1.2Ghz Thunderbird with 100mhz fsb?

[Nirvana1979]

I have an older computer that has a 100mhz front side bus. But last year I upgraded the CPU to a 1.2 Ghz AMD Athlon Thunderbird. My computer has been working fine, but now I'm wondering if I"m getting the full benefit of that speed? My bios does not allow me to mess with multipliers, and I'm not even sure how mutlipliers work.

Will that slow bus speed bottleneck my computer's processing power??

 

[Superman9534]

well, if your computer is running at 1.2ghz, then that means the chip is designed for a 100mhz bus (which it is, 100*12). If you were running at a higher bus you would be overclocking the chip, and you would have to lower the multiplier to be stable. (133*12 = 1596...i doubt you'd get an overclock like that...)

 

[DivideBYZero]

Check if your mobo has multiplier adjustment first, then:

Get a pencil, link up the L1 Bridges, go HERE, selecting UNLOCK from the third drop down menu. This will show you where the L1 Bridges are.

This will allow you to step down the multiplier and up the FSB I.E., Your current proc speed is 12*100Mhz. If you unlock you can go 9*133 to get the same speed, albeit 3 Mhz short. Even doing this you will see the perfomance bump due to the FSB increase. Then try upping the FSB and playing with the multipliers, just make sure you have good RAM and other components.

Check my rig for inspiration...

 

[DivideBYZero]

Originally posted by: DivideBYZero
Check if your mobo has multiplier adjustment first, then:

Get a pencil, link up the L1 Bridges, go HERE, selecting UNLOCK from the third drop down menu. This will show you where the L1 Bridges are.

This will allow you to step down the multiplier and up the FSB I.E., Your current proc speed is 12*100Mhz. If you unlock you can go 9*133 to get the same speed, albeit 3 Mhz short. Even doing this you will see the perfomance bump due to the FSB increase. Then try upping the FSB and playing with the multipliers, just make sure you have good RAM and other components.

Check my rig for inspiration...

Damn, just re-read and you can't mess with multipliers, what a shame I was soooo excited typing all that.....