Questions on Pentium D 805

[Traveler]

I appreciate anyone who could answer few of my questions regarding a newly installed system.

My configuration: Pentium D 805 + Asus P5P800-VM + 1Gb 333MHz Kingston DDR + 1Gb 400MHz OCZ DDR

I set everything auto. When two RAM running together, bootup bios shows running 266MHz. With OCZ only, it shows 333MHz. how come it doesn't show me higher than that?

Before I update the bios firmware, there was a hyper-threading enabled, and I disabled it. After firmware upgrade, I don't see it anymore?!
For Pentium D, do I need to enable hyper-threading to see if two core are really working even though I know the CPU doesn't have hyper-threading?

It's supposed to have two 2.66Ghz core working together. But I don't feel any different except slower than my old P4 3GHz hyper-threading enabled system. How come?

By the way, is there any software I can use to see if two core are really working?

 

[myocardia]

Your 2.66 Ghz Pentium D feels slower than your 3.0 Ghz P4, because it's .34 Ghz slower. If you think your second core might not be running, download Orthos, then run it with Windows Task Manager open (hold down Ctrl+Alt, then hit the Delete key), both cores should be at 100% usage.

edit: Oh, and your RAM should be running at 133 (266 DDR), since that's the fsb of your processor.

 

[Minot]

I have a Pentium D 805 running on an Asrock 775Dual-880Pro motherboard (the predesessor to the VSTA board) with PC3200 DDR.

Myocardia -- I'm not sure I agree that his memory should be running at 266 MHz. Even if the system FSB is 533 MHz, the memory is often run asynchronously. With the older 533 Mhz P4-Northwood cores, you could run 333 MHz memory with the i845PE chipset. I'm not sure about the Asus P5P800, but I suspect he can manually set the memory to run at 333 MHz.

Traveller -- check your motherboard manual and see what it says for 4 DIMM memory configurations. Assume all of your memory is 333 MHz (you must run at the speed of your slowest memory). There may be a limitation on that specific board with 4 DIMMs and a CPU with a 533 MHz FSB (i.e. 4 x DIMMS must run at 266 MHz instead of 400 MHz), but I suspect you can manually set the memory to 333 MHz. If you are concerned, run Memtest86 and see if you get any errors.

-MINOT-

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Minot
Myocardia -- I'm not sure I agree that his memory should be running at 266 MHz. Even if the system FSB is 533 MHz, the memory is often run asynchronously. Even with the older 533 Mhz P4-Northwood cores, you could run 333 MHz memory with the i845PE chipset. I'm not sure about the Asus P5P800, but I suspect he can manually set the memory to run at 333 MHz.

-MINOT-

First of all, it does almost no good to run your memory faster than your fsb. And since that processor is so easily/highly overclockable, I just assumed he was actually wanting to get some performance out of it, by overclocking it at least some, which would require the memory to start out at 133/266 DDR.

 

[Minot]

And that's fair. I have my 805 running mildly OCed to 3.0 GHz with 150 x 4 MHz FSB. I hardly noticed any temp changes. I didn't get a good impression from Traveller if he wanted to OC or not. If he wants to best his performance of his older CPU then he is probably going to have to atleast push it to 3.0 GHz.

 

[Traveler]

Thanks, guys, points taken. Btw, at this point, I haven't OC yet, everything in bios is default auto.

Originally posted by: myocardia
Your 2.66 Ghz Pentium D feels slower than your 3.0 Ghz P4, because it's .34 Ghz slower. If you think your second core might not be running, download Orthos, then run it with Windows Task Manager open (hold down Ctrl+Alt, then hit the Delete key), both cores should be at 100% usage.

edit: Oh, and your RAM should be running at 133 (266 DDR), since that's the fsb of your processor.

myocardia , Windows Task Manager only shows one CPU usage not two like hyper-threading would show. Any other software I can use to see two core usage?

 

[formulav8]

If you do not see 2x CPU usage windows and a total cpu usage window then your not using the 2nd core. I do not know anything about that mobo so I can't give you any info on that.

You can also go into the device manager and look under the Processor listing, and if 2x cpu listings are there then Windows is seeing 2x cores.

Also, under the Computer listing, make sure is says something like: ACPI MultiprocessorPC or similar.

Not much more info I can give you though.


Jason

 

[Traveler]

Answer to my own question, here are few tools I found:

CPU-Z
RightMark CPU Clock Utility

 

[stevty2889]

One of the limitations of the 865 chipset is that it won't let you run mem at DDR400 unless you are running 800mhz FSB. Since the 805 is 533mhz FSB it won't let you set it higher than DDR-333.

As for why it runs at 266mhz(which is actualy 1:1 with a 533mhz FSB) with your second stick installed, perhaps it's because they have differant timings. You should be able to manualy set the timings in the bios to those of the slowest stick, and manualy change the speed to 333mhz.

Not sure about your motherboard, but on my Asus P5LD2-VM, enabling and disabling hyperthreading turned on and off the second core, so it may be the same on your motherboard.

To see if both cores are running, look in device manager. Under Computer, it should say ACPI mulitprocessor PC, and under processors it should list the CPU twice. Under task manager, in the performance tab, click view, cpu history, one graph per CPU, and then it should show 2 graphs, 1 for each core.

 

[Traveler]

Thanks for the info, stevty2889.

I really need to question Asus support then.

 

[Traveler]

Ok, this is just unexpected...

I found my machine unable to boot normally without disabling usb function. After hours of struggle, I found out everything goes back to normal after I disabled quick boot in bios setting.

And the surprising thing is that two core performance actually shows up in hardware manager and windows task manager.