I recently had to upgrade much of my computer due to a power supply problem. The shop I sent my machine to (I had exhausted my meager diagnostic abilities and taken it to professionals) got me a new motherboard...probably a cheap one...and an Athlon XP 2000 processor to go with. Now, my research indicates that the 2000 runs at 1.67 GHz, and yet my computer, upon booting, says 1.25 GHZ. Did the computer store screw up and put the wrong chip in, or could there be some jumpers or something on the mobo that's prohibiting the chip from running at full speed?

 

Did you get the manual for the MB? Most motherboards these days can adjust the frontside bus clock in BIOS. I'd look in there first. It's typical of many motherboards to reset the speed back to the lowest if problems occur. My 1333 resets back to 1000 if it overheats and AMD chips are notorious for running hot. Being in FLA, if the comp store didn't use a heavyduty heatsink or enough cooling fans, that might just be what happened. Did you observe any spontaneous reboots? Reboots and lockups are typical symptoms of an overheated CPU. Decreasing the speed reduces the heat and enables the system to run stable again, hence the reason the clock defaults back to it's lowest speed. Not knowing how familiar you are with BIOS settings or which MB you have, I'm hesitant to make more definitive suggestions without more information.

 

dude... they ripped you off... tell them to go back and change it to the right setting, and make sure you have a nice cool fan! look online for a 2nd rated fan or if you don't mind the noise.. top of the line... mine is noisy as heck.. but with AMD processors.. you need to make sure its kept cool!!!!

 

Oh geez, a friend had a similar situation but I don't remember the exact fix. Basically, it's some setting in the BIOS wasn't right. I don't remember if it's FSB related, memory timing or what.

 

Thanks for the input guys. I had a long response, but for some reason it's disappeared. I musta not hit the submit reply button or something. Anyway, the computer shop guys couldn't even tell me what motherboard they installed, as the receipt just said "mobo". So I went to crucial.com and downloaded a utility that told me I had a KM266-8233A...but no manufacturer. Searching their website for KM266 came up with Albatron as the manufacturer. I don't have the manual, only the driver disk, which didn't provide any help. I'm familiar enough with BIOS tinkering to play with the boot source sequence, but that's about it. I looked through it the other day and didn't see anything obvious that would allow me to set the processor speed back to normal. And Bash, I did not have any of the overheating symptoms you mentioned. Oh well, it's Monday now, so time to call the computer shop.

 

I would check the speed of the memory bus and frontside bus. It is possible that if those are set wrong, your CPU will run at much lower speed due to the fact that the bus multiplier is "locked" from the factory. It may default to 100 MHz when you probably want yours at 133 MHz to take advantage of DDR 266 (aka PC2100, I think). I am guessing that is what your system wants due to the 266 in the name.

I've never heard of Albatron and I would be weary of any shop that couldn't even tell you what mobo they sold you...

 

I should clarify a bit more. They used to do these settings with jumpers on the mobo. But anymore I think they tend to put the settings into the BIOS. If you have a manual for this mobo, or can download one, that should help you out.

Also, can you remember if they sold you new RAM or just new mobo and CPU?

 

If they installed it for you, they should have set the CPU speed correctly.

As pointed out, you may have to upgrade your BIOS or set the correct jumpters. But if you paid for them to install, make them do it.

 

I took the machine over to the shop today. Upon a preliminary inspection, the guy agreed that it should not be running at 1250 MHz, and it looked like the processor was indeed an Athlon 2000. However, he was a bit of a newbie and wasn't familiar with my particular BIOS (which, incidentally, did not mention the processor speed anywhere). I have to wait for the tech who did the work initially to call me back . Incidentally, he said my mobo was an MSI MicroATX...which didn't show up on crucial.com. Oh well.

And they did not buy me new RAM, b/c I knew I could handle that on my own. I got 2 256MB DDR PC2100 DIMM's yesterday, and they work great. And I got both of em for $60 total (after rebate) from Best Buy . Upgraded from an 8.4 GB to 120 GB drive too. Now if I can just get my processor situation straightened out, I'll be ready for gaming again .

 

Hmm... this shop is still sounding kind of scary! Hopefully, they will get it all straightened out. I suppose he could have just overlooked that setting. Maybe he did a few upgrades or builds that day and got a little distracted by something. Still, I don't know how much I'd trust them. And if they start trying to charge you more $$$ or sell you something else to make it work, I'd get very suspicious.

But enough of my paranoia... If the mobo is an MSI, then that sounds good to me. MSI makes some pretty good stuff. They tend to focus on stability more than overclocking features, so some of the hardcore geeks don't like them as much, but my current mobo is MSI and my friends have had a few and had no problems/complaints.

MicroATX is just the type of board, not a specific model. The micro boards are usually physically smaller designs with a fair amount of integrated features and a smaller number of expansion slots. Maybe it is one of these two (just guessing based on you saying it is MicroATX, an MSI board, and has KM266 in the model name/type)?
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/chipset...ipset=via_km266

Based on the fact that it is currently running at 1250 MHz, I'd almost guarantee that it is the frontside bus/memory clock set incorrectly. It is probably set to 100 MHz, when it should be 133 MHz. Take your 1250 MHz and increase it by 33% and you get roughly 1667 MHz.