Can't Change Multiplier and Customize the FSB/PCI Speed....PLZ Help

[ToXiCRaGE]

I have trouble changing the multiplier in BIOS....i dont really know what i must enabling to have control over the miltiplier. Do i need to update bios maybe. I have an ASUS mobo P3B-f with the original BIOS...i havent update them yet.

Secondly in bios i can only set the voltage and FSB/PCI speed at preset values. For example i cant go lower the 2.00volts, i can only go up to (i think 4, not sure) and i cant specify the FSB speed.... for example i cant have 117, but i can have 110, 112, 120...why is that. Can i set also the FSB seperately without changing the PCI speed? Can i have FSB 120 and PCI 33mhz, insted what they give me 120/35?

Last question is that when i used the setting that they gave me (120/35) and rebooted i didnt even heard a beep and nothing was working, i couldnt even turn the comp off! so i had to switch the master switch to turn off all of it (speakers, monitor etc.)
Could that be because the PC100 RAM i had couldnt run at 120mhz? OR was it because the voltage was too low and the processor didnt get enough juice to think?

PLZ Advice........Thank you!

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

I still need help!
I know u guys know this, thanks!

 

[Renob]

You cant change the multiplyer on a PIII it is locked. but you can change the FSB if you ram can handle it......

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

Cant i change it or "ulock it". See my ram is kindda crap so i was hopin g to get a multiplier of 6 at least. Are u positive and absolutley 100% sure tht i can unlock it? that sux i was hoping to achieve at east around 700mhz...now i got 5% increase(578mhz) haha. Do u know about the rest of the problems i enountered? Why i cannot change the FSB to my likings>?

Still need help about the FSB, why is it preset for me, and why did the comp behavie the way i described before. THX again!

 

[Poof]

ToXiCRaGE - from what I've read, intel locks the multiplier for the PIIIs within the CPU core itself thus making changing it about impossible, whereas the AMD chips like the T-birds and Durons, lock the multiplier by cutting L1 bridges that are accessible and visible on the surface of the CPU. Simply reconnecting the bridges unlocks them.

I feel your frustration but it seems like what you need is a "tweeker's" motherboard, eg., the Abit in my sig, that lets you modify the FSB by 1Mhz increments. It and other tweeker mobos also allow adjusting the voltage by increments and accomodates the lower voltages needed by the cumines.

To do what you want easily, you'll need a new mobo.

[EDIT: Oh... and the katmai you have is not that good an overclocker either... ]

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

Thnks Poof, i should have made the new thread then just about the P3 problem . Well im in a big S*** :frown:. Well then i can forget about reaching 700mhz and getting a new heatsink/fan combo. Im assuming then that Anandtech oc their 550 to 700 using a coppermine then, right?

Thx though (big dissapointment for me hehehe....did so many preperations for nothing)

Maybe ill wait for the Celerons with speeds of 800 and beyond (if there will be such a thing) and try to oc them to beyond 1gig if that will be possible. i have this system for 8 months now...dont wanna invest major money into it yet.

 

[Poof]

Hmmm... not sure. I don't think (and I may be wrong) that the coppermines started until 600Mhz, so that may have been a katmai.

What you need is a new motherboard (or even a "used" one of the newer variety). You may be able OC it with the FSB only, but you need a board that is geared towards that, ie., one that allows you smaller increments of FSB adjustments.

[EDIT: Checking pricewatch... looks like they did have some 500E & 550E processors which would mean coppermine. You could get one of those and take it to 133 FSB]

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

What about my pc 100.......i know i should have gotten 133 but then i wasnt thinking of oc-ing .Could that get me to 133FSB? Or Ram dosent matter here, just the mobo.

What if the comp dont want to start at the beggining...everything is balnck and there is no beep or anything....could that be because it needs more juice and i need to increase the voltage or that dosent have anything to do with it and its only dependant on the FSB?
Can i damage seriously the chip without any extra cooling if i go from 2.00v to 2.5v?

 

[wonder mike]

dude you picked the wrong processor to overclock

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

Hey i didnt know that when i bought it....originally i didnt think that will oc it...then after some ime i got interested in the whole "speed oc-ing" and i though maybe i can oc my chip, ya right, now i know that, but no one told me that b4 - u learn on u mistakes. Anyhow i guess i will wait untill the 1gigs P3 become cheap so i can get that.... Long time ago i thought the "cartridge processors" (katmais) are bertter then the rest (copper's) I would think that they are the coolest processors with only over 9million transistors...maybe not but comparing them to the t-birds with over 30mill the P3 should be much cooler.

What do u guys think about the new P4...will they be also produced as something similar to katmais and coppermines, or just coppermines? I dont know but 400mhz FSB is nice to have but a) the P4s are damn expensive and will be for a long long time and b) im pretty sure that AMD will throw something at intel's face soon.... I dont know but i have burned myself for the last time with this intel crap....what u buy is what u get and that sux....i like to improve stuff if i know what im doing, i think i go with AMD next time anyways (i wanted to go AMD this time but didnt ) Their processors are damn much cheaper and more funner

Thx for u help guys!

PS: Can i O/C an 1gig katmai even by a bit, and can my mobo support it? (originally those mobos can support up to 1 gig-what if i go 1.1, will it crash?)

 

[fxsts]

ToXiCRaGE,

It sounds like you are a bit confused.
OK, here is what you should know.

1. Coppermine started with 500Mhz & 550Mhz FC-PGAs and 600Mhz and on Slot 1's. Those could do &50Mhz and more (I had a 500Mhz which did 750Mhz on 150Mhz bus). Later they made some Slot 1 Coppermine 550Mhz for OEM.

2. It seems that you got a Katmai PIII Slot 1. And if that's the case, it will not overclock that high. I do not quite remember how well my old Katmai 500Mhz did anymore, but it was somewhere around 620Mhz on 124Mhz bus or so.

3. No you cannot change your multiplier, and you can only use FSB. Any PCI bus speed changes accordingly to the FSB speed. It gets devided by 2, 3 or 4 depending your motherboard. If you pick 120Mhz, PCI will be either 40Mhz or 30Mhz depending what setting your board has. (40Mhz is a bit too high for many PCI cards and hard drives).

4. If your PC100 is one of those newer CAS2 chips (8ns), it should not have problem running on 120Mhz bus as long as you lower CAS latency speed to 3. If yours is one of the older 10ns chips, it will probably not run at 120Mhz. If the system does not even beep to boot, it's probably because of the memory assuming the chip does 660Mhz.

5. If you really want to get more speed, the best option I think is to sell your 550Mhz and get a FC-PGA Coppermine PIII which runs on 100Mhz bus such as 700, 750, 800, or 850 and a slocket. Getting a coppermine Celeron II is also an option but they are about 15% - 20% slower than Coppermine PIII. Therefore, it will not much of an upgrade for you.

 

[ToXiCRaGE]

Thanks FX..that is helpfull but the only thing besides that i cannot understand is what is the FC-PGA and how can i know if my ram is the older or newer one. I'll admit it i did a clumsy job picking ram...one stick is Hyundai the other Siemens. The other thing i dont understand is how can i fit a coppermine into a slot1? Arent coppermines the proseccors (im gonna omit the technical term which i dont know) with the little nidels sticking out..they dont have any casing just the die and have those spikes?They go into the socket 370, right? How can i fit that into a slot1? And what is a slocket?

Another thing is that u even got urs going to 620mhz....i cant go that fast cuz my PC will not work properly if my PCI is over 35mhz...it will freze in windows at the beggning. And if i do choose a setting that is less then 35, the bus speed is too high and the comp dosent want to restart or even turn off....i need to flip the master switch. And i dont know why it dosent wanna boot at 120fsb, and if that dosent work then why the hell could there be 140fsb...they should have made more presets under 35mhz PCI speed. i think i will forget about it though....ill just upgrade in the next 6 months and after that i will never go again with intel's crap (its not bad just too expensive and inflexible)

Right now im at 578.... what u think of that demonic oc! hahaha Anyways i got my best shot and i did get my 1st oc-ing done, giving myself credit for that.

And still no one told me if i stick a 1gig katmai (if there are such things, but there should cuz this mobo can go upto 1 gig)and if i oc that processor to go over its original speed will my mobo handle it...or can it only support speeds up to 1 gig overclocked or not?

Thanks for ur help people... apreciated

 

[fxsts]

ToXiCRaGE,

I will answer your question one by one.

1. Slockets are adaptors which are used with PPGA or FC-PGA PIII/Celeron to be installed to a Slot 1 motherboard.

There are pretty inexpensive and work very well. Because slot 1 PIII's are harder to find and more expensive nowadays, I would recommend you to get a FC-PGA PIII and use a slocket to run it on your motherboard.

You can get a good MSI slocket from Onvia for cheap w/ free shipping. I think this should be the best deal around.
MSI Slocket from Onvia

2. Check your RAM and see what number each chip has. You should be able to find number '8' or '10" somewhere in the model number, and that is the speed of your chip.
You devide 1000 by the number to get the maximum speed of the ram. For example, you get 100Mhz with 10ns chip and 125Mhz with 8ns chip. PC133 chips have 7.5ns or faster (1000/133 = 133Mhz). Of course, this is somewhat threoretical, and there are some 8ns chips which do 133Mhz or more or others which do not do 125Mhz reliably.

Both Siemens and Hyndai make good chips or at least they are pretty reputable. Therefore, I do not think that you did a bad job choosing your RAMs.

3. Running PCI bus at 35Mhz is not bad. In fact, I have not seen any PCI cards or hard drives having a problem running on 75Mhz bus (37.5Mhz PCI bus) for quite sometime. Running PCI at 40Mhz and higher could be a problem with some cards or drives; otherwise, you should not have any problem.

4. Overclocking PIII on Intel 440BX boards involves a lot of things because you will be not only overclocking the processor itself but also the PCI bus, AGP bus, and memory.

The newer BX boards including your Asus P3B-f has 1/4 PCI devider; hence, you should be OK with PCI bus. For example, with 120MHz FSB, you should have an option to choose either 30Mhz or 40Mhz.

Your AGP will be overclocked as you do not have an option for 1/2 devider. Hence, it will be running at 80Mhz (2/3 of 120) instead of the default 66Mhz (2/3 of 100). 80Mhz could be a problem with your AGP video card.

As far as memory is concerned, if you have PC133 or PC100 CAS2(8ns), you should be OK to run it at 120MHz. If you have PC100 CAS3(10ns), it will most likely not run at 120Mhz.

It seems to me that either memory or AGP card is causing a problem. Or maybe your PIII-550 just does not do 660Mhz.


Although it seems that you are having a hard time with Intel setup now, overclocking Intel system is still much easier than AMD system. It is much more straight forward and much less compatibility problems.

If you were working on Athlon system instead, you would be looking power supply and memory compatibility problems as well as some possible driver issues with VIA chipsets.

 

[rempe]

Fxsts Youre wrong about AMD the best way to overclock is with the multiplier and front side bus.AS far as compatibility thats a bunch of BS

 

[fxsts]

OK, rempe,

I knew someone like you would come out and disagree with what I stated. Yes, AMD T-bird and Duron are great. Both VIA and AMD have made their system much more stable and compatible than they were before. They are nowhere near the level they were when they first came out with K6-2 and Super 7 motherboards. I still liked their super 7 systems and think that T-bird 1GB/KT133 is a great combo.

However, Athlon still requires higher wattage and therefore the higher energy power supplies. They are relatively more sensitive to memory compatibility although it is not as much of a problem as it used to. You also have to install 4-in-1 driver. Also, multiplier overclocking with T-bird/Duron requires you to do the pencil/conductive pen process. There are not too much room for FSB overclocking as it maxes out around 110Mhz.

I assume that you are tech savvy with a lot of experience with configuring computers and overclocking. However, other people are not. I am neither trying to crap AMD/VIA nor the other way around here. I am neutral when it comes to AMD vs. Intel, and I give my fair opinion out of my experience with them both.

You like AMD. That's great. You are experienced enough to manage overclocking AMD/VIA system. That's nice. Am I being totally wrong and giving a bunch of BS to ToXiCRaGE? I don't think so.