change cpu 4 higher ram speed?

[Tottjuh]

Hey hey. Could someone please clarify this for me... I have a 66MHz FSB CPU with 2 133MHz RAM pieces and they don't like each other.
If I change the CPU to a 100MHz or 133 MHz FSB will they work in peace or is it just a MoBo problem? The MoBo is a Cascade III from Micron and the CPU is now a Celeron 667Mhz but I my eye on a PIII 1.2GHz or maybe even a 1.4GHz.

[saphalline]

Leave the CPU at its default 66 MHz FSB unless you want to OC it. But bring the RAM down to PC100 speed. It should work fine then.

As for the CPU upgrade, I wouldn't suggest it. Those high speed PIII's are insanely expensive, especially when you consider the modern CPU's you can buy for less than $100. Don't sink a bunch of money into such an old system. Just go new.

[Tottjuh]

I found this: http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?ID=21262&C=201&S=1084 But don't know if it is really thrusty.
And you know I don't get the good me thinks. Look is like this my MoBo has 2 RAM slots, and can go up to 512MB I read. Now I have these 2 RAM pieces wich say 16*16 PC133 256MB. When I boot up my pc with them, I get the Micron logo with near bottom saying press [TAB] to go to POST and [DEL] to go to BIOS. And there are a lot of pixels of all sort of colors in the black background and thats it. So I thought maybe if I change the CPU to higher FSB, the RAM will work with it. Now my question is this FSB is it CPU related (like on the CPU) or motherboard? So lets assume that I am doing something wrong with the RAM. Will the motherboard take them no matter what or is the problem incompatability between motherboard and RAM? With other words RAM and CPU will work fine (66MHZ and 133MHZ (wich I think can go to 100MHZ)) but MoBo and RAM won't.

[saphalline]

Pacific Geek has no review history on Reseller Ratings (www.resellerratings.com), so I cannot comment on their trustworthiness. $35 isn't bad, but it's only the CPU and the warranty is only 30 days. Buy at your own risk.

That mobo uses the i810e chipset. And it's from an OEM. No guarantees on compatibility, but I'd venture a guess that it doesn't like the RAM you put in it. Not all PC133 RAM is compatible with older systems, and some OEM BIOS versions simply would not run PC133 in conjunction with a Celeron's 66 MHz FSB. If you can't even get into the BIOS to change the speed, then you may be out of luck. Try some PC100 SDRAM and see if that works. If you can get into the BIOS and manually lock the RAM speed at PC100, then maybe you can get those PC133 sticks to work. Otherwise, there's nothing more you can do.

[Tottjuh]

Ok first about the site and that pesky question that is bothering me. Could you like explain to me a little more about the FSB cause I dont really get it. Does it come wiith the MoBo, the CPU or the chipset? (1 MoBo can use diffrent chipsets right?) And thus lets say I buy a PIII 666MHz 133 FSB will it work then or is it plain simply the motherboard? You know, I want to study computers after high school, so I want to learn the "basic" stuff you know...

[saphalline]

Oh, that's a whole other can of worms...

In basic terms, the chipset is the set of control chips on the mobo that determine the capabilities of the mobo as a whole. Think of the mobo as the chassis of a car. The chipset is the body of the car. The mobo determines the size and basic layout of the car. But the chipset determines if the engine is in front or back, the max size of the engine, how many seats there are, how many doors, and even what sort of stereo and radio can be installed in the car. So while the mobo is the physical structure, the chipset is actually what determines your FSB speed, what CPU's can be used, and how much of what type of RAM can be installed. That's the basics.

And no, one mobo model can only use one chipset. The chips of the chipset are soldered directly onto the mobo and cannot be upgraded or removed. In some cases, I've even seen the RAM or CPU soldered directly to the mobo (non-upgradable).

The story of the FSB is a little more complex. The FSB speed is the root speed used by the CPU. The FSB is technically the bus that connects the RAM to the memory controller (part of the chipset) but is also used by the CPU. The CPU also has a multiplier built into it. To get say, a speed of 667 MHz, that PIII uses a 133 MHz FSB with a clock multiplier of 5.0x. Since 5 times 133 (actually 133.3333... etc) gives you the correct CPU speed of 666.6666... MHz. That's basically how the FSB works. A higher FSB means a smaller clock multiplier. A Celeron at 667 MHz uses the slower 66 MHz FSB, so the clock multiplier is 10.0x, because 10 times 66.6666... equals 666.6666... MHz. This means that two CPU's can have the same speed but use different FSB speeds, and thus different multipliers to get their speed.

In terms of pure performance, a higher FSB is preferable to a higher clock speed. This is because the FSB speed determines raw RAM bandwidth that can go into a CPU. In the case of the PIII and Celeron, the width of the FSB is 64-bits. For the Celeron, this equates to a RAM bandwidth of 64-bits times 66.6666... MHz = 4266.6666... Mb/s = 533.3333... MB/s. The PIII's FSB is twice as fast (with the same bit width since they're based on the same core technology) so the PIII's raw bandwidth potential is double that = 1066.6666... MB/s.

This also matches perfectly with SDRAM. The bit width of SDRAM is also 64-bits. It was designed this way to work perfectly. So PC66 SDRAM runs at 66.6666... MHz, which equals 533.3333... MB/s of potential bandwidth. PC100 runs at 100 MHz = 800 MB/s. And PC133 runs at 133.3333... MHz = 1066.6666... MB/s. So with more bandwidth potential with faster RAM, it makes sense that you'd want faster RAM matched with a faster FSB. You get more performance that way. So a PIII 600 operating on a 100 MHz FSB will perform better than a Celeron 667 operating on a 66 MHz FSB. The Celeron has a higher clock speed than the PIII by 11%, but the PIII has a higher max RAM bandwidth by 50%. The PIII would obviously lose a lot of this edge if used with slower PC66 SDRAM, however, so matching RAM with the FSB's max bandwidth is important.

[Tottjuh]

wow thanx man I learnt a ton here.
But I have a question about the 4th block of text. You say 64 bit x 66.666....MHz = 4266.666.... Mb/s = 533.333....MB/s is this like the max RAM you can put divided in based on the ram slots? So lets say I have 4 slots I can have 128 MB a piece max? And thus if I have a 133MHz CPU on a MoBo with 2 slots, I can go higher in RAM but because of the chipset en MoBo layout it is not possible?
And if I am getting it correctly if I insert a PIII in that has a FSB of 133MHz theoreticly the 133MHz RAMs should work?
And then comes the problem of them being single sided. Oh and based on the 16x16 on them, I could say that they are single sided?

[saphalline]

64 bit x 66.666....MHz = 4266.666.... Mb/s = 533.333....MB/sNo, this isn't related to the number of RAM modules, this math is merely the conversion of bits to Bytes. There are 8 bits in 1 Byte. So 4266.666... Megabits per second is the same as 533.333... MegaBytes per second. That's all that was.

The number of slots for RAM and the max capacity will be determined by the chipset itself. The i810/815 series had a max of 4 DIMM slots, although most mobo's only had 3. It also has a max RAM capacity of 512MB. In addition, it has a limitation on the size of RAM module - only 256MB per slot. And any 256MB module must be double-sided in order to work properly. So if those sticks of PC133 SDRAM you have are 256MB single-sided, then I'm afraid they will never work in that mobo. The density of the RAM chips is too high.

Also, that chipset likely has a BIOS limitation imposed by the manufacturer that will limit the FSB workability to 100 MHz. You could try a PIII on a 133 FSB, but considering it was originally designed as a Celeron system, I'm not very optimistic that a 133 FSB processor will work. You may be limited to a 100 FSB with PC100 SDRAM. In any case, I don't think it's worth the money to try. You can keep that system around as a "learning system", but if you need something that will work, just move on and buy new hardware.

[Tottjuh]

ok ok thank you. yes this mobo and the other 4 I have i can use as learning material.... I still have 2 socket 7s and 2 slot 1s. socket 7 CPUs are P 133MHz and AMD K6 266 MHz. Now a friend told me the K6 is comparable to a Pentium lets say 3 with 600 MHz. He said the part of 600MHz. Now I know that its tru that AMD is faster then a Pentium, but I dont think though it is that fast right? And what is a good place to look for mobos? and computer parts that isnt to expensive.
Oh and one last question about the socket 370 mobo, With speedfan I got 3 temps: around 35 around 72 and aound 66. Now i know the 72 was CPU cause i changed something and it went way down. (problem was the heat from the cpu didnt flow well trough the heatsink. so now i still have the 66 that i think is my HDD. casue Speedfan registers my HDD. but other programs dont. So if it is my HDD is it ok to run at that temp?

[saphalline]

Modern AMD CPU's are comparable to their Intel counterparts, but the old K6!? Hah! That K6 266 MHz is overall on par with a Pentium MMX 233 MHz, albeit with slightly better MMX handling. The ALU on the K6 series was good, but the FPU was sh*t! If you're just running MS Office, it's probably more like a Pentium II 300 MHz, but gaming and other FPU performance is anemic.

Yeah, your hard drive should be fine at that temp. But you got 72C for your CPU at one point?? Ouch! What did you change that made that temp go way down to 66C?

A good place to look for mobo's? You should probably be thinking about buying a whole new system. And new hardware at that. You can buy new "value based" hardware for a lot less than you'd think these days. New LGA 775 mobo? $60-80. New Celeron D processor? $60+ depending on the speed. New 400-450W power supply to run the new hardware? $45-60 depending on the model. A stick of 512MB DDR/DDR2 RAM to get you started? $40. Building a new cheap system would be my suggestion. You can literally get each part you need for about $55 on average, even a 160GB SATA hard drive!

With prices like that, don't even bother scrounging online for bargain prices on older hardware. Just go straight to Newegg (www.newegg.com)!

[jlreich]

Yeah it's time to move on. ;) Those old machines are just not worth putting any money into.

I have several old machines that people have just given to me, and that's pretty cool. I use them to tinker around on, test parts on and stuff like that. But I do not put any money into them at all. If a mobo or something goes out I will not replace it unless some one gives me one that will work.

[Tottjuh]

Thanks guys.
That CPU had a temp of 72degC. Now when I gotitI was at my moms school and I opend it up and removed the heatsink. Now there was this white stuff on it to let the heat flow to the heatsink me thinks. Well ofcourse after removing it it didnt work the way it should work and I got those high temps. Now the K6 had this brown paper like thing between the cpu and the heatsink. And since i dont use it, I put that between the celeronand the heatsink and went from 72 to 37 so with the pc open and big fan blowing inside. Now all closed with no fan I still at those temps when idle and around 45 when used.

[saphalline]

Ahh, your first run-in with thermal interface material! :D That would explain it...

You need to take a look at a certain website, me thinks - Arctic Silver (www.arcticsilver.com).

Thermal grease, or the thermal pads that you've encountered, are required to transfer heat from the CPU to the heatsink. The reason this "stuff" is needed is because the surface of the CPU and the surface of the heatsink are not perfectly flat. They have tiny scratches and microscopic valleys that impede the flow of heat. Thermal grease/pads are designed to melt into those scratches and valleys and make sure that heat is transferred quickly and efficiently from the CPU to the heatsink using their entire surfaces. As you've noticed, the differences in CPU core temps can be astonishing!

Since you're tinkering, I'd suggest running down to your local PC shop/store and picking up a tube of thermal grease. Arctic Silver 5 is currently the best, but any thermal grease is better than none at all!