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3ghz P4 Northwood runs at 2ghz

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - 3ghz P4 Northwood runs at 2ghz

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I have a Asus Terminator Barebones PC model P4 533.

It was previously fitted with a P4 2Ghz Celeron cpu together with 1gb of PC2700 ram.

I have changed the CPU to a P4 3ghz Northwood model SL6WK HT.

The PC now reports the CPU speed as 2Ghz rather than 3Ghz.

I have looked in the bios (version 1014 the latest) and it is possible to change the speed but only from 1.5ghz to 2ghz. There is also a manual option and I can overclock the CPU up to 2.3 ghz after this the CPU crashes.

Why isnt my new CPU recognised as 3Ghz?

I have read the Asus Terminator manual and it says CPU's up to P4 3.2 Northwood are supported.

Maybe because the CPU runs at fsb 800 and the mainboard runs at fsb 533 there is some kind of incompatability?

All info welcome

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Quote :

Maybe because the CPU runs at fsb 800 and the mainboard runs at fsb 533 there is some kind of incompatability?

That's correct. You either need a FSB 533 CPU or a different motherboard. The fastest FSB 533 Northwood is 3.06 GHz. You can search for all FSB 533 P4 CPUs at http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/Pentium%204.html. Search for "Bus speed (MHz)" Is 533 and "Package type" Begins with 478.

Reply to GhislainG

GhislainG seems correct

the way ur CPU gets its clock speed is the multiplyer x bus speed i think ur new chip has a multiplier of 15 and the bus is FSB/4

ur motherbaord can only reach a fsb of 613mhz in ur case

(613mhz/4) x15 = 2.3ghz

you need to either get a processor which has a fsb of 533. which would also allow u to slightly overclock the CPU if u wanted

or get a new motherbaord that can support the 800 mhz (although imo thats a waste of money)

if i were u i would live with the 2.3Ghz p4 untill u can upgrade the whole system

Reply to mildiner86

Sometimes the solution is even more simple. I just put a system together with a new MB and 3ghz CPU and also saw the system was running at 2ghz. After hours of checking and rechecking everything, I found that when I actually used the system for something that required CPU burden, like rendering a video or starting several programs at once, it stepped up to 3ghz. When idle or minimal use like solitare (LOL), it benchmarked at only 2ghz. Recommendation: download CPUID and run it while really using the machine before you spend anymore money. JohnLa -at- yahoo.com

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3ghz P4 Northwood runs at 2ghz

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - 3ghz P4 Northwood runs at 2ghz