Setting ddr ram freq

[backyardtechie]

Hi there i got a shuttle AB48 Mainboard with a P4 1.5 GHZ cpu and 1 GB of PC2700 ram.Thing is that the board detects the ram as ddr 266 even tho the ram is ddr333.Now i've gone into the bios to set the ram freq manually but the highiest it goes is ddr 266.Is this because the FSB is only 100 mhz or do i need to update the bios?

Any suggestions would be greatly appriecated.

BTW I was thinking of putting in a faster cpu like a 2.4-2.8 , would it be compitable with the board?

Cool and thanx
Backyardtechie

[johnnyis42]

looking at the manual for your motherboard, it looks like you're able to use any socket 478 pentium 4 chip with up to a 533 Mhz front side bus. you may have to keep a close eye though, and make sure the pentium 4 you use is in the "northwood" line of processors. there are newer "prescott" lines that use lower voltages, but can be problematic with the northwood socket 478 motherboards because of heat issues with some of the voltage regulator components ont he motherboards. also, it advertizes a memory frequency of up to 333 mhz.

it looks like you can use pentium 4 cpu's that have the hyperthreadding feature as well, which would mean it supports up to a 3.06 Ghz northwood processor.

from what i see, yes, you go into BIOS int he advanced chipset features and manually set your "memory frequency for" option to 166 Mhz. in order to do this you would need to change the "DRAM timing slectable" option from "by SPD" to "manual" and leave all the other values default. while you're on that page i would reccomend setting anything that says "cacheable" to disable.

good luck!

[backyardtechie]

Thanx for the reply, i found the users manual online and it saz that with my current CPU the max ddr freq is 266mhz , so to have 333mhz ddr i have to have a Cpu with a FSB of 533 mhz.Which is wierd but o-well.I am thinking of getting a new CPU (2.8GHZ) and Vid Card (Nvidia FX 5700) my FX 5200 sux .

Cheers
Backyardtechie

[johnnyis42]

wow, that is very odd, as the impression i got fromt he manual was that you could set the memory bus asynchronously if you did not use the "by SPD" timming option for the memory. the setting must be for the memory frequency ratio, where 100 is 1:1 and 133 is 4:5.

oh well, at least you can upgrade the cpu. definitely do that! just a reminder to be careful to make sure the 533 fsb chip you get is a northwood core, and not a prescott, or you may have to change your motherboard with a spatula

yeah, the fx5700 or radeon 9xxx series are definitely the best bang for the buck right now in ideo cards. just in time for the new games too.

[bombledmonk]

The regular 6600 AGP cards are now comming to the shelves, It rocks the 5700 series but not quite up to par with a 9800pro. The 6600GT fills that spot and quite handily beats the 9800pro in most cases.

[backyardtechie]

Sorry a bit off subject but i noticed my Cpu temp for my P4 1.5 Ghz is 43 celcius idle same board as above.I have my other system which is P3 733Mhz overclocked to 805 Mhz and at idle the P3 is at 17 Celcuis .With my P4 it does have the stock heatsink and fan at stock speed.And my P3 has a Amd 2400+ heatsink and fan he he he he so it runs cool.

I have mbm cpu temp monitoring system installed on the P3 but the problem is , far as i know mbm does not support my P4 board (Shuttle AB48)Do you guys know of another cpu monitoring program i can use?And is the P4 temp dangerous ?Thanx


Cheers
Backyardtechie

[johnnyis42]

well, my p4c northwood 2.6 gig running at 3.06 gig is sitting idle at 42C with water cooling. i'm using an exos syatem, so it's not like it is uber cooling, not to mention that the output fans are blowing right on the hoses and my internal case temp is somewhere around 35C.

the stock p4 heatsinks are usually pretty bad, but they work. if you buy a boxed intel processor and when you buy it it just so happens to be their "flagship" processor (the fastest in that line) it comes with a nice copper based heat sinc. these perform somewhat better, but not really because it usually has a wimpy fan.

your idle temp really is fine, alot of people don't like the idle temp to sit above 40C for superstitcious reasons, but if you look at the thermal specs for the pentium 4 it is rated to run stable up to 75C, though there is debate about when the built in thermal throttling kicks in. the cpu won't issue any warning to the motherboard until it hits about 85C anyway.

the real question is, though, what temperature does it sit at when the cpu is under 100% load? because that is when you will discover how well your heat sinc works. the key question is how efficiantly the heat sinc moves energy, which translates to cooler temperatures at higher loads. i use water cooling because of the rate of energy dissipation. under load i rarely go above 55C, usually sitting around 52C. with a heat sinc option, i'm used to seeing around 65C at load.

motherboard monitor, though it may not specifically state it supports your motherboard, should have no problem with it so long as you know the chipset information. it can automatically detect what thermal monitoring devices are present and then you can tell it whaich ones to monitor. not all of them will be active, though motherboard monitor will detect them. it is up to the motherboard manufacturer which thermal detection diodes to actually impliment in their design even though they may be present in the chipset.