Gordon said:
Hi there,
I've got an Asus P4S8X-MX motherboard with a 2.4 Ghz P4 CPU in it.
The bios and Windows picks it up as being type 2.4 Ghz and speed as 1600
Mhz.
Why is there a difference? I would have thought the speed would be
matching at 2400 Mhz as that's what it is.....
The bios is the latest, and no overclocking set up in the machine at
all....
Any ideas why this machine, and CPU, is running slower than it should be?
Thanks,
Gordon
Enter the BIOS (use "Delete" key at power up).
In Advanced:JumperFree Configuration -->
Set "AI Overclock Tuner" to [Manual]
A new setting should appear, CPU Frequency.
Set "CPU Frequency" to 200MHz. (Right now, it is running at
133MHz, and that is why the core is at 1600 instead of 2400.)
For safety, you can set "AGP/PCI" to [66.6/33.3]
(If you use clock values other than 133MHZ or 200MHz for
the CPU Frequency, such as an intermediate value, then it
becomes more important to lock the AGP/PCI to 66.6 and 33.3
respectively. 66.6 and 33.3 are the normal values.)
I wouldn't bother adjusting the DDR memory frequency, until
you've had a chance to boot into Windows and use a program
like CPUZ (
www.cpuid.com ) to verify what the motherboard
is doing with the memory frequency.
Since this is in many ways like overclocking, if I was doing
this with my computer, on the first reboot I would run
memtest86+ (
www.memtest.org ) as a means of seeing if the
new settings are stable. If, for any reason, there is a
problem with the new settings, you would not want to corrupt
your hard drive because of it. Using a floppy or a CD with the
memtest86+ program loaded on it, gives you a chance to verify
that the computer works OK, without having to use your hard
drive to prove it.
Another way to prove stability, is to download a Knoppix or a
Ubuntu Live CD. The download is 700MB (knopper.net or ubuntu.com)
and for people on dialup networking, that is a lot to expect. If
you are on broadband, it takes maybe an hour to download, depending
on the mirror server you use. Either Knoppix or Ubuntu Live CD's
don't need a hard drive to work either, so those Linux operating
systems are another way to prove the computer is stable at the
new settings.
Paul