Help!

[djdan8923]

This afternoon i made my first attempt at overclocking my pc, but the outcome was not at all what i expected! Im using a 850Mhz Athlon Thunderbird processor, and i tried to increase the bus speed from 100Mhz to 105Mhz, which worked fine but my pc was actually ran far slower than it did originally! I got into windows and right clicked on my copmuter, and it claimed my processor was running at over 870Mhz, yet it seemed to be running very very slowly (slower than it did at 850Mhz) when i tried games such as quake 3 and return to castle wolfenstein!! everntually i just put it back to the optimal setting using my bios. Can anyone help explain whats happened and give any advice? Thanks!

[MrP]

Hi,

welcome to the board :xwavey:

can you give us a few more details about your setup please

what motherboard your using, ram, anything that you think might be usefull.

when you say it was running far slower, how???

are we talkig about a small difference in frame rates, or a huge difference, does the same happen loading windows etc???

the more info you can give us, the better an answer we cangive you

toodles :xsofa:

[djdan8923]

Yep ok well my motherboard is an Asus K7M with 256MB RAM and the 850 Thunderbird processor i mentioned ealier. Its got a little 13Gb Quantum Hardrive on, and a 64Mb Gefore2 graphics card. I changed the bus speed using my bios from 100Mhz to 105Mhz, and reset the computer. Windows took a longer time to load up, and when i tried to load up quake3 it took ages, and when i was finally able to play it was chugging big time. I dont know what the frame rate reduction was in numbers, but it must have been significant. Loading up one of my save games took about 3mins, in comparison with the seconds it takes normally.

[MrP]

hullo again :)

something sounds sriously wrong there, but i'm not to surewhat

i would have thougt you would notice a slight improvment in loading times and frames rates, not a huge decrease.

unfortunatly slot A aint my thing, but make sure that your memory is still set to 133mhz (if it was before) and that nothing else has changed in the BIOS execpt you FSB

hopefully LOLboy will be about shortly and he knows far more than i do :)

toodles :xsofa:

[rocahopo]

I have the a very similar setup, Tbird 750 runing at 864 with FSB at 108MHz and Multiplier at 8X, on a K7M. I get a good measurable improvement. My K7M will run at maximum 110MHz FSB

You should go back to your default setting and measure performance with some benchmark software. I use 3DMark and Sandra SiSoft.
You will then be able to measure your apparent slow down or more correctly the speed up that you would expect when you up the FSB.

cheers
rocahopo

[Airdale]

I couldn't even get my K7M to run with a T-Bird until I udated my BIOS to the KM132 version.

[djdan8923]

OK Ive made another attempt today, but this time ive used the SiSoft and 3D mark benchmark programs so i can give some real numbers. In changing the FSB from 100Mhz to 105Mhz in the bios settings, I managed to get a DECREASE of over 2000 points on 3D mark!!! It was a drop from 2500 to around 400. How is this possible? Could there be some kind of conflict with my graphics card? It is a 64Mb Geforce2 400.

[cuervo26]

It looks like <a href="http://www.asus.com/pub/asus/mb/slota/k7m/km1009.zip">1009</a> is the latest BIOS for the K7M. What's yours? Tried newer 4in1 drivers maybe?

[rocahopo]

Ah!, good point on the bios.

I have v1009, the latest, dont know anything about KM132 that Airdale mentioned. I have never heard of this version.

Airdale, where does the KM132 bios come from?

Anyway, you can get the bios, the flash exec and a whole host of other drivers updated from the asus website. some of them maybe worth downloading to make sure you have all the latest patches.

You might also want to try softFSB which will allow you to change
the FSB on the fly within windows instead of in the bios setup.

Cheers
rocahopo

[Lolboy]

The KM312 was the beta version of 1009. Flash in the 1009 bios and using the exit menu select the optimal settings option. Then go back into the menus and select the agp and the primary display.
Make sure you got the jumper on the mobo for the I/O voltage set to its highest which I think was 3.4v.
What happens if you set the FSB higher in smaller increments like 102 meg etc?

Lolboy.

[djdan8923]

thanks lollboy ill give your advice a try tomorrow, i need to work out how to use that flash program and take some benchmark numbers with smaller increments. Is flash easy to use? ive just tried out that SoftFSB thing, but my motherboard doesnt seem to be supported :mad: , this is bugging me!

[Airdale]

Don't really know what was what,I got the board off E-Bay and would not POST from the begining.So I sent it to Asus and they sent me a replacement,looks brand new.It was very unstable with my 950 T-Bird so I flashed to v.KM1009 diddn't change anything so I assumed it was probably already 1009 (diddn't verify before).So I bought a new retail packaged 800 Classic(512k cache) and it worked fine.Then I swapped my WD 20GB hard drive for my Maxtor 30GB.Windows ME wouldn't recognize it after installation of WME, BIOS said 30GB etc.So I flashed to KM132(BETA) reinstalled WME everything fine ie; Maxtor 30GB HD. So I thought I'll try my T-Bird 950.Perfect."That's all I got to say about that.."(Forest Gump).The BIOS I got off Asus's members area but I can't seem to get in the download section,keeps wanting me to accept their agreement but I can't figure out how.

[Airdale]

http://download.asus.com.tw/mb_dl_menu.asp?Status=101&l1=1&l2=1&l3=3&mid=1 Got it.It says K7M BIOS 1013 beta 2.