weemac Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 Hi Folks, I need some advise please. If my FSB is 133mhz and my memory is 167mhz should they not be the same? and if I was to change the memory to 133mhz would that not defeat the purpose of having 333mhz memory? Also what I can't understand is if my motherboard supports memory of 333 or 400 why does it only have a FSB of 133? Of course I am new to this so I might be even more confused than I think. If somebody could clear this up for me I would very greatfull. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMC_SAVAGE Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 Your board supports DDR 400. But..Your CPU's FSB is only 266 (133x2). Ideally you want to run your RAM in sync with the CPU's FSB of 266. Also that board only supports a 333 FSB XP CPU max. You can either drop the memory down to DDR 266 or see if you can up the CPU's FSB in the BIOS. If you are experiencing any problems, it's because of the difference between the CPU's and RAM's FSB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Thanks for the reply. If I only knew then, what I know now, I might have bought differently. Anyway it's all a learning curve and if I ever build another PC I should be more aware of what I want and what to look for. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMC_SAVAGE Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 You could put in a 3000 333 FSB Barton for around $155.00, or a 2800 (333) for $110. There would be no problem uping the FSB of these CPU's to 400MHz. Also if they happen to be unlocked you can up the multiplier also. If you can find a unlocked 2800 Barton, you'd be in great shape. You could up the FSB to 400 and drop the multiplier to 11 and end up with a 3200. You then could run your RAM at full speed with no problems. Check into the 2800, this would be your best bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Hi again, That is certainly worth looking into, although I will be paying in British currency. Be interesting to see if you get a better deal than we do in Scotland. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted February 29, 2004 Author Share Posted February 29, 2004 Just another thing, I am obviously going to have to update the bios to support 333mhz. I have never updated a bios before, there is a utility called flash menu that is supposed to make it a lot easier, do you know anything about this utility? Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMC_SAVAGE Posted February 29, 2004 Share Posted February 29, 2004 The MOBO supports 266/333 out of the box. You should'nt have to update the BIOS for a CPU swap. I personally never updated a BIOS on an ABIT board, so I really could'nt say. Although it does'nt hurt to stay current on the BIOS if you'll be able to benefit from an update. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Sorry about that bit for abit boards, forgot what forum I was on. I'm afraid my board only supports 266, I know on the web site it says that it supports 333, but that must be a newer edition of my board. I know that there is a bios update that allows it to support 333. I will have to investigate a little more. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted March 1, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted March 1, 2004 For the Bios updates please try the ABIT forum as they should be able to help you. However, you should be able to select 3-4 or 4-5 on the memory Frequency ratio setting in the bios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Hi, I have the memory set up as: Tras 6 Bank interleave 4 Trp 3 Trcd 3 Cas Latency 2 Command rate 1T Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted March 1, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted March 1, 2004 There is another setting to set the memory Freq. and it will normally be where you set the CPU Freq and will be called memory Freq ratio! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Sorry just can't find that anywhere, maybe it's called something else in my bios. There's something called cpu fast command decode, but I don't think thats what you mean. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted March 1, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted March 1, 2004 I dont have the MB setup at the moment to help you with that, but you should be able to get help with the settings at ABIT's forum as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted March 1, 2004 Author Share Posted March 1, 2004 Ok, Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
groovetek Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 some of you are forgetting something... as far as I know, NO KT400 boards have 1/6 divider... it would be impossible to run any cpu at 200fsb on that board. As a note however you shouldn't need to worry. In all honesty, I would not even bother upgrading you CPU. Ever since the KT333, VIA chipsets run fast when memory is in async! Ok, whilst FSB133/MEM166 won't run as fast as 166/166, it for sure beats 133/133! This is proven, and this is opposite to the behaviour of nforce 2 boards! One thing I'm not sure of however, is whether or not VIA chipset supports running the memory at DDR400 but when only using 133fsb cpu... I dont' see why not, seeing as KT400 was advertised as being all ddr400 and stuff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corsair Employees RAM GUY Posted March 4, 2004 Corsair Employees Share Posted March 4, 2004 Well actually KT400 only officially supported DDR333 and KT400A supported DDR400, but only with a 133 FSB CPU and since it was out of sync the performance was not much better than PC-2100. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegasus Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 I have a VIA KT400 chipset on my Dragon Ultra Platinum, and yes, you can run the memory at 400MHz, with no problem. As long as the memory is running equal to, or greater than the FSB of the CPU, your'e okay. The only time you can't run 400(200 in the BIOS) is if you are running 333 FSB on the CPU. The KT400 will automatically set the RAM at 333MHz (PC2700). Had I known this, I probably would have purchased differently myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weemac Posted March 4, 2004 Author Share Posted March 4, 2004 Well all I can say is, that if I run at 133/166 or 133/133 there is no notable difference,you get a slightly lower reading in the memory read/write benchmark on Aida32, but that is all. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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