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Wrong Processor Speed reported from bios

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by craig_carman

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I have two of my older computers that I noticed now (perhaps not always) indicate a slower than actual processor speed at start up. Diff brands of motherboard and bios. One is an AMD/2 450 and the other is a Intel P-233. They now show 250 and 133respectively and feel like they are operating at the slower speed. No bios settings have been changed since normal operation. Why? What is the fix?

9 replies

by derek.harlan

I cant explain what could of caused this, but the only thing I can tell you to do is to get the jumper positions for the proc(s) from either the manuals, or find them online from the motherboards manufactures, and verifiy that the jumper settings are correct.

by bohicam1

Can you reset the speeds in the cmos yourself? Do they go back to the slower speed after a reboot? Try replacing the motherboard batteries in each.
Good luck!

Mike

by craig_carman

Most reasonable answer. In fact, exactly what I thought myself. Results: I replaced cmos battery in each, neither has cmos speed setting, one remained at 250mhz (almost sure it was a 450mhz) and has began hanging so it may have another problem, the other consistently shows correct 400mhz on start and seems to be fine now. Thanks

by twistypigeon

I have a K6/2 366 that reports as 350 on my machine at home. The processor speed is directly determined by the bus speed and the multiplier. In order to get a 350MHz processor clock speed u use a 100MHz bus and a 3.5 multiplier. In these are the settings that the BIOS picks up and uses on the boot up screen.
Your motherboard will most likely have the physical pin jumpers where you move a tiny connector across certain pins to set the bos speed and the multiplier. Ensure that they are in the correct locations according to the motherboard documentation.
As a check about the usable speed of the machines, (I'm assuming here your using Windows!!!) boot the machine normally, and once you're in Windows, hold the Windows key and press Break. Thiswill bring up the system properties. On the first tab, Windows will show you how fast it thinks the processor is running. This can sometimes be different. My 450MHz K6/3 is reported as a K6/2 400 in BIOS, but is a 450 in Windows...

Regards!

by craig_carman

Good Answer since it taught me that Windows-Break shortcut. I never knew that. How many millions of times have I opened the control panel needlessly to get to the device list? As far as jumpers these boxes are a couple years old and no jumper changes have been made to cause the change I saw. A new CMOS battery fixed one box the other must have other problems. Thanks

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