I’m using an AOpen board with an Athlon 2600+. I noticed today, though (installed XP about three months ago) that the ‘General’ tab in My Computer says I’m running an Athlon 2000+.
So, two questions: 1) am I losing performance because Windows doesn’t know what kind of processor I’m actually running?
and, 2) How, if necessary, do I fix it?
AMD processors actually run slower than their branded speed. This is because they perform as well as the equivalent intel processor. An Athlon XP 1000 runs slower (I am guessing about 800MHz) but performs as well as a Pentium 1000.
In the General tab (control panel->system) it shows the actual running speed rather than the branded speed. It’s nothing to worry about.
Not necessarily a problem. What’s the General tab reporting for speed, likely in GHz?
Not necessarily true. Mine, for example, is displayed as “AMD Athlon™ XP 2000+”. (It’s actually an overclocked 1700+, but that’s neither here nor there.) As far as I’ve been able to figure out, Windows displays what the BIOS reports, so if it’s shown as a 2000+ (not “2.0GHz”), then yes, you’re losing speed. (Most BIOS these days can recognize certain combos of FSB and multiplier settings. 133x11.0 would match a 1700+, so the mobo will report this. Changing it to 133x11.5, however, doesn’t match any CPU, so the mobo and thus Windows displays something like “AMD Athlon 1.52GHz.”)
Since I’ve got an AOpen board, too, I can help you out, Really. Hold Delete as you turn on your computer, and you’ll enter the BIOS setup. Look for an option called “Frequency/Voltage Control” or something similar. (In mine, it’s at the bottom of the left column, but yours might be different.) Go into there and look for the option called CPU Bus Frequency. Set the two numbers there to whatever your 2600+ takes. (There’s two versions of the 2600+, a 133 FSB and a 166 FSB. According to Google, you want to set them to either 133x16 or 166x13, depending what version you have.)
Thanks.
It’s reporting 1.8 GHz as the system speed, which I know is way wrong.
Try using CPU-Z and see what it reports.
If you haven’t already done this, please do. Many motherboards require you to set the voltage before you’ll get that performance from you processor. Likely right now you are not getting any more performance than an Athlon 2000. I have a 1900, and it reported as a 1600 both on the BIOS startup and in Windows before I adjusted the voltage. It would have performed at that level too, since the voltage directly affects the cycles.
Set voltage to 166 x whatever, and Windows is now reporting correctly 
Unfortunately, the damn thing has started overheating 
If you don’t need the extra processing power, just leave it set at a lower clock speed.
If you haven’t already, you might want to check with Aopen’s website to see if there’s a newer BIOS revision that has suppport for newer processors. If the motherboard is set to automatically detect processor speed, but doesn’t recognize the processor it will set it to a near guess or “safe” defaults. Flashing the bios with a newer revision that has defiinitons for newer processors usually clears up this kind of issue.
I just did this with my Asus mobo and a new Athlon XP processor. When I first set it up, the mobo didn’t recognize the processor and had incorrect settings for it, after flashing the bios everything (boot up bios screen, windows system properties) properly recognizes the processor and is configured correctly.
not that I dont believe you, but how hot is overheating? – You cranked up the clock speed, it is going to run hotter…With that aside…
If you’re overheating now, (aside from the BIOS update) its time to look at your computers cooling scheme. Ensure you have enough fans in the system to keep it running cool. Personally, I’ve got one in the front of the system to pull air in, one in the back to push it out, along with an extra fan in one of my PCI slots. Also ensure that your power supply fan and CPU fan are woking well. Depending on your video card you may also consider an extra fan on your vid card’s main chip. Then check for air leaks (you only want air coming in and out where the fans are) And that the inside of your tower is not cluttered with cables and such that defeat airflow. I’d wager to say that +90% of non-overclocked machines do not require any exotic type of heat management.
I only have the big-ass power supply fan and a CPU fan, nothing additional. Overheating is a CPU temperature of 60 deg. C, minimum. When I’m running processor-heavy apps like Madden '04 it can rise above 66. The system temperature has never gone over 38 though.
The links from the AMD XP processor support board reads as follows
<snip>
85C is the Internal Fry Temp. If the temperature inside the CPU goes above 85C you CPU is increasingly likely to die. Permanently.
Most motherboard CPU temp sensors report the Surface temp. The Surface Temp is typically around 10C lower than the Internal CPU Temp under Full Load conditions. So:
Internal Fry Temp = 85C
Surface Fry Temp = 75C
The Error Free Temp is not the same as the Fry Temp. It will vary from CPU to CPU, but typically it’s 20C below the Fry Temp, i.e.
Interenal Error Free Temp = 65C
Surface Error Free Temp = 55C
<snip>
info on heat
http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=11305
Info on this subject (FSB speeds and processor speeds)
http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=965