New Shuttle AK32A questions for AK32A owners!

[altonb1]

I recently purchased a Shuttle AK32A mobo and retail 1800+ T-bred CPU. Ths morning, I decided to O/C the chip. It was running at 1800+ with a CPU temp of 37.5 degrees. I overclocked it by increasing the multiplier, and now it is reading as a 2000+ at 39-degrees. I'm using the retail fan/heatsink with Arctic Alumina. Am I going to have any heat issues? Thus far, I believe it is running cooler than my old Duron 750 but about 3-degrees, so I think it seems fine.

Secondly, I flashed the BIOS to the latest found at the Shuttle website, which was 1/20/2003. I think I actually flashed it with the same REV I had already, but flashed it anyway. The manual and the board specs show the AGP port is 4x. In the BIOS and Sisoft Sandra, the port reads as 2x, and the BIOS does not have an option for 4x. (my choices are 1x and 2x only) I'm waiting on my new ti4200 card to arrive from NewEgg, but my concern is that I will only be able to run this card at 2x since the settings don't seem to allow for 4x. Am i missing an option somewhere to increase it? Is it not showing 4x because I'm not using it. (My old AGP card died, so I'm running an old Matrox Mystique 4Mb card until the new card arrives)

Please advise. TIA!

 

[xSauronx]

my guess is that since the old card wont use agp 4x, its not going to be an option. should be when you get the gf4 though

i dont think those temps are bad, my 1600+ palomino gets much warmer under load, so i wouldnt worry about it

 

[altonb1]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
my guess is that since the old card wont use agp 4x, its not going to be an option. should be when you get the gf4 though <snip>

Just to clarify, the card I am currently using is a PCI card. My ATI Radeon AGP card was fried by a defective mobo I received from NewEgg when I first started my upgrade.

Do you have this mobo? The specs all show 4x, but the BIOs only has an option to select 1x or 2x. SiSoft Sandra lists the port as only 2x as well. I'm wndering if the mobo specs are incorrect or if I am missing an option, or maybe this feature is only available when a 4x card is actually installed. Any ideas?

 

[altonb1]

Just to update the thread for anyone that may encounter this in the future, I installed the new ti4200 AGP 8x card, and the system picked up the graphics okay. I checked the BIOS, and I had options for 4x as well as additional features that were not there before. It appears that the BIOS wouldn't show 4x capability until the slot was actually populated. Maybe this will help someone else....

 

[Hobbes28]

altonb 1,

Did you have to mod the TBred chip to change multipliers on the Shuttle AK32 or did you just stick the chip in and it was unlocked (you could change multis and FSB in BIOS)? I'm thinking about this board as a cheap upgrade for a second computer.

Thanks...

 

[altonb1]

The BIOS has it's own steppings, so I could simply plug in the chip, go to the BIOS, and change the multiplier from AUTO (which I think is 11.5) and set it to 12 (1900+) or 12.5 (2000+). I can also increase the voltage in .25 increments.

From the AK32A System Manual, it states:

"Soft-configuration FSB (The FSB speed is software configurable from 100MHz to 166MHz by 1MHz step in the Frequency/Voltage Control of BIOS setup program.)"

It also states, under the BIOS configuration info,

"CPU Ratio Select
This item allows the user to adjust CPU Ratio.
The choice: Default, x5.5, x6, x6.5, x7, x7.5, x8, x8.5, x9, x9.5, x10, x10.5, x11, x11.5, x12, x12.5, x13, or x14."


Note that I am only seeing choices to go x12 or x12.5, so maybe there is a hardware limitation on my system (I'm still using PC133 SDRAM) that is not allowing me to see the higher steppings, or maybe I have to increase the voltage to get those other settings to appear. Not sure. Since adding the video card, I'm back to AUTO (cleared the BIOS while trying to get it installed) and I haven't gotten around to cranking it back to a 2000+.

Also note: Look at a picture of this board and note the placement of the memory slots in relation to the AGP connector. When I put my GF4 ti4200 128MB 8x card in, the edge of the card was snagging the retaining clips for the DDR slots. If I upgrade to DDR, I will be forced to remove the video card to allow insertion of the chips in the slot nearest the AGP port. If the retaining clip is not in the upright and locked position (hmm...sounds like an airplane speech), the card will not fit. Depending on the size of your AGP card, you may encounter similar issues.