAHAHAHAHAHA Thats Hilarious!!!

i just read your last post on the warcraft thread. :p

that thing looks sick, huh. i can't wait. i paid a couple bucks more, but i like giving newegg my money.

[saphalline]

Yeah, I like the Thermalright SLK-800! *drool* That's the one I'm getting!

Anywaaay, sure it'll work with overclocking, but that's not usually something I like to bring up first, if only for the fact that overclocking voids more warranties than rear-ending an ambulance with a stolen vehicle! If you know the risks and are willing to take them, go ahead. Just how detailed are your overclocking options? 'Cause you wouldn't necessarily have to go all the way to 166MHz fsb, you could strike a nice compromise at say 140-150MHz (run both the fsb and RAM at this speed) and still get quite a big performance boost. Just an idea, since I don't know if a straight jump from 133 to 166 would work, best to take it one step at a time (with steps as small as your mobo will allow).

TFC2 is Team Fortress Classic 2, a game that's been delayed more times than I can count for the past 2 years or more! :eek: Don't know many details on the subject as I wasn't a fan of the first TFC, but it's legendary as the game that will always be coming but never be released.

funny, all this stuff probably wont happen for another 6 months, but im already salivating. this is why i dont get any work done.
You're in good company around here then! :p I have a friend who's planning his wedding for this coming summer. I'm planning my upgrades! :D He really needs to sort out his priorities!

Newegg owns you...

EDIT - The cool thing about the All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro is that it's just as fast (core and RAM) as the regular 9700 Pro! This is the first time an AIW card isn't slowed down. :cool: Also, the AIW version implements the usage of several hardware features in the R300 core that aren't used on the regular 9700 Pro (even though they're present). I think I read that in the Anandtech article...

[GreetingsNerdlings]

uh oh, this might be license to screw the conservative fsb bumping. i may just want to floor the thing and see how quickly i can get it to start smoking. amd is doing another cpu giveaway. i haven't read the details as its 5am and i need to get some sleep, but here's the link if you haven't already got it:
http://www.amdrealitycheck.com/home.html

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!! :cool:

i had to do it...
35 prizes per event, drawn at random, includes cpu, hs/f.
i don't think they specified which cpu, but a 2800+ would be nice :p
plus it would go well with that aiw 9700 pro ;)