Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
Paul, Mega thanks for all your help - i'm gonna have a look at that Samsung
memory (it was the only original piece from when i first made "my old pc)
way back about 4 or 5 years ago and i thought it was a shame not to use it.
I might get a faster 256 to throw in or as you suggest,pull both 256's and
get another 512 of faster stuff.
Cheers
Dave
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:nospam-0609052213090001@192.168.1.178...
> In article <p8nTe.103691$G8.38881@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, "DB"
> <db002a3121(NOSPAM)@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> this is what came out.........
>>
>>
>> CPU-Z version 1.30.
>>
>> CPU(s)
>> Number of CPUs 1
>>
>> Name AMD Athlon XP
>> Code Name Barton
>> Specification AMD Athlon(TM) XP 3000+
>> Family / Model / Stepping 6 A 0
>> Extended Family / Model 7 A
>> Package Socket A
>> Technology 0.13 µ
>> MMX, Extended MMX, 3DNow!, Extended 3DNow!, SSE
>> CPU Clock Speed 2153.9 MHz
>> Clock multiplier x 13.0
>> Front Side Bus Frequency 165.7 MHz
>> Bus Speed 331.4 MHz
>> L1 Data Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way, 64 Bytes line size
>> L1 Instruction Cache 64 KBytes, 2-way, 64 Bytes line size
>> L2 Cache 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64 Bytes line
>> size
>> L2 Speed 2153.9 MHz (Full)
>> L2 Location On Chip
>> L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
>> L2 Bus Width 64 bits
>
> Processor looks good. You can check the voltage in the hardware monitor -
> it
> won't be exactly 1.65, but it will be somewhere in that neighbourhood. The
> processor speed is the number one factor, followed by the RAM setup. The
> AthlonXP Barton likes all the FSB it can get, but the chipsets and the
> nature of the bus on the AthlonXP, seems to preclude giant overclocks of
> the FSB. In any case, I wouldn't mess with the CPU clock setting, unless
> your RAM was a bit more capable.
>
>> Mainboard and chipset
>> Motherboard manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
>> Motherboard model A7V8X-X, REV 1.xx
>> BIOS vendor Award Software, Inc.
>> BIOS revision ASUS A7V8X-X ACPI BIOS Revision 1013
>> BIOS release date 09/02/2004
>> Chipset VIA KT400A rev. 80
>> Southbridge VIA VT8235 rev. 00
>> Sensor chip IT 8712
>>
>> Graphic Interface AGP
>> AGP Status enabled, rev. 3.5
>> AGP Data Transfer Rate 8x
>> AGP Max Rate 8x
>> AGP Side Band Addressing supported, enabled
>> AGP Aperture Size 64 MBytes
>
> You can also check out the video card settings, either in the SmartGART
> tab of the Display control panel, or you can download a copy of Powerstrip
> from entechtaiwan.com and look in the O)ptions item in the toolbar popup.
> It looks like you are running at AGP 8X, which is good. With Powerstrip,
> you've be able to tell whether everything is enabled or not - virtually
> every time I've set up a video card, not everything is healthy in
> Powerstrip,
> so it takes me multiple install/uninstall attempts, with different
> driver versions, until everything is working properly. There is nothing
> more embarrassing than discovering six months from now, that AGP
> texture acceleration was never working.
>
>> Memory
>> DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
>> DRAM Size 1024 MBytes
>> DRAM Frequency 165.7 MHz
>> FSB
RAM 1:1
>> DRAM Interleave 4-way
>> CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
>> RAS# to CAS# 5 clocks
>> RAS# Precharge 4 clocks
>> Cycle Time (TRAS) 9 clocks
>> # of memory modules 3
>> Module 0 DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 256 MBytes
>> Module 1 DDR-SDRAM PC3200 - 512 MBytes
>> Module 2 Samsung DDR-SDRAM PC2100 - 256 MBytes
>
> That is quite the mixture of RAM. I guess the Samsung is running
> overclocked ?
> The claim is, the DRAM Frequency is 166, which is DDR333 transfer rate,
> and
> the Samsung is rated at DDR266. It could be that the RAM timings are loose
> like they are, due to the Samsung stick. You might pull the Samsung stick
> and
> see how much better the timings become. Performance is related to CAS and
> to tRCD (which is 5 clocks).
>
> The best way to see what is happening, is to get a copy of memtest86+ from
> memtest.org . It has two functions. It is certainly a memory test program,
> and
> with your eclectic mix of RAM, I would definitely want to test the RAM for
> errors. Do at least two full passes error free, before booting into
> Windows.
>
> In the upper left hand corner of the memtest86+ operating screen,
> there are three bandwidth indicators. The slowest of these is a
> measurement
> of the memory bandwidth. The bandwidth is measured by a sequential read of
> a region which is larger than the processor cache - that makes the
> accesses
> basically uncached.
>
> On my A7N8X-E, I get 1485MB/sec in dual channel mode, and 916MB/sec in
> single
> channel mode. In my case the memory is running 2-2-2-6 timing at DDR400.
> You
> can use memtest86+ to tweak the memory timings, based on whatever spec you
> have for each stick (CPUZ SPD dump might tell you something about each
> stick).
> The slowest stick of memory sets the timing for the whole bus. Since your
> memory will be running at DDR333, you won't get to the 916MB/sec
> level, but you can still use memtest86+ to compare the impact that Samsung
> stick is having.
>
> From an application perspective, take the percent improvement and divide
> by 3,
> to get the percentage effect on your applications. In other words, if you
> speed up the memory by 15%, expect your applications to be 5% faster than
> they
> were before (as a rough average figure).
>
> If this was my machine, I would probably be using 2x512MB, installed in
> slot 1
> and slot 3, with either PC2700 or PC3200 RAM. Since PC3200 RAM is backward
> compatible with everything, it makes sense to only be buying PC3200 now.
> As for
> the CAS of any RAM you use, there is CAS2, CAS2.5, and CAS3, and it
> probably
> doesn't make sense to fork out a lot of cash for some CAS2, for the amount
> of
> improvement you would get. Chances are your existing stick is CAS3 (as
> that
> is kind of an industry standard - CAS2 is more of an overclocker RAM,
> selected
> by speed binning). A second 512MB stick of PC3200 CAS3 can be as cheap as
> $50
> or so, and where you buy it, really depends on how many times you've been
> burned
> by cheap generic RAM (I've been burned twice now).
>
> This article compares the impact of CAS on performance:
>
http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-09.html#application_benchmarks
>
> So, work on your RAM a bit, and see what you think.
>
> HTH,
> Paul
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