Beginner questions about Tyan S1854

[zbose]

I am currently getting one of these through a trade and I am afraid I am rather uninformed when it comes to motherboards and what processors/ram they will be compatabile with. Currently I have 192 MB of PC100 ram and a P2 450 in a Asus p2b 440bx motherboard. When I get the tyan I was planning to just throw the ram and the motherboard in there, which I assume will work judging by the specs. My questions are for when I (hopefully soon) buy a new processor and ram for it.

What processor should I get for this board? It says on the website that the fastest it can take is 600, but I have been reading and people say they can do faster than that with softset, so what do I get? Also, would it be possible to overclock it so I can squeeze the most out of this system?

Question 2: I have no idea what cas2 cas3, etc ram is. Do I need to match the ram to the fsb that I am going to be using? What would be the best combination of fast/quality ram for the price?

Please help a newbie learn the ways

zbose

 

[Vrangel]

Any RAM will work. Its VIA Apollo Pro 133A chipset, memory clock is independent of fsb.
Which means you can set CPU fsb to 133 and run memory at 100 for example.

Any P3 or Celeron will work. Overclocking is no problem but you need a slocket
to adjust vcore voltage and fsb.

I had c600@900 on TT400, currently its c533@906.

 

[shammerdan]

I have the same motherboard and I have a PIII 700 and it can go with I think 833 or 933 easy. Any more question for when it is installed or about errors you may get I might be of some help.

 

[zbose]

Ok, well I can either put a p2 350 in there, or a celeron 400 that i know can be over clocked to 500... My next question is, which should I go with? I always thought celerons were slower for number crunching even with high mhz...

 

[Vrangel]

Which one is slot1 and which one is socket?

Theres no voltage adjustment on mobo, so
you have to use socket CPU with a slocket
capable of adjusting vcore voltage.

 

[zbose]

The p2 is slot 1 and the celeron is socket 370, but I can get the slocket if i need to... Would the slocket be required to overclock it at 500?

 

[Planktune]

this board has slot1 and 370 sockets. use a slocket for flip chips. slockets are good for overclocking. they (abit} have voltage jumpers,
so with a little luck you should be able achieve decent overclocks

 

[Vrangel]

Use Iwill Slocket2 or MSI 6905. These two work well on TT400.

You can increase vcore voltage for PPGA Celeron up to 2.4V

 

[302Ranger]

Vrangel

i have a tt400, msi 6905, and c2 600, and i cant get it to OC at all..
it will only post at default. did you run your 600@900 on an msi? if so care to share your jumper/bios settings if you rememebr them? cause i cant figure mine out to make it work
THANKS!

 

[Vrangel]

I do use MSI . J1-open, J4-short 2/3, J3 open, voltage 1.85V

In BIOS set CPU CLK to auto or 100. If its too high, go down to 95.

Dont forget to adjust DRAM CLK to whatever you have.

 

[birddog]

I have built several computers using this motherboard. Some overclock decently (not great) & I have had some that will not overclock at all. It is definately not a board for a hard core overclocker. I build systems for people who do not know much about computers, so overclocking is not necessary. This is by far the most stable PIII motherboard I have worked with (when set at default clock speeds). I have run up to a PIII 933 on one of these without a problem. I'm currently building a 866 system on one of these boards for an engineer I work with to use as his CAD machine.

The slot 1 socket seems to be a little more inclined to overclocking (that is one of the reasons people recommend using a slotkit rather than just using the s370 socket. -- the other reason is the voltage adjustments on the slotkit)

Some other things to look at. The older revision 'A' boards only support coppermine based CPU's in the slot 1 (the socket on them do not support flip-chips). All revisions after 'A' should support flipchips. All revisions will support your PII. The higher revisions ('D' and later seem to be a bit more overclocker friendly).

The Tyan website has a good chart on which revisions support what -- I think it is in the CPU copatibility section.

 

[zbose]

I just got mine and it works great! Got everything working how I want it. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to change the board to overclock. I am running a p2 350 (100x 3.5) and I have heard that it should be possible to at least get it going a little faster. Someone want to tell me the first step I should take? It is a slot 1 cpu btw.

Thanks!

zbose

 

[Vrangel]

zbose

The only way for you is to use SoftFSB. Even then you wont get much
due to lack of voltage adjustment on mobo.

Next SoftFSB setting for TT400 above 100 is 105. It might work for your P2.
In SoftFSB choose PLL IC-Works196x.

 

[zbose]

Does it matter if my motherboard is not specifically listed in the program?

 

[Vrangel]

Add it to the list yourself and specify PLL IC.

 

[birddog]

You should be able to moderately overclock it in the BIOS. I believe in the advanced chipset page (I'm working from memory here), near the top of the right column is the CPU speed settings (I forget exactly what Tyan calls it). It should say 'auto' or 'default' or something simular. If you page up/down on it, you should be able to manually select your bus speed. Try 105 & 112 mhz & see it it will post.

 

[Vrangel]

No 105 in BIOS. Next after 100 is 112.

 

[zbose]

Ok, I moved it to 112 and it seems to be doing ok. This motherboard doesn't seem to have a way to check the temperature, but its been running for a little bit now just fine. Do you guys think that I should get a bigger better fan? I am running the P2 350 @ 392 with the standard slot 1 type heatsink/fan right now and the chip doesn't even seem to be hot. LMK if I need to worry about overheating!

zbose

 

[Vrangel]

So far so good. Next settings in SoftFSB are not far apart:

113, 115, 117, 118, 120...

Go higher little by little, until you see problems, then back down.
I dont think its worth tampering with your HSF.
New CPU would be more bang for a buck.

 

[zbose]

Wow! Just had a scary experience! I went into the bios, to try the next step up. It goes from 112/on to 117/off, then 124/on. So I tried the 117/off and when the darn thing booted it reported 95 x 3.5! So I figured the off meant it wasn't doing anything. So I went back to the bios and tried 124/on. The computer went to reboot and nothing. I tried a hardreset and the motherboard just stop responding to the "on" button. I thought I had killed it!

So, I yanked the battery out and unplugged the PS and went to take a shower. Came back about 5 minutes later and it boots, of course my bios was all reset. So, I guess this means I am maxed out at 112 x 3.5 (unless I was doing something wrong that would allow me to go farther). Which sucks, but is still 42 Mhz gain over stock. Seems to be very stable too.

So for my final question, what processor should I replace this one with? I am poor college student.... very poor, and I would prefer to trade for a chip, but my price range is ~50 if I have to pay cash. What kind of chip should I expect to get for that much?

BTW, I know the above is a price check, which is illegal in the trading forum... so if its illegal here too, I will edit!

zbose

 

[birddog]

Again, the tyan board is not the best overclocker, if you plan on keeping the board, you may want consider a 133 mhz PIII & not bother overclocking. Check out pricewatch.com for prices. I think the 733 is currently the best bang for your buck (on 133mhz busses). With the tyan board, you can use either the slot 1 or s370. I think slot 1 600's are selling for @ $100 also.

112 is probably about all you can get without voltage adjustments (which needs a flipchip & slotkit to do) on that CPU & board. P2's also are not as overclockible as PIII coppermines. If you are set on overclocking, then I'd get a flipchip PIII in the 550 - 700 mhz range & get a quality slotkit & golden orb cooler. Alot of slotkits will let you set a jumper to tell the computer that the 100mhz CPU is a 133mhz (i.e. turning a 700 into a 933).

 

[Vrangel]

zbose

Dont worry, you wont damage your CPU or mobo.
To recover from bad BIOS setting hold 'insert' button
on a keyboard and turn system off and on again.
It will boot with previous BIOS settings.
If pressing power button doesnt turn system off
hold it for about 5 sec straight. System will turn off.

Whats your BIOS version? If its 1.00 then change IOQ level to 4.

Try 117 again . You probably set it to 95 accidentally.
95 or anything 'off' or 'on' is harmless.

So for now go for 117 and post results. If its a no go
I'll tell you how to work with SoftFSB to squeeze some
more MHz.

 

[zbose]

Ok, I tried 117 again and it did the same thing. It actually says 315Mhz (90 x 3.5). So i was wrong when I said 95. Tried 124 again and it did the same thing, but I recovered easily holding the pwr button for 5 secs and the ins as i rebooted.

I went and fount softfsb from some random website, it seems that it is no longer supported by the company? Anyway, softfsb seems to have no effect on my system what so ever (doesnt do anything when i hit get fsb). I can make it freeze my comp if i do some wierd commands w/ it, but no use in getting/changing fsb. Of course my mobo isn't listed in it, so maybe I am doing something wrong w/ that.

Oh, and my bios is 1.07 I believe. I just flashed it recently to try and solve a problem i was having.

zbose

 

[Vrangel]

On top of SoftFSB window click on file/create/MB menu.

You will see new screen. In mobo line type TT400
and in PLL-IC line choose IC-Works W196x from the list.
Click on 'save' button and go to main screen.

There in 'target mainboard' line choose your newly created
TT400 , its at the bottom of the list.
Click on 'get fsb' and you will see your current settings.

Use slider to go a notch higher click on 'set fsb' and see how system takes it.

Then go to 'task tray' and choose everything.

When everything is finalized place shortcut to green SoftFSB icon in your startup folder.

 

[zbose]

Guys, I am telling you, I have soft fsb, using the IC-works 196x and when I do get FSB, it counts to 140 twice and then nothing. Just doesn't seem to be able to get any info. Thats why I asked if I had the wrong version. Maybe there are some settings I need to adjust? Fiddling around to much with the settings just makes it halt my system, but nothing seems to increase fsb.

zbose