oh no cpu too powerful

[qmann]

i recently purchased an amd xp athlon 2700+ cpu.. i have a k7s5a motherboard.. of course i assumed that the motherboard would support the cpu. I also upgraded the ram for this. Here's my problem.. it's only running at 2100.. that's the most i can get out of it. I want a new motherboard and know they are a decent price but i do not want to buy new ram.. every motherboard that i've seen that supports this cpu only supports ddr ram. I just forked over money for pc133 ram.

What i would like is a motherboard that supports the 2700 xp (333mhz fsb) but will also use pc133 ram.. any ideas?

 

[ANFPS26]

Have you checked the ECS web site for a bios flash? That may be all you need.

Jim

 

[qmann]

ya i checked already.. the most updated bios does not have support for this cpu.. i actually got a little extra with the new bios (from 1500 to 2100) but it's still not performing the way i want.

 

[rockerfellerz]

IOS Type AMI® BIOS Release Date 2002/09/09
Version 02/08/09 File Size 450 KB
Download k7s5a020809.exe Flash Utility aminfxxx.exe
Release Note 1. Support AMD Athlon XP 2400+ and 2600+ CPU

This is from the ECS site. There are 2 newer bios flashes available, but niether one allows for the xp2700....
here is the link:

http://www.ecs.com.tw/download/k7s5a.htm

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[rockerfellerz]

Didn't see your post before I posted....

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[qmann]

ya rockerfellaz even with the most updated bios (support for 2600) i cannot get a higher clock speed than 2100... sucks.. anybody else with any help. thanks for your input guys.

 

[edemiere]

The Athlon XP 2700+ is where they first began the jump to the 333MHz FSB I believe which is why that motherboard will probably not ever support it since once the board is made to support a max FSB of 266MHz there is no "flash" way to change that.

Cheers!

 

[qmann]

i kinda figured that, thanks for confirming but do you know of any board that supports 2700 and pc133 ram?

 

[edemiere]

I am not aware of any, and I am not sure why you would want such a board because the memory speed would be such a bad bottleneck that you'd never see the performance of an XP 2700+.

Better off spending that board money on another CPU (like the 2600) and selling your 2700 on eBay or something.

Good luck!

 

[qmann]

that's what i was afraid of.. damn... oh well.

 

[qmann]

anybody else have any ideas????
i don't want to buy a motherboard and new ram.

 

[cdogg]

qmann,
Your options have been pretty much well laid out for you. The XP 2700+ and 2800+ were the first XP processors to require a 166MHz FSB to run at full speed. For consistency, you would not want to run this processor without DDR333 on a board that clocks the CPU and RAM synchronously. It is possible, but you would be bottlenecking it severely.

Any Athlon XP processor, for that matter, should only be paired up with DDR SDRAM. PC133 was barely fast enough to accomodate the slower PIII's and Athlon Thunderbirds until they hit the 1GHz mark.

I know you're looking for a way out, but the only answer is to change what you have or eat a performance hit and waste money.

___________________________________________________________

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab]- A. Einstein

 

[Fishguy]

ECS has released a new mobo, the L7S7A2 and it supports all 266/333 Athlon XP Processors. Unfortunately, however, it only comes with support for DDR.
Not only that, but it shouldn't cost you that much more than your K7S5A.
BTW, why would you buy SDR???

-----------------------
Fishguy

 

[ANFPS26]

qmann, you're mobo supports DDR266 RAM also, why not just get some DDR RAM for it? Your CPU should run at 2600 with the latest bios. That PC133 was what was choking the life out of it. (This suggestion is only if you don't want to spring for a new mobo and RAM).

Jim

 

[Lammbock]

I had a similar problem once: My board showed my 2400XP as a 2GHz CPU, for the BIOS didnt recognize the CPU and showed the "real" frequency instead...

So, is your CPU running at 2100 "real" MHz or is it showing a 2100XP?

Anyway, fsb 166 will not work geat with pc133 ram.

 

[qmann]

ok guys thanks for all your help. I'll probably eventually buy a new motherboard.

Q

 

[cdogg]

Lammbock,
The problem is that his motherboard only supports a FSB of 200MHz (100x2) or 266MHz (133x2). His CPU, however, needs to have a multiplier of 166MHz which the mobo doesn't support.

Sure, you could still buy DDR266 and get more out of the processor. However, the CPU speed would still be at a multiplier of 133 instead of 166, causing it to fall way short of its intended 2.17GHz.

___________________________________________________________

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"
[tab]- A. Einstein