Wasted Capability? I'd asked about BIOS, answered that myself . .

[imported_Kiwi]

I have a Gigabyte 7ZXE MB, Rev 2.1, that according to the manufacturer's web site, will run a faster Front Side Bus than 133, although it is limited to PC-133 RAM. It has a two-year-old BIOS, and I have a copy of a recent FLASH upgrade, but I have heard a few horror stories about FLASHing gone wrong. There's no indication at all of an included BIOS Save function in the DOS Level FLASH instructions. I'm particularly cautious about this one -- I already had to do a reinstall of Windows when Gigabyte's "Easy Tune III" went nutty running in its Easy Auto mode and corrupted a lot of files before I realized it had gone rogue.

When I wrote my question originally, this particular system was only running the processor at 1.25 GHz, and it's a Thoroughbred 2600 that should do a little better than that (I have another of the same board in a different PC, with a T-Bird 1.33 running at 1.33 GHz, but it's a Rev 1.0 that is supposed to be unable to handle processors newer and/or faster than the Palomino 2100). I have performed the FLASH, and nothing went wrong that I can see evidence of, but all the MB wants to run the XP at is 1400 MHz.

Following an extensive Google session in which I found nothing other than wide-spread references to built-in BIOS save functions in other Flash programs, I went back over all of the on-hand Gigabyte material and found an "@BIOS" utility for running the Flash within Windows, and it has its own save-BIOS function. That was what I used.

BUT somewhere recently, I had run across another of those neat utility programs that records the existing BIOS so that there's a roll-back position, in case the FLASH goes awry. I might even have downloaded a copy when I found it, but my organization of files like that leaves much to be desired. None of the names of my recent downloads sounds at all familiar! I'd still like to have the kind that backs up ANY kind of BIOS.

And of course I'm curious about whether all of the capability of the Thoroughbred XP 2600 beyond what an old Palomino XP 1600 could do (roughly where it was after biting the bullet, Flashing the BIOS, and then tuning it up some with the user-controlled part of Easy Tune) is just wasted unless/until a new MB is used? I have the 133 speed selected in Setup, but it's being ignored, apparently, so I must have the clock jumper switch on the wrong pins and the physical setting overrides the setup! Right? Man, I wish that set of pins wasn't hidden under the back end of the video card. I'll have to remove that to move the jumper and I hate the additional gamble of having my "two left thumbs" breaking something.


:brokenheart:

 

[imported_Kiwi]

:brokenheart: I see in the thread " Athlon XP 2800+ Detects as 1.25 Ghz" by nullptr that my situation is far from unique . .

:frown:

 

[Peter]

... and is easily solved. Everyone's making the same mistake - fail to set the bus speed to what the particular CPU wants to have.

You need to figure out how to set your mainboard to 133 MHz operation; then you'll get 1666 MHz = XP2000+ speed out of this CPU. This is the best this mainboard will yield from this processor, since it's intended 166 MHz bus frequency cannot be reached.

Had you bought a 2400+, you'd actually get 2400+ speed (2000 MHz on 133)

 

[duo007]

dang i know .my old via kt266 mobo detected my amd2500+ as a 100*6 cpu. jumper set to 100.eh i didnt know that long ago. asked some peeps online and they helped me out.what would people do without these forums?

 

[Peter]

That must have been a "mobile" CPU then, with programmable multipliers. Normal "desktop" flavor CPUs have the multiplier hardwired.

 

[duo007]

yes

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: Peter
... and is easily solved. Everyone's making the same mistake - fail to set the bus speed to what the particular CPU wants to have.

You need to figure out how to set your mainboard to 133 MHz operation; then you'll get 1666 MHz = XP2000+ speed out of this CPU. This is the best this mainboard will yield from this processor, since it's intended 166 MHz bus frequency cannot be reached.

Had you bought a 2400+, you'd actually get 2400+ speed (2000 MHz on 133)

OK, it's a few hours later. I simply unjumpered the clock pins, period. Then when I rebooted, the number that I'd set in Setup prevailed and the numbers in Easy Tune started looking like something. When Aida32 reads the clock speed, it gets 1688 MHz, with a 135 MHz FSB, and that's after Easy Tune cranks the System Bus and RAM up to 176, telling me that it's running 2200 MHz, with a PCI clock speed of 44 MHz.

Does the diagnostic ignore the OC effect? I hadn't INTENDED to "need" to Overclock, but how does this 2200 MHz number compare to where the XP would run with a proper FSB? It's supposed to run at double-166, or 333. Am I in 2800 territory or some such? The processor is running cool and quiet with an ordinary retail heat sink (from a 2800).


:thumbsup:

 

[mechBgon]

with a PCI clock speed of 44 MHz

:shocked:

May I suggest you don't get your bus speeds that far out of spec, or even half that far out of spec

 

[jkresh]

pci is way to high, try turning on pci lock if the board has it. As you will likely be getting graphics corruption with a pci of 42 (agp is at 84 which is not good for your card)

 

[Peter]

Does the board not allow 166 MHz CPU bus with non-overclocked 33 MHz PCI?

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: Peter
Does the board not allow 166 MHz CPU bus with non-overclocked 33 MHz PCI?

At 166, it was telling me 2000 CPU Clock Speed, but the PCI speed was raised quite a lot. I wrote down the three numbers at the 168 MHz point; DRAM also 168, PCI speed 42 MHz. This is the Easy Tune III version that came with the older of the two 7ZXE's. I have the BIOS date for it down somewhere if it helps. The second one was a takeout from a hobbyist type who (claimed he) hardly used it before jumping back to an Intel MB.

He didn't say anything about the kind of manual, accessories, and software that normally is in a retail boxed MB package for a major brand. Gigabyte has an Easy Tune IV now that isn't intended for any of their pre- DDR motherboards. Maybe this old version of Easy Tune pre-dated the faster FSB. I'll poke around in the Gigabyte CD for a manual on disk in html or pdf (already missed with any plain ascii "Txt" suffix), in case there is suh a thing as a lock on the PCI bus speed.

 

[Peter]

There is no "lock". You'll never get anything but what the board's clock synthesizer chip supports _and_ the board's chipset and other components support and cope with.

As I said in the beginning, everything above 133 MHz CPU bus clock is unhealthy territory on this board and chipset.