Did newegg really send me a mobile Athlon?

[DancingBear]

Last year I ordeed an OEM Athlon Thunderbird 1.2 for my KT7-RAID as an upgrade to the Duron 700@900 that I have been running for a while. I finally installed it this weekend and it is not what I thought it was.

CPUID shows the processor as a "Mobile Athlon 4" and the code name as "Palamino". The CPU shows as an Athlon in the BIOS, but not identified. I had to set the multiplier manually (12x is as high as supported) and the board only supports 100mhz FSB, so I am running at 1200mhz.

It is running great, but is there a downside to have this CPU? How can I figure out what model this is? And how can I find out what voltage is best to run?

Thanks.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Get the codes from the top of the core to see what it is. It certainly sounds like that's what you got, however it's possible they just sent you an AthlonMP. When I got my first one and put it in my board, the BIOS was from a time when only the "Athlon 4" name was around, they hadn't created the MP and XP names, so the BIOS showed I had an Athlon 4.

 

[Kevin]

Wow, you waited a year to open the thing!!! I can't wait 5 minutes, I'll open boxes before the UPS guy even pulls out...

 

[BentValve]

Originally posted by: kevin000
Wow, you waited a year to open the thing!!! I can't wait 5 minutes, I'll open boxes before the UPS guy even pulls out...

He was savoring it for awhile.

 

[DancingBear]

It was only about 9 months

I really haven't had a time to risk really screwing something up and not having my machine up and running. The HSF on the Abit KT7 is such a pain in the rear that I was sure that I was going to put a screwdriver through the PCB. That is the reason that I am not going to check the codes on the processor to see what the heck it really is.

 

[kazeakuma]

FWIW wcpuid or something similar software should tell you without having to open up your case

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: kazeakuma
FWIW wcpuid or something similar software should tell you without having to open up your case

But I think it will only read out what the BIOS recognizes. That's been my experience with it anyways. I have an AthlonXP Tbred "B" running at an odd speed that doesn't match up to any of the PR codes. As a result, my BIOS only sees the chip as an AthlonXP 2255MHz and not an AthlonXP 2100+. WCPUID also fails to report the correct name string for the chip.

Sadly, I think DancingBear will have to actually peer at the chip to properly ID it.

 

[DancingBear]

wcpuid show "Mobile Athlon 4 processor".

It also shows support for powernow which should only be enabled on mobile cpu's.

 

[NokiaDude]

The Abit Kt7-Raid only has a 100mhz FSB? Have you tried flashing the BIOS to the latest revision?

 

[Lord Evermore]

The KT7 line was based on the KT133 chipset. The KT7A with the KT133A supported 133MHz bus. (The 133 was PC133 support.)

Showing PowerNow! support may still be just an assumption, if it thinks it's a mobile CPU. I'm not sure if wcpuid can actually verify the support.

Of course, the motherboard has to support it too to make it useful, so really, the mobile chip won't be significantly different, although I think it uses a lower voltage compared to the same speed desktop CPU.

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
The KT7 line was based on the KT133 chipset. The KT7A with the KT133A supported 133MHz bus. (The 133 was PC133 support.) Showing PowerNow! support may still be just an assumption, if it thinks it's a mobile CPU. I'm not sure if wcpuid can actually verify the support. Of course, the motherboard has to support it too to make it useful, so really, the mobile chip won't be significantly different, although I think it uses a lower voltage compared to the same speed desktop CPU.

Lord Evermore, you are truly wise.

I am worried about the core voltage. I have it set at the board default of 1.5v now. Does anyone know the proper setting for the mobile Athlon 4?

 

[Shooters]

I am worried about the core voltage. I have it set at the board default of 1.5v now. Does anyone know the proper setting for the mobile Athlon 4?

If the board defaulted to that voltage then it probably isn't a Thunderbird since they run at 1.75v. I believe for the 1GHz Athlon 4 the default core voltage is 1.4v; not sure about a 1.2GHz though.

 

[Guspaz]

You were most likely sent an AthlonXP processor, and your board doesn't officially support it.

I have an AthlonXP 1900+ running on an Abit KT7A, and the BIOS recognizes it as an Athlon 4 (which is mobile). However, since the Athlon 4 is almost the same chip, it doesn't even matter.

 

[DancingBear]

Guspaz,

how does wcpuid indentify your AthlonXP?

 

[foxkm]

Geez, did anyone think to make sure that he is running the latest version of WCPUID?

Its possible its a version which came out between the release of the Mobile XP and the actual XP CPU.


foxkm

 

[DancingBear]

I am running the latest wcpuid and I also used the latest cpuid. Both identify this as the Mobile Athlon 4 part while the bios only indentifies the cpu as an athlon (no speed, no multiplier). I am all but convinced that they sent me a mobile cpu.

What I am worried about is the voltage. I don't want to fry this thing by running at 1.5v if the default is much lower. I know that I don't need to go higher because the system has been perfectly stable since I made the swap.

 

[SexyK]

Isn't the default core voltage of a T-bird 1.2GHz 1.75v?

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by: SexyK
Isn't the default core voltage of a T-bird 1.2GHz 1.75v?

This is a Palomino core running at 1200mhz (12x100mhz). If it was truly designed for mobile use, I would assume that voltage would be much lower.

 

[ArtemisE]

Originally posted by: DancingBear
Last year I ordeed an OEM Athlon Thunderbird 1.2 for my KT7-RAID as an upgrade to the Duron 700@900 that I have been running for a while. I finally installed it this weekend and it is not what I thought it was.

CPUID shows the processor as a "Mobile Athlon 4" and the code name as "Palamino". The CPU shows as an Athlon in the BIOS, but not identified. I had to set the multiplier manually (12x is as high as supported) and the board only supports 100mhz FSB, so I am running at 1200mhz.

It is running great, but is there a downside to have this CPU? How can I figure out what model this is? And how can I find out what voltage is best to run?

Thanks.

:maybe you can check the setting of the jumper on mobo, I got the same thing last year and XP1800+ showed to be 1.15G

 

[Lord Evermore]

As was mentioned, the board only supports a 100MHz bus speed. The BIOS version probably simply doesn't recognize the Palomino core (though anything slightly recent for the board should recognize it since it supports the XP line).

The mobile Athlon 4's voltage range was 1.2V to 1.4V (1.4V at full operating speed, 1.2V with PowerNow enabled and slowing it down). 1.5V probably isn't going to make any real difference since you're not using PowerNow.

AMD's information on the mobile Athlon 4 is very sparse. They don't have detailed documentation for it like they do for other processors. According to them, WinXP supports PowerNow natively, in the Power Schemes dialog. But they don't really explain what WinXP does, since the power schemes only controls drive and monitor shutdown, or hibernation and standby modes.

I'm not sure whether having the BIOS recognize the core as a mobile one will actually allow it to support PowerNow or not. Would be nice to have it run nice and cool.

You could also overclock it if the newest BIOS version gives you higher multipliers (I know that it has a setting to allow an Athlon 1400 to run).

 

[compudog]

Maybe the utilities on this AMD download page (Linkified) will help ID your CPU correctly. My .02.

 

[DancingBear]

Originally posted by: compudog
Maybe the utilities on this AMD download page (Linkified) will help ID your CPU correctly. My .02.

Great info. that identifies it as a mobile Athlon 4. Thanks

Next step...overclocking to see how far this baby will go.

 

[Guspaz]

Originally posted by: Guspaz
You were most likely sent an AthlonXP processor, and your board doesn't officially support it.

I have an AthlonXP 1900+ running on an Abit KT7A, and the BIOS recognizes it as an Athlon 4 (which is mobile). However, since the Athlon 4 is almost the same chip, it doesn't even matter.

Depends where you look in WCPUID.

The "Processor" field reads "AMD Athlon XP (Model 6)", however the Name String field reads "AMD Athlon(tm) 4 processor"

I'm not sure where to look to see if PowerNOW is listed as supported.

I have done benchmarks (with SiSoft Sandra), and the performance of my CPU is the same as any other AthlonXP 1900+, so it's just the motherboard causing this confusion. Also I should add that Windows XP lists the CPU driver as "AMD Athlon(tm) 4 processor", I suppose it is getting that from the name string.