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General discussion

max processor speed supported on motherboard

Aug 17, 2004 6:21AM PDT

Hey
I was just wondering how to find out what is the maximum speed processor you can put into your motherboard.
I'v currently got a AMD 866mhz athlon processor and wanted to upgrade it to the highest capacity I can, 2ghz+ would be great.
my motherboard is a MSI 6340(VT8363) if that helps.
A diagnostic software reported the processor as Athlon M4 (Thunderbird) 1.7v - 1.8v, not sure if this is correct tho, also its a socket A.

Thanks a lot for your help guys, this has been bugging me for ages!.

- Marc

Discussion is locked

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Re: max processor speed supported on motherboard
Aug 17, 2004 6:25AM PDT

go to the MSI website and they will list the AMD processors compatible with your MOBO. You can also type your question directly into google such as "What is the fastest cpu I can run on my xxxx motherboard" and get good results.

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Re: max processor speed supported on motherboard
Aug 17, 2004 6:33AM PDT

thanks for the reply, there are different versions of the mobo, e.g. ver 3 and ver 5, i think mine is the orignal but not sure.
the orignal shows 600MHz~1GHz, that means theres no point in upgrading the processor without buying a new mobo Sad.

just curious, what would happen if I were to put a higher rated processor then it supports?.

Thanks

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Re: max processor speed supported on motherboard
Aug 17, 2004 7:35AM PDT

Try downloading aida32 (freeware) it will give you the model and version of your mobo, bios, cpu and everything else and will provide links directly to the websites, including driver and bios downloads. Great software. Do a google on aida32 and you will find it.

Good luck.

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Do as I do with my 1700+
Aug 17, 2004 8:26AM PDT

on the ASUS. IF your mobo BIOS supports setting the memory bus in 1 MHz steps. Mine allows for Manual setting as an option.

Start at 100 MHz memory bus speed [even if you have PC 133 memory]. See if it runs at each 1 MHz step. When you get too high the system will not boot and you will have to reset your BIOS to the default [by the jumpers on the mobo] so the system will boot. Just set the memory speed to the last value that worked. At boot you should see what the CPU is running at. It'll be the fixed multiplier of the CPU times the Memory bus frequency. Doesn't hurt the CPU in any way. Actually should be extremely stable.

Make sure that you cool the new CPU adequately. It'll consume much more power and thus get hotter. Might overtax your Power Supply.

One confusing issue is that, with most mobo's, is that as you step up from 100 towards 133, the PCI [33 MHz]and AGP [66 MHz] busses increase speed proportionately. If you get to 133 the PCI and AGP go back to 33 and 66.

Thus while increasing frequency, the failure to run might be caused by a PCI card or your video card rather than the CPU not running. No easy way to be sure without substitute components.

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Generally if the mobo design was qualified before
Aug 17, 2004 6:32AM PDT

these higher speed CPU's were developed the only way is to try. There is no way for the mfr to know.

I have an ASUS A7V133 that will not let my XP 1700+ run at full 133 MHz memory bus speed. But a large percentage of people have that mobo running a 1700+ successfully.

It can vary with the Rev of the mobo and the memory and simply the quality of the printed circuits on that specific mobo.

Best chance would be to go to the forums at www.tomshardware.com or anandtech and ask there. There are a lot of overclockers in that forum that may have tried it. It does seem like a big jump though.