CPU HTT frequency declocking

[Furr]

Well I've been fiddling around with my Athlon 64 Venice 3200, the normal HTT speed is 200mhz, with a 10x mulitiplier.

I had it running at 230mhz for a while, but since yesterday every time i check it using CPU-z etc when i boot into windows its at 193mhz, I then reset it to 200

Have checked the BIOS settings and the speeds and they are all normal.. question is, if the chip is damaged will it automatically slow down? this then means its probably reaching the end of its life? Just need feedback on if that's the case.

Unfortunately I have a 939 socket mobo, so upgrading is nothing something i'm intending to do till August.

 

[Kryten]

Not really, the only thing that will have that effect is thermal throttling.
At end of life, processors tend to just "stop" working how you were using them. If it runs fine at a lower frequency, it's probably well on it's way out.
Those proc's are going for around a fiver on ebay if you time your bids well enough, so might be worth chipping in (no pun intended) for one until you can get a full replacement.

 

[Furr]

actually just got myself a dual core 939! then had a slight splurge and bought another graphics card so I can SLI the two,might turn thermal throttling off see what happens

I have a big arse cooler on the chip, but admittedly i did use bog standard thermal paste... need to get some silvery stuff. Might let the computer cool down and see what happens.

 

[Kryten]

Oooh, bonus

Thats one of the troubles with ebay, I look to find something as a replacement and ending up spending more money on something better

Theres not *all* much difference between el-cheapo thermal goop and £10-for-just-enough-to-cover-a-pin-head stuff like Arctic Silver, so don't fret about that.

 

[Furr]

While I wait for my new PC bits, i'm still wondering on this problem with the speeds on my current rig. Now What I think might be happening is maybe one of the many silly apps, Motherboard over clocking app, Ntune etc, maybe changing the clock speed on Windows load up, short of dumping in another hard drive with another OS on to check this are their any DOS based apps I could stick on a BootCD to check this that you know of?

 

[Kryten]

you mean to check the clock speeds and what not?

Only one I know of is PC Check by Eurosoft, but that's because I use it at work, i'm sure there's more around though :/

I'm also sure nTune has a hotkey switch to disable any overclocking - something like holding down control whilst windows explorer starts?

 

[Furr]

Well I think I've solved it, looks like it was nTune as some errant files somewhere, so when i changed the clock there and saved it, it would stay at that speed on start up... hmmm. Ah well.