FSB Question

[Onita]

Hi, i just put a p4 2.8 800FSB in my comp and i have a question. I remember hearing that the chip comes set at only 200 Mhz FSB. Is this true? And if so, wouldn't i want to bring it up to 800 Mhz FSB? I don't know much about computers, so if i should bring it up to 800, where and how do i do that? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Dahak]

the p4 2.8 800FSB the actual fsb runs at 200fsb when you look in the bios. the way the pentium 4 chips work is there able to do 4 transfers per clock so effectively you get 4x200 = 800fsb

 

[Trendkill]

So it's supposed to be set at 200 and you don't need to change it in the bios?

 

[MDE]

If the CPU speed is showing up correctly, it's already at 200. If you want, download CPU-Z and you can check everything about your CPU from there.

 

[Trendkill]

It says my FSB is 200.5 and my BUS speed is 800.2 Mhz. Is that would it should say? It's also telling me that my Ram is single channel. Shouldn't corsair xms pc 3200 be dual channel?

 

[MDE]

The FSB and bus speeds are correct. It should be in dual channel as long as you have two sticks of RAM. If you do, then switch slots on one stick and retry it.

 

[Trendkill]

thanks for your quick replys monkey. Yes i do have 2 sticks of 512. Why would it not show up as dual channel? Can i go into my bios and fix that? lol, as you can see, i'm still learning when it comes to computers

 

[MDE]

You'll need to shut down and physically move one of the RAM sticks into a different slot.
Pic On that board, you'd need to put one stick into an orange slot, and one in a green slot, IIRC. Don't worry about putting them too close together or anything, normal DDR RAM won't overheat.

 

[Alptraum]

You need to also have your 2 sticks in the correct slots to get dual channel. For instance on my MB (Asus P4C800-E Deluxe) I have my two sticks in slots 0 and 2. I could also do slots 1 and 3 if I wanted. But they need to be on seperate channels (slots 0 and 1 are one channel and slots 2 and 3 are another). Check your MB manuel. for how yours needs to be configured.

 

[Trendkill]

well i have an abit ic-7 g max 2, and i've got them right next to eachother in the top 2 slots. What are the advantages of having it in dual channel?

 

[Alptraum]

Originally posted by: Trendkill
well i have an abit ic-7 g max 2, and i've got them right next to eachother in the top 2 slots. What are the advantages of having it in dual channel?

Better memory bandwidth. With a P4 you definetly want to run in dual channel. Just move one of the sticks.

 

[Trendkill]

Ok thanks for all your help guys, i'll check my manual to see, and let you all know if it works.

 

[Trendkill]

Thanks a bunch guys, you were right. I've got them set up in slots 1 and 2, but for dual channel they're supposed to be in either 1 and 3 or 2 and 4. I appreciate your guys' quick responses, that's why i love anandtech!