CPU Speed

I bought a new CPU a long time ago and just recently I've been looking into the speed more. It's rated for either 2.4 or 2.6 Ghz (My gut feeling says 2.4) but it's only running at 1.9Ghz. I was just wondering if this is normal or something is wrong with the CPU?

Also if it is normal, is there a way I could increase the speed to what it's supposed to be? (Overclocking) I've never overclocked anything on my computer.

 

You might have one of the g0 stepping processors from intel. What CPU is it exactly?

 

I believe it is an AMD Athlon XP 2600+... that's what it says in the system properties anyway.

 

Um.. What are the settings in the BIOS currently? Is everything set to auto?

Besides from what i've seen there are some 1.9ghz athlon XP 2600s around.. What socket is it?

 

I haven't changed anything in Bios I believe so everything is what it was set to automatically. I'm not quite sure what you mean by socket, though..

 

The AMD 2600 XP is a socket A CPU if I am not mistaken. The 2500XP was 1.83GHz stock, I can't remember what the 2600 was. Probably the 1.9GHz. With decent cooling, you should be able to bump up the FSB and get it to around 2.something GHz depending on your motherboard and CPU. Socket A stuff is pretty easy to overclock most of the time, if you want to try it.

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I could try overclocking it. I keep the side pannel off my computer due to my graphics card, and that keeps everything inside nice and cool

 

What motherboard are you running? The socket A 'puters were overclocking beasts back in the day... Just keep in mind, if you overclock it, you might kill it (let the magic smoke out). So ease up the FSB slowly and test stability and temps if you decide to try overclocking.

And caution. Overclocking has been proven to be addictive and expensive. Symptoms include computers that sound like planes taking off, heatsinks and such laying around the house, and an empty wallet. And curius thoughts about cooling said 'puter with water...

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ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7V8X REV 1.xx

Gibbirish to me but this computer is also 5+ years old. Dunno if that's the motherboard or not but that's the only thing that looks like it could be the motherboard type.

Custom-made PC that's been updated so much only the Motherboard is the original thing.

 

Yep, A7V8X REV 1.xx that is most likely the motherboard. Do you want to attempt an overclock?

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I could try overclocking a bit but I don't want to go to any extremes.

 

Well, if you are ok with the risks... Let's see what we can do. Can you get into the BIOS? Usually you press DEL, F2 or some key when you boot the computer. Look for a FSB setting, and crank it up a little. (Increase FSB by let's say 10.) See if it boots up.

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I don't see anything labeled FSB but there were a few things related to CPU.. one I think is the CPU External Frequency? If it's that, right now it's set to 153/31 and the temperature is currently 47C/116.5F

I'm going to do this tomorrow, though, cuz I don't trust myself to think clearly this late and this isn't something I want to mess up with

 

Are your temps load or idle? They would be borderline for me. Especially if those are your idle temps.

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Hi, I have an AMD xp2800+ cpu with pc2700 fsb333 ram and it runs at 2.08 ghz.

 

I think the temps were on idle because it wasn't loading anything and was just sitting there. Wasn't running any programs (obviously), either. So that's borderline for the temp of the CPU?

 

The temperature would be too high if it were my stuff. Personal descision. If I were you, I would run Folding at Home, or some other 'stress test' on your computer and see what the load temps are. You might need better cooling.


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I'm currently running at 100% CPU usage and the temperature is between 68C and 69C

 

On a Socket A??? Dude, you need some cooling! I ran mine 44° at full load overclocked.

Have you cleaned out the dust bunnies? Please list exactly what you have hardware wise, and what you have for cooling.

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I clean out the dust regularly and right now I only have fans for cooling - I've only had a problem with overheating once and that was my graphics card.

As for hardware.. 2 sticks of memory (1gb total), my graphics card (GeForce 6800), 2 hard drives, the CPU... I don't think I'm missing anything -.-

Also I looked up the max temp for my CPU the other day and the manual said 85C (was an actual manual, not one somebody wrote up)

 

I guess it has been to long since I did any Socket A overclocking. Those max temps seem to be WAY out of range to me. To avoid giving you bad advice, I am out on this one. Good luck to you, sorry I can't help you.

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Thanks a lot for your help. I appreciate it.