Need tech advice...

E

elil

New member
I currently have an Athalon XP 2600 chip in my computer (I think 1.1ghz?). I run Sonar 4 Producer now, and I'm trying to improve overall stability as well as latency if possible. I would ideally like to upgrade to a 64bit chip w/ over 2.0ghz, but don't see that in my budget right now. However; recently I found an AMB Duron 1.8GHz[192K Cache / 266MHz FSB] for $30 that will fit my current Socket A slot. I just want to find out if this is going to offer me a worthwhile improvement over my current machine or if the drop to a Duron chip would eliminate the advantage of processer speed. The deal ends on SUN 4/17, so any urgency is appreciated. Thanx!

I've got 512MB DDR3200, ATA hard drives, Win XP SP2, and i'm currently using a DELTA 1010LT if that makes a difference.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...CatId=255&SRCCODE=WEBRB234&CMP=EMC-TIGEREMAIL
 
Thank you for all of your help. I must not have the CPU Model right, but I know it runs at 1.1... but 2.2 w/ 400 isn't bad for $80! The only probably I forsee is overheating. My current chip running at factory settings is always around 57°. I've got a silent fan blowing in and one blowing out, I also have a silent power supply. Silence is definately prefered; however, the room I'm in is usually pretty hot. Can I overclock if I have a silent cpu fan? I thought they weren't as powerful.
 
The mobile XPs don't require high voltages to overclock so they stay cooler than regular XPs. Mine runs at 1.65 volts and the temp stays around 32c. I also have a quiet heatsink fan and one case fan. The temp does run a bit hotter in the summer due to a lack of air conditioning in my house but it stays below 40c.
 
Arg... I just got the CPU (the mobile XP 2400 that ocnor recommended) and a new cooling fan this weekend. However, I forgot to check if my MOBO was capable of OCing. I ended up putting the chip in and it ran at only 600mhz! I went to the bios and was able to change the stepping up to about 122 and ram speed to 200mhz before it started to crash.... and this was only getting me a little higher than 700hmz. I searched everywhere and wasn't able to find core voltage or any way to reset those settings. I've got a SOYO Dragon KT400 (I think, it's a mobo that came with a barebones deal I got a while back). Unless anyone might know if SOYO uses a jumper for that, I'm gonna have to send the CPU back. =(

However, I was able to step up the speed on my current CPU to 1.38mhz, and it's running at 50-60°... is that a problem?
 
Check your bios under "Soyo Combo feature". You should find all of the settings in there for overclocking. You will need to raise the multiplier to 11x to reach 2.2 GHZ. Try raising the multiplier and the voltage a little at a time to avoid crashing. I'm not sure whether you will be able to get higher than 333 FSB with that MOBO.
 
=( No luck. BIOS is the screen you can get to by hitting DEL during setup, right? If so, I saw no SOYO Combo feature menu. I was able to find a screen w/ vcore settings, but they're all disabled from manual changes. No multiplier in sight, but I was able to change the stepping to 122 w/out crashing (on a scale of 100-132). There was another screen w/ RAM speeds and latency, and I chaged that from the defaul 100 to 200mhz as well as latency from 2.5 to 1.5ms.

I think my MOBO was never really meant for OCing. I'm really just about spent with all of the costs for construction in my studio, and don't really have any money left in the budget. Does anyone have any suggestions on a inexpensive MOBO that can handle this chip properly, and have atleast 3 or 4 PCI slots?
 
I actually just found a REFURBISHED: ABIT AN7 Socket A (Socket 462) NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 ATX AMD Motherboard for $53 including shipping! I've been doing some research today, and found this one will do the trick too. + It has onboard firewire, and supposedly S/PDIF ins and outs too. I'm probably gonna order this one. Ocnor, thanks for all of your help... if it'd allow me to give you any more rep points I would!
 
Wow... I put the chip and mobo in last week and was shocked to get up to 2.41ghz running completely stable and cool (30°!!!) :eek: .

So I set all the mics up in the studio on Sunday and started doing some live recordings... they really sound phenomial. W/ the Delta 1010LT and this processor I'm able to record 96khz 24bit 8 track live for 45min+ (probably would've went longer if I wasn't so anxious to start mixing).

Either way, it came out great, and with the new 2.41ghz chip I can drop all of the compressions, eqs, verbs, sends, and everything I've wanted to make my recording sound great. I even have it set up to record additional guitar overdubs direct into an amp simulator and play along in realtime!

Thank you so much for your help... I recommend the AMD Mobile chips to anyone... it only cost me $120 total to upgrade the chip and mobo to this awesome speed!
 
It sounds like you got a good one! I'm glad everything worked out for you. What voltage did you use to get it running that fast?
 
I think it was 1.85v at 12x and 200 for the FSB. I only had one lock up last night when I really overloaded on effects (the sound kept playing but the program wouldn't respond)... I think I had top of the line compressors running on each track and multiple instances on the guitars. It sounded bad-ass for all 5 min until I noticed nothing on the screen was moving.

+ I've gotten into this bad habit of mastering while mixing, by droping the final EQs and compression on the master to hear what it sounds like in the end. It eats up CPU power to do that, but once you've heard it it's hard to go back.

Once again, thanx for all of the advice!
 
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