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"Changing my processor clock speed"

Here's the situation.

My processor is an AMD 2600+ XP (edited this, it's higher than I thought)

However the clock speed is 1.17 GHz


I'm led to beleive I can jack this up to at least 1.5GHz


My RAM (if relevent) is 256 MB (not sure if thats important).



I know I'd have to do something in the BIOS however I'm not sure what, im a bit of a novice, so if you can help me I'll be very grateful.


Thanks in advance.

So does it just clip in and works straight away? No fooling around?


I probably need a new cooling fan too, how easy is that going to be to fit?

See, I've decided that my PC parts aren't bad, it's just been badly configured by some know-nothing who made it.

The parts I've got are:

2600+ processor
40GB HDD
Geforce 4 graphics
Soundblaster 5.1 live
Decentish mainboard

The only down part is the RAM sucks, I've got a mix of SD and DDR (128 of each I think) which kind of sucks, so I'm going to get either 512 or 1GB of DDR 2700 which will allow me to boost the processor up and hopefully allow me to do things with the machine instead of waiting for it to load a word doc for 3 minutes.

:-)

Get two 512MB sticks of PC3200 DDR.

£90 @ www.scan.co.uk

why 3200?

I dont think my processor supports over 2700?

Does 3200 support FSB 400 whilst 2700 supports 333?

When you upgrade your PC, you'll have decent RAM. That's it :D.

From what I listed below what else needs upgrading?

Paradox: wrote:
> The only down part is the RAM sucks, I've got a mix of SD and DDR
> (128 of each I think) which kind of sucks, so I'm going to get either
> 512 or 1GB of DDR 2700 which will allow me to boost the processor up
> and hopefully allow me to do things with the machine instead of
> waiting for it to load a word doc for 3 minutes.


It is not possible to install SDR RAM in your motherboard, so at the very least you have PC2100 (which runs at a front side bus speed of 133Mhz, limiting your processor to 1530Mhz) and if your PC was put together by someone halfway competent, you'll have PC2700 at least. Before you lay down 100 notes on new RAM at least visually inspect the RAM you have, to find out what speed it is. If you don't want to take the sticks of RAM out then use a torch - look for any stickers on the RAM which might hint at what rating it is.

Having said that, it is not the speed of the RAM that is slowing your computer down, it is the quantity (and I would suspect you are running a lot of software in the background - have you run any spyware checks recently?) 512MB of DDR266 is going to run faster than 256MB of DDR333 in any general-usage benchmark. If you can get another 512MB that would be ideal.

Regarding the cooling fan, you won't need a new one unless the existing HSF is causing the processor to overheat or is too noisy. Fitting a new heatsink + fan is the most intimidating part of building a computer. My advice to you is to avoid replacing the heatsink + fan unless you really a new one.

I probably don't need a new fan - it's running quietly and it doesn't seem to be overheating.

I'll go and inspect the RAM sticks now - see what I've got.

Probably PC2100 though which would explain the limitation of 1.53.

It's all coming together now.

Paradox: wrote:
> I probably don't need a new fan - it's running quietly and it doesn't
> seem to be overheating.
>
> I'll go and inspect the RAM sticks now - see what I've got.
>
> Probably PC2100 though which would explain the limitation of 1.53.
>
> It's all coming together now.


The limitation of 1.53Ghz is because you were setting the front side bus to 133Mhz. You mentioned the warning when you set the FSB to 166Mhz - did this prevent you from setting the FSB to 166Mhz?

The worst-case scenario from running with a FSB too fast for the memory is that the computer will fail to boot. If this happens you will need to set the CMOS jumper on the motherboard to clear for a few seconds, then set it back again. If you don't know how to do this, find out how (or ask) before you start playing with FSB values, otherwise you'll be stuck with a computer that won't do anything and (potentially) no other way of getting help from the internet.

The RAM stick (of which there was only one - I thought there was two) said:

DDR400 - 256MB

Then I messed up and didnt clip it back propperly and it bleeped at me - but thats irrelevent.

I beleive from what I've learnt from this thread that it will allow me to put the FSB speed up to 400 - however I'll wait and see what you think.