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Or some of it, maybe.
I just ran PC Wizard 2008 per the Hard Drive discussion in another thread. I've reported elsewhere that my 1.8 Ghz CPU was 'erroneously' being shown as running at 1.35. However, PCW confirms this. Given the phrasing--that 10%-100% throttling is being used, how can I crank it back up to its rated capacity?
A further look reveals that the FSB speed was 'initially' 133 Mhz, but now is 100. What is going on?
TIA,
R.
Last edited by Ryszard; 04/29/09 01:09 PM.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Think I would either clear and reconfigure the BIOS or if there is a new BIOS flash and reconfigure. I'd also look on the motherboard for any jumpers that may control FSB (or anything else for that matter) as a lot of old motherboards weren't as "automatic" as the new boards.
I'll offer my unsolicited opinion here as well. Save for a new computer. You will save yourself a world of grief if you simply got a barebones system and started fresh. Then you can enjoy making music. Just my opinion, don't take offense.
DTuna
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Erm, none taken. But this IS a barebones system--just made of old parts, except a brand new WD main drive and fresh install of XP.
R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Power Throttling (AMD calls it Powernow!) can indeed be detrimental when the goal is streaming audio. CPU can't ramp up to speed in time to handle the demand load.
There are ways to defeat the Power Throttleback.
AMD or Intel chip?
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Quote:
Power Throttling (AMD calls it Powernow!) can indeed be detrimental when the goal is streaming audio. CPU can't ramp up to speed in time to handle the demand load.
There are ways to defeat the Power Throttleback.
AMD or Intel chip?
Yes I believe you posted about AMD's Powernow quite a while back. Sadly the search function on this board only goes back to last Tuesday! LOL
When will they upgrade their Forum Software!!! 
DTuna
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Quote:
Erm, none taken. But this IS a barebones system--just made of old parts, except a brand new WD main drive and fresh install of XP.
R.
Erm, I have a 386 from 1990 in my closet with a new unopened case and powersupply of the same year sitting next to it. Don't know if I would consider it a barebones system. Right now the case works as a door stop!
DTuna
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Just checking in on what could be slowing things down from higher "discrete" component performance ratings: What type of Ram Memory chips are loaded? Even if they may be relatively new, if their timing is slower, or faster than the FSB speed, or some multiple of same, they may be out of synch with the timing of the Front side bus (FSB) which can reduce performance altogether. Data transfer between the memory chips and the FSB may require more than one separate clock cycle if there is a mismatch in timing characteristics, which will also slow the CPU performance as well, since there is a bottleneck in how the parts link up and transfer data. I could be all wet about this instance, but the tip about old parts thrown together made me wonder about how the parts may be possibly mismatched.
FWIW, NEWEGG has some ECS motherboards under a $100 with FSB rating of over 2500 MHZ or 5200 MT/Sec....
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Mac,
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8 Ghz Pentium IV equivalent.
R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Dr D.,
I'm aware of those considerations. I'm pretty sure the RAM is the correct type, and a matched pair. I'd have to open the puppy up to make sure. I'd rather not, but one does what one must.
All y'all,
RE: Getting new anything: Buying a new mobo means a new CPU, RAM, drives--in other words, the new PC I can't afford now. I'm open to donations anytime. Other than that, what you hear is what I got. *g* This thing should be doing what I'm asking it to. It's not like I'm trying to run a 48-track studio or anything. Two at a time is all.
R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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32 or 64?
Whichever, websearch for how to turn off Powernow! for your specific mobo, chip and OS.
AMD site used to have a downloadable utility, I couldn't find it there just now but that is the site to trust...
--Mac
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Thirty-two bit.
PowerNow seems to be mainly a notebook feature. It is disabled by default in XP (which I just installed) but may be enabled by a newer driver for the processor itself. I've tried to get every update I can less SP3, but don't recall anything for the CPU.
I found that making Power Settings in Control Panel as Desktop/Office or Always On--I usually select one or the other--also disables it.
But the really strange thing to me is that the system is reporting a completely different processor (AMD Athlon XP 1500+, where mine is the 2200+) as well as the lower clock speed. PC Wizard, OTOH, reports the correct initial speed, but also that it is running at 1.35 Ghz--two thirds of rated.
I'll see about doing the BIOS thing.
R.
Last edited by Ryszard; 04/29/09 07:05 PM.
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I would check the CMOS/BIOS settings. Since you're reporting a FSB of 100 instead of 133, I think that there is most likely an incorrect, or 'default' setting in the CMOS which needs to be corrected.
Some CMOS have an 'Optimal Settings' which is what I would use, instead of the default. Default is often used as a 'safe' setting, to get you back up and running if something bad happens.
I had a hard time finding the stuff for your motherboard, because it's listed as a PC Chips, not an ECS, even though they're the same company. You have an AMI BIOS chip. Enter the BIOS (press Del when told) and go to the CPU Setup Page. Change the CPU Frequency to 133, which will restore your computer to the speed it should be running at. Make sure the DRAM timing is set to Auto.
Gary
Last edited by Gary Curran; 04/29/09 08:26 PM.
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Gary nailed it here, I believe. I remember this would happen to an old ASUS MOBO I had with an Award BIOS. I could never figure out what would cause it to change, but once a year or so, I had to go into the BIOS and reset the bus speed.
-Scott
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Gary DID nail it, yay! I went in and, sure enough, bus speed had been set back to 100 MHz. Kicked it up to 133 and CPU ID and speed are now correct as well. Can't thank you guys enough.
I've also corrected my sysinfo to reflect the 'PC Chips' mfg instead of ECS.
Okay, now how come on boot the BIOS reports the onboard video chip with 8 Mb VRAM about two thirds of the time, and the AGP board with 64 Mb only about one third of the time? Both are NVidia GeForce, but of different series. Can this be affecting performance as well? I did have an issue in RealBand which turned out to be video related and which was corrected by backing off hardware acceleration all the way. Again, this is in BIOS only. In Windows the system has always reported the correct card.
Through the fog,
R.
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Hard to tell if this is a bios setting issue or possibly a messy registry, but certainly any system running with a "slow" FSB that uses shared Ram for video ala Vram on board chips would be very sensitive to any real time video intensive display demands. I would check the video section of the bios, which by the way may be able to be updated, and in fact may need updating to handle the AGP video card. You might consider simply reinstalling the AGP card to reinitialize that component as the preferred video display driver component. With it reinitialized, which doesn't require any ugly reopening of your box, you should have a more stable and optimized system, that no longer draws off of RAM and some CPU cycling to boot.
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R is an underclocker. (grin)
You hould disable the onboard video in the BIOS when running a separate vid card.
Otherwise the onboard vid will always grab a piece of your physical ram at bootup.
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Dr D,
Doubt it's the registry; the Win install is only two weeks old.
By reinstalling the AGP, do you mean reinstalling OEM drivers, or 'uninstalling' via Device Manager and allowing it to find itself again? Or something else?
Mac,
I don't see an option in BIOS to disable video. What I was able to do was to deny allocation of an IRQ to PCI VGA, which may be the same thing. Also, there are only three options for memory allocation to video: 32, 64, and 128 Mb. I cut it to 32, but I'm not sure what I did really.
Re: Clock speed, what about overclocking? I can kick the FSB up to 166 from the nominal 133. Note that my CPU runs at 55 deg. C at idle, and that PC Wizard reports 14.07 VDC on my 12 V bus. Am I risking anything by going up? I have a case fan I can add.
R.
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I don't recommend overclocking that one for DAW work. The gain is rather slight and not worth the risk IMO.
Overclocking has other implications in the DAW world. For example, that Creative card, which may not like a higher bus speed...
--Mac
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The Creative card is out of the loop. It is physically in the system, but not in use. I have moved audio and MIDI I/O to the TASCAM US-224. Now, if I could just get it working as a control surface . . .
R.
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Rys,
First, leave the CPU Frequency where it is.
Secondly, if you have an AGP video card installed, under the Advanced setup, set the Shared Memory size to the smallest possible, and set the Video Window to 64 or Auto.
Under the PCI/PnP, make sure the primary graphics adapter is AGP. Unless you have some huge crash and burn conflict, I don't recommend disabling the PCI VGA IRQ.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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