Pentium II Upgrade Problem

[eganwh]

I have an old Gateway G-6 233 system which I am making modest upgrades
on. System is a P2 233-mhz with Intel AL440LX Chipset. OS is Win95/ME
Upgrade. Here's what I have done so far:

1) Upgraded Gateway BIOS from 4A4LL0X0.15A.0013.P10 to most current
Gateway BIOS available (0023.P18). The new BIOS number is now
displayed during boot, so I assume this was successful.
2) Upgraded SDRAM to 192-mb from original 64-mb. Windows recognized
the additional memory.
3) Upgraded slot 1 P2 processor from P2 233-mhz to a P2 300-mhz. The
original P2 233 processor has a spec #SL28K and the new P2 300 has a
spec #SL28R. Both processors have a C0 stepping code as well as 512-kb
cache and 66-mhz bus speed.

Step 3 is where I ran into a problem. After installing the new 300-mhz
processor, I changed the J8B2 jumper to the 2/3 pin position to get
into the configure mode. Powered up, setup executed after the POST
run, I changed the processor speed from 233 to 300, exited the setup,
and saved the changes. I powered down as instructed, changed the
jumper back to the 1/2 pin position and rebooted. During the boot, the
BIOS displayed my chip speed as 200-mhz. I repeated the procedure
several times, but each time the 200-mhz processor speed was displayed
during boot. I also tried setting the speed to 266-mhz using this
procedure and 200-mhz was again displayed.

I then replaced the new P2 with the original 233-mhz P2 and tried
different speed settings using the configure procedure. All settings
for the original processor resulted in the 200-mhz displayed during
boot except the 233-mhz setting resulted in 233-mhz displayed. The
motherboard manual states this board supports all P2 processors in
speeds of 233, 266, 300, and 333. These four speed options are
available when in the configure mode.

Did I do something wrong, or is the 200-mhz speed displayed during boot
just a cosmetic problem and the actual processor speed is 300-mhz? Can
I clock the processor speed somehow to determine the actual speed?
Thanks for any input.

 

[Pen]

Set it up with the 300 and then go into windows control panel and
click the system icon;. CPU speed should be there on the 1st page.
Or use SiSoft Sandra or similar to analyze your system. You can check
this way
what is really going on. The BIOS doesn't really measure CPU speed,
rather it identifies it based on an identifier on the chip.

 

[w-egan]

The Win-ME System page identifies only the processor as Pentium II - no
frequency included. Is this a Win-ME functionality limitation, or is
there a way to "turn on" frequency detection?

I will give the Sandra SiSoft a shot and report back.

Thanks for the help.
w-

 

[Pen]

Must be ME, my XP has it, but my wife's 2k doesn't.
Sorry about that. Sandra here;
http://www.sisoftware.net/http://www.sisoftware.net/

 

[Mike Walsh]

I believe that the speed displayed is the speed the processor is running. If you select a speed that will not work the 200 Mhz default speed is used instead. There are utilities that can show the actual processor speed, or you can time how long it takes processor intensive programs, e.g. SETI or MP3 encoding, to run.

 

[w-egan]

That is basically what I found. I ran a simple system utility
(wcpuid.exe) and the processor speed was showing the slower value. The
odd thing is the multiplier was correct, but the system bus speed was
lowered from 66.6 (expected value) to 24.3 (actual). Weird.

I believe that the speed displayed is the speed the processor is

running. If you select a speed that will not work the 200 Mhz default
speed is used instead. There are utilities that can show the actual
processor speed, or you can time how long it takes processor intensive
programs, e.g. SETI or MP3 encoding, to run.