bx-133 memory problem (different)

Hi. I just got the bx133 i ordered from ebay in the mail. I installed it today and ran 3dmark2001 just to see how the memory controller would fair compared to my old via133 board. I thought it would be a little better. Anyway, from 6800 before to 5700 now i got a little concerned.

I then ran a few of the sandra marks. I found that the results for the memory bandwidth benchmark were very bad. I think this is what cause the bad 3dmark scores. With my pc133 crucial cas2 memory running at 130mhz cas2, i got around 300 with sandra 2003. That was less than half what it should be. Another pc133 cas2 setup should be making 900 something i think.

What settings in BIOS do i need to mess around with? I havent made any changes yet, but suspect i need to do something to make the system faster. If theirs anything else i should try please tell me. Maybe i need to install drivers, i dont know.

thanks

Ok, looking at my SH6 book(yours may vary) there are a couple of options: Sdram cas latency time: set for 2; Sdram cycle time tras/trc: default is 7/9 set it to 5/7 (if available);sdram ras to cas delay: set this at 2.
I hope this helps a little
BTW, I have tried to d'l the manual for the bx133 and it goes nowhere.

I dont know why so many people are having memory problems with the BX-133. My board took in any stick of memory I had available, from PC100 64mb to PC133 256mb, @ the same time! It was a great board... I'll miss it.

well i have everything set at cas 2 already. i will look for a 5/7 option. I dont have a manual for this board because the ebay seller i got it from promised there was one and there isnt. so im stuck with using the .pdf format one.

I have a few other problems if you want to help me out. whenever i restart my computer the mouse is unfnctional. i have to unplug, and re plugin the usb connector for it. then it all of a sudden works. it is a logitech mx 500.

I also have an ide problem. which ide connectors on the board am i supposed to use? i assumed i was supposed to use the black ones unless i wanted to use RAID. but the problem is that my cables have a pin blocked, and there is no pin missing on the black connectors. The ******* from ebay also said it would include ata 100 cables. so now i dont have my cd drives functional.

your can use the RAID controllers as normal IDE channels, as long as you dont plug in a CDROM, or really old HDD into them. Right before i sold my P3 system (bx-133), i had my HDD pluged into IDE3 (RAID1), and the cdrom pluged into IDE1, just be sure to set the boot sequence to ATA-100

As for the mouse, I think there were a couple usb settings in the bios, I had a USB mouse (HP) and it worked fine, even in DOS.

ok thx. i will check further.

i just messed around with some settings in BIOS. now with the same speed that got me 6800 with my cuv4x i got around 7600 with this. that is a little more impressive. I will see how high this chip can go now. if you didnt know i bought a 1.2 tB1 off of ebay. the cuv4x had problems with going over 120mhz fsb. I will update you as to how it does.

I have another question. if you are familiar with the settings that it suggest a stable value, then says what would be fastest, what was your experience with them? will any of these hinder overclocking? if so which timings should i lower first. i am pretty unfamiliar with some of the settings i see in BIOS. If you really remember how the bios was setup i can tell you the exact settings im using now.

thanks

by the way, the ide cable for cd drives must be plugged into the normal ide controller then? if the cable i have has one of the holes blocked, should i try to remove what is blocking it? or just remove the pin from the connector on the board?

this is annoying because i have no other cables to use.

Cables are $.10 for a 100 !, dont half-*** it, just get the right cable!

I had an Abit BX133 and I know that the board tras/trc was fixed to 5/7, and you can't change it to 7/9.

for solving the memory bandwith problem:

you have to set 'DRAM leadoff timer' in the BIOS to disable.

That brings you 10% more speed !

Only avaible in newer bios version !

Update soon...

Alright, i now have my system running windows 2000. whew, yay! Its pretty much exactly the same as winME with no dos games, except it never crashes!!

Okay, all of my settings have stayed the same, and I ran sandra 2k3 a while ago and got around 500/500. I see this is a bit lower than before. Before I got 6-700/6-700 i think. Going back into BIOS I fooled around some more and found out that if i have a certain setting where it specifies p3 600mhz should be set, I get my first memory bandwidth score of 940! That is the speed I was looking for. However my second score is still low. I believe i am around 940/550. I would like to figure out how to improve these as much as possible.

Im not a nerd, I really need to give my system a boost as my newly purchased Grand Prix 4 runs like crap on all but the best hardware. Full settings at 1024x768, w/ no aa or af I get 19 fps. I figure this is my last option to get me faster frame rates as everything else on my system is maxed out. Besides I like seeing my memory bandwidth numbers jump .

I plan on updating my BIOS soon and looking for the setting you described. But, meanwhile I should be able to get my second score to near 700 or 900. If you know the location of a bx133 "BIOS settings"guide somewhere on the net please let me know. Or If you can suggest changing a setting please do. I think this would be good for others setting up this board(if anyone still is.......) because the board requires some tweaking to obtain optimum performance. In my case tweaks can net over double the memory bandwidth.