>> Apparently, when you take a machine not capable of running faster than a
500mh processor,
>> and cram an 800mh processor in it, it becomes a 600mh machine. Any ideas
or wisdom?
Hi Michael,
The actual speed the process will run depend on the 'bus speed' and the
'multiplier'.
An 800 MHz Celeron on a 133 MHz bus must have a 6X multiplier. Plug that
into a 100 MHz motherboard and it will run at 600 MHz (6 x 100MHz = 600MHz).
Check your BIOS and jumper setting to see if you can change the bus speed to
133 MHz. You'll need to check to see if your RAM is 133 MHz before you make
this modification.
I suspect your motherboard supports bus speeds of 100 MHz or 133 MHz,
selected by a jumper, BIOS setting or magic (the not-good kind, for us). So
if your motherboard is running 100 MHz and you set the multiplier for 4X,
your processor will run at 400 MHz. Set the multiplier at 5X, and your
processor will run at 500 MHz. Set the multiplier for 6X and watch the
processor turn to smoke. Woops.
Some processors have a multiplier set at the factory, and it's not
adjustable (usually - see below). These are considered "Locked" processors.
Fine for most, but hot rodders buy motherboards with highly adjustable bus
speeds. They want unlocked chips, so they can experiment with the clock
rate to achieve higher performance, fame, and all the attention one gets by
having a 'faster' chip than the next guy. The problem with unlocked chips
is the user has to set the clock speed or it will run slower than rated.
AMD Athlons are often left at the slowest speed, and lowest multiplier
(factory default). Some builders didn't know you had to set those things.
A locked chip will usually run at the proper multiplier. But a multi-speed
motherboard needs to be set to the proper speed, based on the RAM chips
speed, and processor speed.
AMD produced some lower cost Athlons that were exactly the same as the
higher priced, faster Athlons. They locked the lower cost chips at a lower
multiplier - if you wanted more speed, you had to buy the higher-priced
unlocked version. Some pretty sharp guys discovered you could take a pencil
and draw a line between two contact points on the underside of the chip.
That would unlock it, and you could crank it up to the speed of the more
expensive version.
Ken Elliott
=====================
-----Original Message-----
From: slug@nks.net [mailto:slug@nks.net] On Behalf Of michael hast
Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 9:20 PM
To: slug@nks.net
Subject: [SLUG] {SPAM?} Update on cpu experimenting
Hey, all.
Remamber when I was asking about a cpu upgrade that is not supported by
the Bios? Well, I may have a startling answer. My machine has been a 500mh
celeron, and the bios did not support anything faster. Today, I installed
an 800mh celeron processor (many thanks again, Bill) and fired her up
without changing anything else. When the bios came up, it said that the
processor was incompatible(well, duh) and that if I wanted it to do
anything, I was going to have to upgrade the bios. Then, it continued to
boot. I literally held my breath until it brought up the KDE desktop. Of
course, part of me was waiting for the error message that said that the
machine would explode in 10, 9, 8, 7...
But in the end, it booted up everything just as normal. As I went
through menus, it did seem faster, although not as much as I would have
expected for over a 50% jump in cpu speed. I pulled up the process table on
the KDE menu and it did show less load on the cpu during functions that
would have redlined with the old 500. Then, I went into the KinfoCenter,
and checked to see what speed KDE thinks it is.
Apparently, KDE believes this processor to be 594.939mh.
Curious. So, what does this mean? I got a 100mh upgrade in CPU speed
that by any rational should have been 300mh or a non-running machine, right?
I was expecting an error message saying, "Kernel Panic!" or "Danger, Will
Robinson!" or possible even, "What are you doing, Dave?" But no.
Apparently, when you take a machine not capable of running faster than a
500mh processor, and cram an 800mh processor in it, it becomes a 600mh
machine. Any ideas or wisdom? I really would like to know what is going on
here. Otherwise, I guess it's a 600mh machine now. I've got a couple other
boxes that also take a socket 370 that should not be able to run this thing,
so the experimentation continues anyhow.
By the way, I am composing this email on the very 600mh machine.
--Michael
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