ABit VA-20 and AMD Sempron 2400+

Hi,

A little advice would be appreciated. I have just build a system with an
ABit VA-20 motherboard, AMD Sempron 2400+ Processor and DDR400 RAM. The
problem is, the BIOS reports that the CPU FSB is running at 133MHz and the
RAM is runing at 200MHz. These seem to be the maximum values in the bios
settings, but te board is suposed to support upto 400Mhz FSB and RAM.

Windows reports that the processor is running at 1.33GHz - shouldn't the
2400+ run at ~1.666 GHz?

Am I getting confused over these BIOS settings, or is my FSB and ram really
running at half the speed?

Regards,

Chris.

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 02:08:13 -0000, "Chris Bunney"
wrote:

Hi,

A little advice would be appreciated. I have just build a system with an
ABit VA-20 motherboard, AMD Sempron 2400+ Processor and DDR400 RAM. The
problem is, the BIOS reports that the CPU FSB is running at 133MHz and the
RAM is runing at 200MHz. These seem to be the maximum values in the bios
settings, but te board is suposed to support upto 400Mhz FSB and RAM.

Windows reports that the processor is running at 1.33GHz - shouldn't the
2400+ run at ~1.666 GHz?

Am I getting confused over these BIOS settings, or is my FSB and ram really
running at half the speed?


It appears you need either change a jumper or go through the
bios settings again to find a missed setting. The manual
should detail this.

You are correct that it should be running faster, 166MHz
(DDR333) FSB. Since it's currently at 133MHz it's not "half
the speed" but regardless yes you should raise the FSB then
manually set the memory to synchronous speed, 166MHz too.
Well, that synchronous memory is what typically results in
best performance for the CPU but if the video performance is
more important then try the async speeds as well but since
you're choosing that integrated video I'd have to think the
video performance isn't paramount, it's not very good at 3D
either way.

I have actually just encountered the same problem (same CPU and all)

The problem is that even the board specs (and manual) say that it
supports a 400MHz FSB.. you can only change the FSB through jumpers
on the board. However, the manual only lists jumper settings for up
to like 266 or something.. and since there are only 2 jumpers and 2
available positions per jumper, this poses a problem (since the 266
is the highest settings it lists)

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:21:03 -0600,
lid (cznoj) wrote:

I have actually just encountered the same problem (same CPU and all)

The problem is that even the board specs (and manual) say that it
supports a 400MHz FSB.. you can only change the FSB through jumpers
on the board. However, the manual only lists jumper settings for up
to like 266 or something.. and since there are only 2 jumpers and 2
available positions per jumper, this poses a problem (since the 266
is the highest settings it lists)

What MB is it?

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 03:21:03 -0600,
lid (cznoj) wrote:

I have actually just encountered the same problem (same CPU and all)

The problem is that even the board specs (and manual) say that it
supports a 400MHz FSB.. you can only change the FSB through jumpers
on the board. However, the manual only lists jumper settings for up
to like 266 or something.. and since there are only 2 jumpers and 2
available positions per jumper, this poses a problem (since the 266
is the highest settings it lists)

Via KM400 does not support 400MHz (actually 200MHz, DDR400)
FSB! It supports up to DDR333 FSB and (if set
asynchronously, which is worse for an Athlon) up to 400MHz
(DDR400) memory bus.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/ch...-series/km400/

However, given that you want the highest FSB possible rather
than needing lowest to get CPU within stable operational
range, it is rather a simple matter to try the different
unknown jumper settings- at worst it would run at same or
slower speed, you just try the combinations till you find
the one raising the speed (which in this case should be a
setting not documented in the manual, unless you only meant
DDR400 FSB since that's not possible.

With 2 jumpers I'd expect one changes DDR200 FSB to DDR266,
and one changes DDR266 to DDR333. Then there should be a
second jumper to set memory to either synchronous or
asynchronous (+-33MHz/DDR"66") mode, or perhaps that's in
the bios settings menu.