Slow system bus speed - Bad motherboard?

AnyNameLeft

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First, here are my system specs:

1.8ghz Pentium 4
512mb DDR RAM
Intel D845BG Motherboard
80gb 7200rpm HD
Geforce 4 Ti 4200 (64mb)

A few months ago I noticed a huge drop in my computer's performance, specifically when playing 3D games like Medal of Honor. My frame rates went from 50-100fps to 20-40fps. I saw the biggest difference when I played BF1942, with no bots I would get between 40 and 90fps, but even with a few bots my frame rate would drop to 10-25fps. Other people I know with systems worse than mine were able to play the game smoothly with 25+ bots, yet when I have more than 10 I get lagged to death.

I did some checking, and everything seemed fine. Finally, I ran 3DMark2001 SE (results: http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5280272) and it benchmarked my system bus at 100mhz! I went and checked the bios and it says my system bus is set at 400mhz. This would explain why my system lags even with a small number of bots, or anything that uses a lot of CPU power.

I have absolutely no idea how it got messed up, I havn't even opened the case since I purchased this computer five months ago, and I havn't opened the system bios either. So I'm stumped. What could be the cause? Some sort of defect on the motherboard? I called tech support hoping to redeem my warranty but according to them "the bios doesnt lie" and "this doesn't warrant our technical support". They also said they can't go by third party bechmarking software.

Is there anyway I can fix this without having to replace my motherboard?
 

Quetzacoatl

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Well, the thing here is, your system is on a 100Mhz FSB, all Northwood A pentium 4's are. Not sure why you're having such a performance hit, but make sure all your drivers are installed correctly. Could be in your bios, memory timings, or if your memory isn't set synchronous with the FSB.

Soon enough, Intel will make the i845s...imagine dual channel Sdram...*shudder*
 

AnyNameLeft

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"the thing here is, your system is on a 100Mhz FSB, all Northwood A pentium 4's are"

In my manual it lists the computer specs, and it says "FSB: 400mhz". It also says so in the bios. Hence, it should be running at 400mhz. Also, all of my drivers are up to date.
 

tha_trixta

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Yes, what Quezacotl is saying is true, you just have to remember the fsb is quad pumped on intels. 100 FSB * 4 = 400 mHz effective bus. Nice name Quezacotl, gotta love the Final Fantasy series!
 

Quetzacoatl

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heh, thanks, Quetzacoatl also happens to be the name of the dragon god the Incans had in the past

Soon enough, Intel will make the i845s...imagine dual channel Sdram...*shudder*
 

tha_trixta

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Oh so you never knew of the final fantasy use of that? You just knew of the incan based use? i guess thats squaresoft based that on, the quezacotl character in FF was a large dragon, if i remember correctly.. been so long since i have played it.... have u ever play any FF series?
 

tha_trixta

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Anyways, getting back to the main topic, did you over clock your cpu or video card? perhaps what happened is that you overclocked your hardware a while ago when you got it,you dont remember how slow it was before, and for some odd reason maybe your video card overclocking utility got altered, or deleted, or doesn't start up with windows like it used to.... Check to see that all your clock frequencies and such are in place with what you remember them to be. Overclocking wouldnt make such a huge difference, but maybe... just maybe,.,... :)
 

Crashman

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It's a lie. It started with AMD advertizing thier 100MHz system bus Athlon as 200MHz, which is not the true frequency but rather a made up number representing the effective frequency gained by reading each data line twice per clock cycle as opposed to once per clock cycle. This is called Dual Data Rate {DDR), like your memory is probably named PC2100 (2100MB/s) and called DDR266, even though it's only 133MHz.

Intel saw how popular AMD's naming scheme was and was forced to follow suit by calling their Quad Data Rate 100MHz bus "400MHz" even though it's 100MHz with four bits per data line per cycle. So when it says 400MHz, it's actually running 100MHz.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>
 

Quetzacoatl

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Ironically, I played FF8 after I joined THG, but yes, I played most of the final fantasy games. Quzacotl in FF8 was like this big thunderbird thingy, although not like the one in history with the Incans. Heh, wonder if that's where AMD had the idea to use the name, "thunderbird"

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...
 

Crashman

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Former Staff
You really need to give details to some people that they can compute, instead of throwing slang terms at them with no reasoning. This is because many people assume that anyone they talk too doesn't know any more than they do unless you can prove to them otherwise. So even though the reason was the same, I phrased it in a was so as to make it more believable (read above and you'll see they had their doubts).

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>
 

tha_trixta

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I did give the basic and full meaning, i actually explained deeper what Quezacotl said. If you will notice, the disbelief was sent towards quezacotl until i made it a little more clear...