Getting Athlon XP 2600+ to run at full speed?

[MechLord]

First of all I'd like to say I've found some useful info on this thread on how to get my new system using the A7N8X Deluxe up and running.

I have a good amount of experience upgrading PCs (even have A+ certification) but this is the first one I've ever built totally from scratch from motherboard up.

My situation: I have a A7N8X Deluxe Revision 2.0 board (ASUS BIOS 1005), and am trying to get my Athlon XP 2600+ to run at it's full rated speed. According to the specs, the CPU is "officially" supposed to run at 2133MHz (133MHz FSB by 16.0x clock multiplier), but I can't get it to run at more than 11.5x using 133MHz FSB. Setting the clock multiplier to the 8.0x/16.0x seems to allow it to run at only half speed (8.0x), and the other multipliers above 11.5x actually seem to slow it down even more.

I was wondering, would it be workable to try a different combination such as FSB 200MHz by 10.5x clock multiplier? This is the first time I've ever used an AMD CPU so I am a bit cautious of just jacking it up as I'm afraid I might fry something.

On a related question, might a later BIOS revision enable some of the higher clock multipliers to function properly?

Anyway thanks a lot for any response; this thread has already enabled me to get the thing running at least.

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Here's the planned specs of the system (not finished installing everything quite yet)
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (Revision 2.0)
AMD Athlon XP 2600+
512MB DDR400 RAM
Maxtor 80GB SATA HDD
Plextor PX-504A DVD/CDRW
Imation Floppy Drive
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
PC Power & Cooling 510 ATX PSU

Windows 2K Pro SP4

 

[JSSheridan]

There were two versions of the XP 2600+ Thoroughbred, that's what it looks like you have to me anyway. Does it have 512KB cache? Anyway, one version ran at 16 x 133MHz FSB like you said, another ran at 12.5 x 166MHz FSB (2083 MHz). The first, could only run multipliers of 13 and up, while the second was only capable of multipliers of 12.5 and below. That jives with your description of the problem. None of the bios releases will change the situation. I have a v1.04 A7N8X-D myself. If you are planning on overclocking the chip, you're in a good situation with the way the multipliers are set up. Let us know if you have any other questions, and welcome to the forums. Peace.

 

[imported_Woody]

i once built a system around the 16x133FSB 2600 and paired it with PC2700. I simply set it to run at 13x166 so it would sync with the RAM without increasing the core speed significantly. This improved overall performance on the A7N8X motherboard without increasing temperatures at all. If you have PC3200 RAM you could set it to run at 10.5x200 and get similar results.