How can I change the clock speed and bus speed? 3

[ChrisMacPherson]

I've heard that it is possible to change the speed(Mhz) of the bus and CPU. Is this possible ? Is it advisable ? How do you do it ?

I have a P266MMX and my bus is running at 66Mhz, I dont know if this will be of much use.

Thanks for any help
Chris MacPherson
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[edfair]

Most Mother boards have switches or jumpers to allow both to be changed. The motherboard is set up to use the correct settings for the CPU you have purchased. So there is no advantage to you to change anything as long as you are not swapping out a CPU chip. In fact changing things could bring the system down and possibley do damage.
So it is not advisable.
You should have information with the computer showing settings, either in documentation or printed on the M/B itself.

Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Searching]

The Primary purpose for changing the bus speed on your board is because you are upgrading your CPU. Your CPU speed is set by the manufacturer & printed on the top of your CPU itself - CPU speed does not change unless you replace the CPU itself. The only reason for changing bus speed settings besides upgrading your CPU, is if the Person who put the CPU in originally did not maximize the settings (unlikely). On the motherboard you can find 2 charts (one for bus speed and one for multipliers. (They are very small & sometimes difficult to locate.) The bus speed chart would list the various bus speeds that your board is capable of (like: 33, 60, 66, 100) with the jumper settings for those speeds. The Multipliers start at 1.5 and move up in increments of .5 (like: 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, etc). Jumper settings for each multiplier are on this chart.
Motherboards vary in the number of multipliers and bus settings. To max your cpu, multiply the Multiplier x Bus Speed, but do not exceed the maximum speed of your cpu ( in your case 266)
I.e. 66 x 4 = 264 which is ok for your cpu (or) 100 x 2.5 = 250, but choosing the setting of 100 bus speed and 3 as a multiplier (total speed - 300) would burn up your cpu.
CPUs are expensive & an upgrade from a 266 would be limited by the max bus speed & multipliers on your board. Unless you can accomodate a sizable increase in CPU speed, it May be time to buy a new pc.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

To the best of my knowledge, a p266 can't be overclocked - it's the fastest chip of its class.

You would be better off getting a new motherboard, processor - and probably case, if yours doesn't support the ATX form factor.

This needn't be expensive - you can buy boards that support up to 1Ghz (or beyond) processors, at least ATA66, 1.5Gb RAM and 133MHz FSB for around £80. With a board of this specification, just about any Pentium II/III processor will feel like a significant improvement over your current setup!

So, together with a case (say £50 for a reasonable quality one) and chip (around £150), you're looking at less than £300 for a future-proofed PC.

You can overclock processors with most modern motherboards simply by adjusting settings in the BIOS. I particularly like Abit motherboards, which allow manual changing of clock speed, multiplier and core voltage without damaging your processor. If the system detects that your chosen settings won't work, it forces you to restart and adjust the settings.

I have found that you can get at least a 20% boost in performance this way - ie a PIII 450 can be overclocked to 600Mhz just by upping the multiplier to 6x from 4x, and focing the core voltage to around 3.2.

Different processors require different treatment - and there are some excellent sites which cover overclocking.

I would have to disagree with you, Searching, overclockers change motherbord settings just to get that extra bit of performance out of their PC. As long as you are prepared that you might just fry that processor - and maybe the motherboard (unlikely), then I see no problem with it for hobbyists.

In a commercial environment, however, I agree. There is no reason to change anything relating to processor or clock speed, because you will invalidate your warranty.

 

[ChrisMacPherson]

Thanks for your advice, I have a new motherboard and AMD Duron 650 coming in the next month (it's cheap!!) and I have purchased more RAM which is 100Mhz. Should this RAM work with my bus currently at 66Mhz?

I have been told that you can run higher (Mhz) Classed RAM on slower bus speeds but not the other way round. Makes perfect sense to me, but, alas it is not working.

That's why I wanted to know if I could clock the bus up. I know I'll have to check if the other RAM will withstand the new setting, but I need more RAM!!

Thanks again..
Chris MacPherson
thedamager@hotmail.com

http://www.technomusic.org/macpweb

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[CitrixEngineer]

This all depends on the motherboard, the mixture of memory modules you have, the processor and a host of other factors.

If you want to get into the finer points of overclocking, I'd recommend this forum:

http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?q=Y&a=frm&s=50009562&f=77909774

Please note that I see this as a complementary site to Tek-Tips, not a competitive one! It just tends more towards the radical and experimental. Because it draws a large student audience, one should be more than a little alert to the stronger language content.

If you can't get to it from this link, go directly to

http://www.arstechnica.com

and choose Open Forum. You will need to register to participate.

I am in no way involved with the people that run this site, but I have been very impressed by SOME of the community members.

 

[ChrisMacPherson]

Thanks for your help CitrixEngineer, I'll try that Chris MacPherson
thedamager@hotmail.com

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