I recently purchased an Athlon64 X2 6000+ to replace my 3800+ on my EP-MF570SLI mobo. My 3800+ was recognized under XP and Vista, meaning that I could see the model name displayed correctly in system properties. But now when I go to my system properties with my new CPU, it says simply "Athlon processor" instead of actually giving its model.

On top of that, overclocking the FSB gives random results, sometimes increasing the displayed clock speed under system properties, and sometimes even decreasing it! I've tried to view my clockspeed in other utilities such as nTune, but they generally show the same results.

I guess I should mention that when my computer POSTS it says that the FSB is running at 375 Mhz. The BIOS of this mobo lets me key the amount that I would like to overclock the FSB, not set its total Mhz value. So it's default value is zero, and if I type in 50 for example, it should take it up to 250 Mhz. That was with my 3800+, but now it POSTs saying that my FSB is 375 and randomly goes up and down as I change the overclock value in the BIOS. For example, I can type in 90 as the OC value and get a resulting FSB of 358. Any ideas what would be causing this?

The first thing to consider, of course, is if I have the most updated BIOS for this mobo. According to Epox's USA site, it says that I have the most recent which was released on 7/7/06. Also, I've seen a few custom PC building sites that let you combine the EP-MF570SLI with Athlon64 X2 6000+, so I would assume that they are compatible.

I should also mention that even with this apparent problem, the performance of my computer has jumped dramatically. I used to run Company of Heroes with avg. fps of 31. Now it's at 52. So obviouslly the processor "works", and is running under 40 degrees C idle, under 50 under high workload.

Any ideas what could be causing the overclocking problem? Even though Windows isn't fully recognizing my processor, maybe cuz my mobo isn't either, do you think I'm still taking full advantage of my processor (w/out OCing)? Thanks, and sorry for the long post.

The 6000+ was released Feb 20, 2007. That is well after your BIOS. This is the reason I stick with Gigabyte and the like is to avoid BIOSs which haven't been updated in nearly 2 years! Your board is operable with the processor (luckily) but it is not working properly, if there was a BIOS with the proper coding for the newer processors you probably wouldn't have this problem.

Yup, I'm pretty sure you're right. I got lucky searching around in forums and found out that Epox turned into SUPoX. Their website is in Chinese, but I was able to fumble around and I THINK download a BIOS update dates 7/18/07. I'm outa town right now so I'll give it a shot when I get home, hoping it's what I think it is.

I guess for now I was wondering if anyone could confirm that their system information normally displays "Athlon64 X2 6000+" as their processor model. Knowing if it does or not would help me know for sure when I actually do get it to work. Thanks in advance.

Relax.

Your BIOS is fine. Your X2 6000+ is fine. Everything is beautiful

At stock your ram speed is 375MHz - not the AMD clock.

If you increase the AMD clock to 213MHZ (or +13MHz) that should increase your ram speed to 400MHz (or DDR2 800 spec).

Quick Math:

3000MHz (200MHz x 15) divided by 8 (memory divisor) = 375MHz

3200MHz (213.33 x 15) divided by 8 (memory divisor) = 400MHz


Yippee!! Should make for a really sweet rig.

Although it is NEVER advisable to run a system with a processor that is months younger than the BIOS of your motherboard. Everything wisecracker said is correct about timing and clocks.

Edit: After reading over the OP again,

Never expect to get a 25% overclock out of a 6000+ without rather extreme cooling (200->250Mhz, as you stated). 10-15% is much more reasonable for that processor (220-230Mhz bus, resulting in a 3.3-3.45Ghz CPU). Use this for a more systematic approach to overclocking your CPU:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] erclocking

Haha, don't worry. I'm not increasing the FSB without decreasing the CPU multiplier. I would still like to go for a higher FSB since I've noticed with my 3800+ that a higher FSB with the same overall CPU and RAM clockspeed seemed to go a little faster.

Thanks alot for your help, Wisecracker. I guess I was just looking at the RAM's clock and not the FSB. The POST screen flashes so fast I can't really tell what the numbers are. I just figured it was the FSB.

Now all I have left to do is update my BIOS and hope that the CPU gets recognized correctly.