CPU speed under half...

[Crazy_Josh]

Just completed my first build, all went fine, and the computer booted up fine, I have installed xp on it, but I am slightly worried about the cpu and the ram. The CPU is for some reason only running at 1290MHz when it is an xp 3000+ 333 FSB and the RAM is 400Mhz and it is only running at 100Mhz according to the bios.

Here's the specs:

Mobo: MSI K7N2 Delta-LSR 8xAGP DDR400 Nforce2
CPU: AMD Athlon XP3000+ (Barton) 333FSB 512kb L2 Cache
RAM: Kingston 512MB DDR PC3200 400MHz CL3 Memory Module
VC: Sapphire Radeon 9550 256MB DDR AGP8x
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE 40Gb UIDE 100 7200rpm 8mb Cache

I went into the bios and attempted to change the RAM Frequency, but if I change it above 100 the computer won't boot (gives me a lovely black screen). And I am not sure exactly why the Mobo doesn't detect the right speed CPU...
As I say, it's my first build and maybe I am missing something obvious??
Anyone help me out here?

 

[Demalii]

You need to set your front side bus and multiplier correctly.

11x200

 

[Nubius]

No don't set it to 200, it's a 333FSB chip Demalii

You need to set the CPU Frequency to 166 to get the appropriate speed, but I suspect if you can't get over 100 it's because there's a jumper on the motherboard that's making it default to that speed.

Try clearing the CMOS, and after that read in the manual to see if there's a jumper that effects CPU Frequency.

Most mobo's that have it will have it set to 100 when it needs to be set to 'Manual' or something along those lines that'll let you specify the frequency.

This of course is a safety measure, but for people who aren't familiar with it, it becomes a nuisance

 

[Crazy_Josh]

Thanks guys, all sorted now.

The problem was that the BIOS wasn't set to use my settings, but I have enabled manual performance settings for all settings and it now runs nicely, it's detecting it correctly and booting everything correctly.

The problem may also have been with the slot the RAM was in, when I switched to slot 2, the ram was detected at the right speed.

TBH, I was not that impressed by the MSI manual, it wasn't very helpful when it came to helping me out with the BIOS, and it was only by playing around myself that I got it working.