L4VXA2 Bus Clock

[cwppwc]

Newbie question. I recently decided to build my first PC. I purchased the ECS L4VXA2 bundled with the 2.4Ghz Pentium 4. The build actually went very well. Loaded Windows XP Professional and was off and running. Loaded Belarc Advisor and everything looked OK until I saw "Bus Clock: 133 megahertz". My original PC, a Dell 2.4Ghz Pentium 4, indicates a "Bus Clock: 533 megahertz". I double checked the L4VXA2 jumper on JP2 and it is set at "533 Mhz". The PC appears to be operating "normally". Any ideas why the Bus Clock would indicate 133Mhz rather than the expected 533Mhz? Thanks.

[tgxiii]

Pentium 4's are quad-pumped. 133 x 4 = 533 FSB. I am not too good with explaining stuff, but I'm willing to bet that there are others here who can explain double-pumping and quad-pumping easily. I have no idea why Belarc tells you the quad-pumped number for your Dell and not for your ECS, though....

[cwppwc]

Thank you! I forgot to take into consideration that P4s are "quad-pumped". I would like to know if anyone could explain the difference in the Belarc Advisor numbers between the two PCs. Thanks again.

[Rubik]

I had basically the same question. I emailed ECS to ask if the board is quading and am waiting on a response. It seems to me that either the BIOS should report 533 (the BIOS repots 133) or their documentation should clarify this.

I do have another related question. I am running 1024MD PC 2700 memory but the BIOS reports 166MHz. I cleared the CMOS, rebooted and it showed 133MHz. Rebooted again and got 166MHz. This all seems reasonable - I expected the 133 after clearing CMOS but I am a little confused as to why it keeps maxing at 166. I did read elsewhere that people have had some issues running DRAM faster than 166 but the board is supposed to support it and I would expect to at least have to option to change to 333. Can this be done via memory addressing or another way or am I stuck?

[Rubik]

Got an answer elsewhere - this quad and double pumping is giving me a headache. I never was very good at math...

[cwppwc]

Rubik, Did ECS ever respond? They never responded to my queries. Not real happy with their "customer service". Any info you can share?

[scotlandtb]

Rubik,

If you have pc2700 ram in your system then 166 is the max you will get for it, it is 333mhz ram which is 166DDR (166x2= 133(ok 132))*LOL*

Steve

[Rubik]

cwppwc -

I emailed them yesterday and have not yet gotten a response but, thanks to the wonderful and patient minds here, I have discovered that I have no problems so a response from ECS is really irrelivant to me. Are you having problems? The most common issue seems to be memory. I tried 400MHz memory in an attempt to find some that worked until I got sick of running back and forth to Fry's and then switched to 333MHz. One bad memory module later and I was all set. I am running SimpleTech 512 Mb PC2700 DDR (two of them) and all is good.

[cwppwc]

Thanks Rubik. I ended up using two sticks of 256Mb Crucial PC2700 and everything is working great now. I had essentially the same question you did but thanks to Scotlandtb, it makes sense now. I just chalk it up to part of the learning curve.