XP 2800+ not running up to speed

[gduboff]

Hi there and thanks so much for the help in advance. I bought a new computer a few months ago and am running a AMD Athlon XP2800+ CPU 333FSB Barton Core on a Soyo SY-KT600 DRAGON PLUS mobo with XP Pro and an Ultra 400W PS. XP has always displayed the processor as running at 1.2 Ghz and I'm trying to figure out what BIOS setting I might need to change for the processor to run up to its normal speed or whether this is most likely a hardware problem. Thanks so much for your help.

Mobo information can be found at http://www.soyousa.com/products/proddesc.php?id=257

[Duke of Rezin]

It may be that the board is just not reporting the correct speed. That chip should have its multiplier locked but sometimes there is a setting (sorry, I'm not at my desktop so I can't give you the correct name or BIOS page where it would be located) I think on the advanced chipset features page of your BIOS that sets the bus/memory ratio. For example: running a 333Mhz chip with pc2700 memory the ratio would be 1/1 or 5/6 with a 333MHz chip and pc3200 memory. It could be that this ratio is not set at 1/1 as it should be with that chip and that chipset.

[jofultner]

Check clock speed on mother board and bios you should find it to 266 instead of 333

[gduboff]

I tried changing the jumper setting on the motherboard so that the FSB would go to 166mhz instead of 133mhz which was the default. After I did this BIOS started fine but when I tried to load Windows it detected a hardware change and asked if i wanted to start in safe mode then when I tried to start Windows there was an error beep from the computer and it shut down. The manual for my mobo says some of the options are only available if my processor is unlocked. How can I find that out? And would I need to adjust the DRAM speed as well for this to work?

[jofultner]

Lets try this Clear CMOS removed and reinstall battery with all power off. Set jumper to 166 and restart from setup to see this should work.