Asus M2A74-AM Bios Help/Better Bios?

[SoulStar]

I've got an Athlon X2 7750 BE on an Asus M2A74-AM motherboard.

It originally had my ram running at 533mhz (266x2), I changed it to the 1066mhz (533x2) it should have started at. There are no options to crank it higher than that*, or to control the memory:fsb multiplier (currently 16:6 on 200mhz). I assume if I raise the fsb it will raise the ram or will it change the multiplier to compensate and get the memory as close to 1066 as possible no matter what I put the fsb at?

*It only had basic options like 266, 400, 533. No 1mhz increments or anything like that.

Can anyone recommend a more robust Bios if anyone knows of one, or point out something that will get my ram running at higher clocks?

 

[trents]

Sometimes the fsb adjustment is disguised in terms like "CPU speed". Actually, fsb is kind of a passe' term these days and technically, has been replaced with "hypertransport" on the AMD side. Do you have a bios option called "CPU speed" which allows you to change the fsb in small increments? If so, this will also increase the ram speed in small increments as well as the cpu frequency when they are in synchronous mode.

 

[QuietIce]

I've got an Athlon X2 7750 BE on an Asus M2A74-AM motherboard.

It originally had my ram running at 533mhz (266x2), I changed it to the 1066mhz (533x2) it should have started at. There are no options to crank it higher than that*, or to control the memory:fsb multiplier (currently 16:6 on 200mhz). I assume if I raise the fsb it will raise the ram or will it change the multiplier to compensate and get the memory as close to 1066 as possible no matter what I put the fsb at?

*It only had basic options like 266, 400, 533. No 1mhz increments or anything like that.

Can anyone recommend a more robust Bios if anyone knows of one, or point out something that will get my ram running at higher clocks?

Motherboards will only allow specific RAM ratios like the ones you listed - no board or BIOS will allow you to increase RAM speed by 1 MHz increments. However, as trents has pointed out, you can raise the reference clock, which has a default value of 200 MHz, and in so doing increase the RAM speed along with the CPU, cpuNB, and HT Link speed. Each component will increase by it's multiplier for each 1 MHz on the clock so your RAM, when set to 533, will increase by 5.33 for each +1 MHz on the clock (1066.7, 1072.0, 1077.3, 1082.7, etc.).


NOTE: Changing the "basic options" you listed is the same as changing the memory:fsb "multiplier" (it's actually a ratio ) ...

 

[SoulStar]

Motherboards will only allow specific RAM ratios like the ones you listed - no board or BIOS will allow you to increase RAM speed by 1 MHz increments. However, as trents has pointed out, you can raise the reference clock, which has a default value of 200 MHz, and in so doing increase the RAM speed along with the CPU, cpuNB, and HT Link speed. Each component will increase by it's multiplier for each 1 MHz on the clock so your RAM, when set to 533, will increase by 5.33 for each +1 MHz on the clock (1066.7, 1072.0, 1077.3, 1082.7, etc.).


NOTE: Changing the "basic options" you listed is the same as changing the memory:fsb "multiplier" (it's actually a ratio ) ...

Okay so setting my motherboard to 1066 means I get a ratio of 16:6 which means 2.66 multiplier which means 200mhz fsb x 2.66 = 533mhz x 2 (ddr2) = 1066mhz. Cool.

Then raising my fsb 1 mhz at a time increases the ram by 2.66mhz (x2) = 5.33mhz increases? Cool.

What sort of fsb do you think I can attain on a stock Asus M2A74-Am?? And do I need to increases the chipset voltage?? What do I use to check for mainboard stability??

 

[QuietIce]

Don't know how fast the clock will go on that board - not even a good guess.

Boards seldom need an increase in chipset voltage to run a higher clock, but a few of them do. You'll have to experiment but you shouldn't need more than one bump if you need any at all.

"Mainboard" stability is just system stability. When you stress the CPU and GPU you're testing system stability. If the clock speed is too fast you'll know it, trust me ...