New BIOS defaults to 2800? Hmm.
coldcuttin said:
as a last resort i updated my motherboard bios for the first time,this automatically dropped my cpu to 1.83 GHz & it worked fine..
(...)
Is this how cpu's die...gradually losing power or do they just go pop like i thought they did?
You updated the BIOS and it defaulted back to 1.83MHz? Hmm. Very interesting.
CPU's don't die "gradually". I have an old K6 266 that I overclocked to 300 that has been running rock steady for nearly a decade. I had an 1800+ that went poof (literally!) in a puff of smoke when it overheated (heatsink goo squirted out the sides under the heatsink and onto the MoBo. And my current 3200+ was damaged after two internal power spikes (now running hot but okay at 3200 if I don't push it).
If *by default* your BIOS is recognizing it as a "2800+", you've got a "2800+". It might have been a 3200+ when you bought it (which I now question), but the damage has permanently disabled it back to "2800+".
There isn't much difference between the "2800+" and the "3200+" Athlon XP cpu's. Both have the Barton core with 400MHz FSB. Every one of them came off *the same* assembly line. Then they stress-tested them. Those that were stable with a 16x200MHz multiplier/FSB became 3200's. Those that couldn't handle more than 16x166MHz were turned into 2800's. Waste not, want not. And I've always susected some "borderline" 3200 XP's tested okay then but didn't "stay" stable.
Download "
CPU-Z" (free) and see what it thinks you have. Have your system set for "3200". The software will say you have a "
2500" even if you have a "3200" if you run the program while "underclocked". But if you are "overclocked", it'll know it. It "should" be able to tell you whether of not you have a true 3200 or just an overclocked 2800.
Of course, as a last resort, you might end up needing to *physically* inspect the cpu (I know. Putting the heatsink back it a major pain and if not done right... *poof*) but it might end up being the only way to *truely* know if you have a "real" 3200. However, if at the default settings your BIOS is saying you have a 2800, then you have a 2800... no matter what it was when you bought it.
Here is my own thread on this very subject almost exactly one year ago right here on TechSpot. As it turned out, my "3200" was indeed a fake and I was lucky enough to have returned it in time for a replacement.
Here is about the only surviving thread on the subject of counterfeit 3200's that I can still find with photos, and fortunately, the photos are very good.
Fake 3200 (brown PCB.
Fake 3200 (green PCB.
A *real* 3200.
You can identify a "modified" 2800 by
the black soldier marks on the L3 and L12 bridges in the upper left corner. L5 is a bit tricker to distinuish since even *real* 3200's have a black "burn" stripe on them.
I've recently learned that just because you bought the 3200 "boxed", if you bought it online, it may still be a fake. Apparently, some unscrupulous vendors repacked and sold counterfeit 2800's as 32's (today AMD's marks all boxes with a hologram sticker, IIRC).
Hope this helps.
