Underclocked...need some help!

Hi. I am fairly new at building systems, but I am having a blast doing it so far. I am completely inexperienced at overclocking, but I am not ready for that yet anyway. I have built a couple systems for my girlfriend, one for my brother, and one for myself. My only problem so far is with my most recent system for my girlfriend. I used an ECS K7VTA3 motherboard and an AMD Sempron 2400+ chip. I have received good peformance so far from the setup and am impressed with the Sempron (this was the first time I used one). However I had a difficult time setting the FSB properly, and the CPU is running very slow. Performance hasn't been very bad but it seems to me it should be even better. The BIOS says the CPU is only running at 1000MHz, but it should be 1667MHz. I then realized the FSB was only set at 100MHz. When I attempted to set the FSB to 166MHz the system did not function. I also tried to set it at 133MHz and it still didn't work. The only FSB setting I can get the system to work at is 100MHz, and the processor speed is drastically slower than it should be. Can anyone help me? Thanks!!

i think the vottage for the cpu is a little low..did you try riseing it?

After doing some research I began to wonder that myself. No, I didn't adjust the voltage at all. It never occured to me that I might need to. It's probably initially set around 1.5 volts right? What should I set it to?

wait, what did you set the FSB with? the bios? because ECS board are only good if you set it using the pins, and how did you get the ECS K7VTA3 with the Sempron chip? fry do not sale that combo, the board that comes with that chip is a KT600 ECS board oposing to your KT333 board, see the problem might lay on the board because that's a fairly old board that only works with the older XP chips (barton or thouroughbred), the sempron is fairly new and it might throw the board off when it's trying to determine the speed, try to set it on auto detect and see what happen. i use alot of ECS board and after messing with a couple, i realizes that they are much harder to deal with than the more popular brand.

BTW you can't set the votage on that board, don't even bother, i had to use the pin trick to up the votage, and your divider is also set by pin, if you try and up the FSB in the bios that will throw your PCI speed out of wack.

wow..that really sucks.. best bet is to sell the mobo u got right now

and get something new.. nf7-s from abit ..or the nf7 if u dont need sata are good..and a few boards from asus are good too

I bought the parts separately. It was basically a budget system. I first tried to set the FSB with the pins, then the BIOS, neither worked. The BIOS recognizes the CPU as a Sempron, and I was told by the techs at Fry's that they were compatible, so I didn't think that was a problem.

When I first put my Sempron 2200 in my AN35N Ultra, it wouldn't work at anything above 100FSB. It took me a few minutes of messing with BIOS settings to get it to work; I don't remember what all I changed besides the FSB.
I have run my Sempron in a KT266A board, so it can't be that the board is too old; it will just recognize it as unknown or as an Athlon XP if it doesn't support Semprons. The stock voltage should be around 1.6v.
Just change some of the BIOS settings like the memory timings, that's what I had to do with mine.

Gamblor said:

I bought the parts separately. It was basically a budget system. I first tried to set the FSB with the pins, then the BIOS, neither worked. The BIOS recognizes the CPU as a Sempron, and I was told by the techs at Fry's that they were compatible, so I didn't think that was a problem.

Click to expand...

there's an auto detect pin setting, try that, this is one wierd case if you ask me, and i'm still having doubt with this because fry would not upgrade the board for us for free , there's got to be a reason, and i don't even trust what the tech at fry said, they're not good at what they do, how much did you get your combo for? the fry one would sale you the 2500 sempron combo with the ECS KT600 board for 70 bucks (this is a much better board with SATA raid onboard too)

my previous board was a K7VTA3, stable, yet poor board. You have to change the jumper switch to make it run at 133MHz. The board has no option to change voltages, only fsb. Also the board undervolts the cpu too much...
I suggest ditching it and buyin one of the NF7 Series motherboards

electrorcamd said:

When I first put my Sempron 2200 in my AN35N Ultra, it wouldn't work at anything above 100FSB. It took me a few minutes of messing with BIOS settings to get it to work; I don't remember what all I changed besides the FSB.
I have run my Sempron in a KT266A board, so it can't be that the board is too old; it will just recognize it as unknown or as an Athlon XP if it doesn't support Semprons. The stock voltage should be around 1.6v.
Just change some of the BIOS settings like the memory timings, that's what I had to do with mine.

Click to expand...

does the KT266 supports the sempron at full speed? they have settings for 333FSB? cuzz all the semprons are 333FSB

Ok. Well the next time I'm at her place I'll try to tinker around with some more things.

ps2cho said:

my previous board was a K7VTA3, stable, yet poor board. You have to change the jumper switch to make it run at 133MHz. The board has no option to change voltages, only fsb. Also the board undervolts the cpu too much...
I suggest ditching it and buyin one of the NF7 Series motherboards

Click to expand...

see that would cost money, the NF7 costs about 80 bucks, that's the whole combo, and he would probably gets about a couple hundred mhz more, he's on a budget.

No, the KT266A only ran it @ 1368MHz (152x9). At 165 FSB (board max in BIOS), my graphics would get messed up sometimes because the AGP bus was too fast. I had to have it underclocked until I got the AN35N Ultra.

Yeah the board and the CPU together only cost like $86. So we were looking for an adequate board for $50 or less. Warlock...could the auto-detect setting you mention be listed as "not applicable" in the manual? I saw that and was curious as to what it meant. My girlfriend has so far had decent performance from the system (defintely better than the 500MHz K6-2 she was running before) I just want to make sure it is reaching its potential. If that board is absolutley incapable of it then I guess we may either try another route or she may just live with the underclocked CPU.

Try updating the BIOS. if that doesn't work, get a referb NF7 from Newegg. Its well worth the $45. Just remember to buy a copper IceBerq chipset cooler to replace the NB fan. My stock NB fan died after three days. Kinda crazy.

Gamblor said:

Yeah the board and the CPU together only cost like $86. So we were looking for an adequate board for $50 or less. Warlock...could the auto-detect setting you mention be listed as "not applicable" in the manual? I saw that and was curious as to what it meant. My girlfriend has so far had decent performance from the system (defintely better than the 500MHz K6-2 she was running before) I just want to make sure it is reaching its potential. If that board is absolutley incapable of it then I guess we may either try another route or she may just live with the underclocked CPU.

Click to expand...

nope, i just checked my manual, there seems to be no auto detect on the board lol, i must have remembered the KT600 board, if that doesnt' work for you then just buy another board, the NF7 is very good, but for 50 bucks i would just buy another combo, like mine, only 40 bucks, mobo and CPU, but i think it would be much better of you go for something else a little more hightech.

I had a K7VTA3 mobo, wasnt the greatest. Had a few problems with the bios, and it wouldn't play any games, even with my fx5200 in it.

Well if anyone cares, we decided to ditch the board. It had the most up to date BIOS and it only booted up on one jumper setting (unfortunately the wrong one). I didn't want to buy another ECS board, but it was the only other one we found that fit the specs we wanted for the price. We got my g/f the ECS KT600-A, if anyone has experience with that positive or negative, please let me know. It had pretty much the specs I felt she needed. I was actually looking for an ASRock board, but Fry's doesn't sell 'em, turns out this is almost the same board just a different brand. The NEW problem is her video card is an old AGP interface...the new board has an 8X AGP slot...ugh, and I didn't realize the two weren't compatible. Well I didn't realize her video card was SO old that it was a 1X AGP. So if its not one thing it another. Hopefully a friend of ours will hook her up with a video card he doesn't want anymore.