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General questions about my setup? Help appreciated

G

gsxr944

Junior Member
This is my setup.
I have an ECS k7s5a pro mobo, AMD xp1800+, 1 stick Crucial 256mb pc2700, cheepo bios, Western Digital 60gb HDD, ATI Radeon 8500le 128mb AGP video, Thermaltake Volcano 6cu+ HSF operating on Windows 98SE. I was powering all of this with a generic 300w PSU until recently when I upgraded to a new case with an "Intel p4" approved 350w PSU and extra case fans (model Verre V770 case).

I was having problems already recognized on other posts and threads,..i.e. system not booting and resetting CPU speed back to 1.15mhz when shut down and powered back on,..etc.

My questions are these:
1. I upgraded to the Cheepo BIOS and "better" power supply in the hopes of elminating this problem and to possibly OC the CPU a bit and get some better perfomance and reasonable stability. I know that people have gone back and forth about this particular board and the pros and cons for it. Can anyone suggest some BIOS settings, ideas, or otherwise more knowledge than I have to stabilize my system?

2. Do i need to use PC2100 memory since this board is only rated for 266mhz FSB?

If there is any other info regarding my system or otherwise, please let me know and i'll try to update the info.

Please be kind and not be too technical with the responses! Thanks in advance
 
No offense but from what I can tell, you replaced your cheap power supply with another cheap power supply. Stick to name brand power supplies like sparkle, enermax, and antec.

PC2100 vs ??? DDR will help over just normal PC133 for speed a little but I'm not sure on overclocking

The ECS is not made for overclocking. It's just a really basic motherboard and thats about it.
 
You can't officially use memory at PC2700 speeds, but PC2700 modules will downclock just fine to run at the 266MHz speed. PC2700 modules are a bit better value now, since you can reuse the modules if you ever go to a 333MHz bus board and CPU, and in the meantime you can run the memory at more aggressive timings.

What are the ratings for the voltage rails on the power supply? +3.3V, +5V and +12V. Only one review I can find (and 50 sites linking to it) which had a blurry pic, looked like 24A, 35A, and 14A. 14A is pretty low for a 350W PSU, and may be low enough (and the PSU not being able to supply a consistent feed) that it's causing your problems.

The BIOS settings are pretty easy. You should be able to set most of the regular stuff to high performance options (anything where the choice is "optimum" or "enabled"). For the memory settings, in order, you should be able to use Ultra, 2, 6, 3 easily (I do it with my PC2100 Crucial with a slight overclock even), and probably even Ultra 2 5 2 or lower. You'll have to experiment.
 
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