PC_Cheaps motherboard woes

[gangstawrapper]

I have a PCchips motherboard (M715) that differs from the board on the website by offering soft CPU settings rather that jumpers. Currently I have a P2 266 running at 300 by setting the CPU bios menu to 300. Any higher and the system reports lowly speeds such as 133 and works much slower. Since bus and multiplier seem to be set automatically by the CPU type, I was wondering if it is possible to set them manually (software?/hidden bios settings) as I believe that my 266 may be multiplier locked. (I'd go for 83*4) Any help much appreciated as the lame board is driving me crazy. ;-)

[Eli]

I've had exactly the same results with my 266 on an M717 board. Guess I'll have to be happy with 300....

[Peter M]

Hi,

most 66-MHz P-II (sold as 233 to 333) limit their multiplier settings such that they revert to 2.0x _and_ disable their L2 cache if an "illegal" one is set.

That's very likely what you experience.

Regards, Peter

[gangstawrapper]

Hey thanks, but is there any way to disable the 'disabling'... Also, given the board is it possible to actually find out the clock/multiplier/bus settings? Third party software? I'd just like to know whether the cpu is running 4x75 or 4.5x66 (I plan to buy a tnt you see...)

[Peter M]

Hi!

On a PC-Chips board, you are very probably running at 4.5x66. PC-Chips usually does not offer any overclocked settings.

German c't magazine has a DOS tool ctcm.exe that shows actual processor speed and L2 cache state. Try that one for precise information - it _might_ even display multiplier information from the P-II register set, but these registers aren't always showing the correct data.

Regards, Peter