Memory slots on Intel DG33FB

Bought this motherboard for Rs 4500 from Lamington road (jan 2008).

How to convert Single channel to Dual channel memory.

The chipset on your motherboard should support Dual Channel Memory. You need to buy two memory modules. With two similar memory modules, you have to install each memory module on a different channel on your motherboard. The best way to avoid errors is to find sockets 1 and 3 and install the modules there. The motherboard guide may help two as there is no standar when it comes to the colors used for memory slots/channels.

How to calculate how fast your PC really is.

The advertised clock rate isn't the real external CPU clock. For example, Athlon XP 3200+ is said to have a 400 MHz external clock, but in fact its clock rate is 200 MHz transfering two data per clock, making it a processor with a performance similar if the CPU used an external 400 MHz clock but transfering just one data per clock.

Intel CPUs use a technique called QDR or Quad Data Rate, which transfers four data per clock cycle. With this technique the CPU achieves an external performance four times greater than if it was transfering just one data chunk. Because of that, the clock advertised by Intel is four times greater than the real clock used by the CPU. It is still a mystery whether the very high-end 1,066 MHz CPU uses a 400 MHz x 4 bus or a 200 MHz x 8 bus configuration. Maybe the latter, due to the physical difficulties involved in increasing the CPU external clock rate. So, a Pentium 4 processor with 533 MHz bus runs at 133 MHz but achieves a performance "as if" it was running at 533 MHz.


Double Data Rate (DDR). With this technique the CPU transfers two data per clock cycle, doubling the performance of the bus since usually just one data is tranfered per clock tick.

External Clock" is the clock speed advertised by the manufacturer, while "Real Clock" is the real clock signal speed used by the CPU.

Since it is hard do compare clocks when you don't know how much data is transferred per time, it is better to know the maximum transfer rate, given in megabytes per second. The formula to calculate it is rather simple:

Real clock x number of data transferred per clock x 64 divided by 8.

64 is used because the CPU communicates with the memory 64 bits per time, and we have to divide by eight to have the result in bytes.

Example- 400 X 2 X 64/8 = 6400 MB/s

Or else use CPU-Z software (downloaded as cpuz.exe on 31 jan 08)

Run it and check the external clock speed of your CPU on the "Bus Speed" field and check what is its maximum transfer rate.

How RAM speed slows down your PC

The system RAM memory prevents the PC of achieving its maximum capable performance. This happens because the processor (CPU) is faster than RAM memory and usually it has to wait for the RAM memory to deliver data. During this wait time the CPU is idle, doing nothing. Nowadays with processors running over 3 GHz, RAM memory is still stuck at 400 MHz (actually less than that as we will explain below).

Many years ago one idea was created to match CPU speed with memory speed, which is used until today. The processor has two speeds, one internal – which is the one labeled on the CPU, like 3 GHz, 3.2 GHz and so on – and one external, used to access the CPU's outside world, specially RAM.

But even with this technique the speeds don't match. Intel CPUs available today run externally at 400 MHz, 533 MHz, 800 MHz or even 1,066 MHz, while the RAM speed is still stuck at 800 MHz.

Dual Channel Memory can help improve the RAM speed, because this technique doubles it. In order to use Dual Channel Memory, your motherboard has to be capable of supporting this technique and you will also need two equal memory modules.

DDR Dual Channel

Note: With Dual Channel the memory speed doubles.

Memory Speeds

How to check the power supply (SMPS) of a computer.

To check the power supply without the motherboard- Short the green and any black wire. The fan should start rotating.

Technical explaination- Attach a fan on one of the 4 pin molex. On the 20 or 24 pin ATX power connector, short the pin that has the GREEN wire with any adjacent pin that has the BLACK wire. Attched fan and PSU fan should spin. You can test the +3.3V and +5V rails with a multimeter. Pins with the Orange wire carry +3.3V while RED carry +5V.

Power Supply Connectors

The board has the following power supply connectors: (4 pin connector)
1 Ground
2 Ground
3 +12 V
4 +12 V

Main Power
1 +3.3 V
2 +3.3 V
3 Ground
4 +5 V
5 Ground
6 +5 V
7 Ground
8 PWRGD (Power Good)
9 +5 V (Standby)
10 +12 V
11 +12 V (note)
12 2 x 12 connector detect
13 +3.3 V
14 -12 V
15 Ground
16 PS-ON# (power supply remote on/off)
17 Ground
18 Ground
19 Ground
20 No connect
21 +5 V
22 +5 V
23 +5 V (Note)
24 Ground (Note)

Note- i think these are not connected when using a 20 pin connector inside a 24 pin.

Note: When using a 2 x 10 power supply cable, this pin will be unconnected.

NTLDR is missing

NTLDR is missing- Never tried this simplest of steps: If you have access to another machine with WinXP, just to copy these three files from their system onto a floppy:
NTLDR
NTDETECT
boot.ini.

All of these files are hidden and located in the root c:\ directory. Then boot to the floppy and the system will start into Windows. You can then replace NTLDR with the one from the floppy disk.

Options 2-
If you only have your system, you may do the same thing using the recovery console.

Copy NTLDR and NTDETECT from i386 on the XP CD, and copy boot.ini from your root directory (remember it is hidden). Then boot and replace "missing" file.

Keep this floppy around, you have just made a form of an XP boot disk

((This has been taken from one of the PC Forums))

Problems after buying a New Motherboard.

If you change the motherboard/processor and RAM on your system, while retaining your older hard drive (containing your data), the system may not boot. Microsoft says that when you change the configuration of your PC, you may need to reload your OS.

This issue maybe caused because of the registry entries and the drivers for the mass storage controller hardware. For integrated device electronics (IDE) controllers, there are several different chip sets available, such as Intel, VIA, and Promise. Each chip set has a different Plug-n-Play identifier (PnP-ID). The PnP-ID information of mass storage controllers for the new computer must be in the registry before startup so that Windows XP can initialize the correct drivers.

(One more explaination- If the hard drive already has Windows installed, it wont work on a new motherboard. This is because it will still have the old mobo drivers on it and will make the Windows intallation incompatible with the new mobo)).

More information on "You receive a Stop 0x0000007B error after you move the Windows XP system disk to another computer serial- id-314082"

How to move a Windows installation to different hardware Article ID : 249694

You can restore a system state backup from one physical computer to the same physical computer or another computer that has the same make, model, and configuration (identical hardware).

Microsoft does not support restoring a system state backup from one computer to a second computer of a different make, model, or hardware configuration. Microsoft will only provide commercially reasonable efforts to support this process. Even if the source and destination computers appear to be identical makes and models, there may be driver, hardware, or firmware differences between the source and destination computers.

This article describes how to create a system state backup on one computer and restore it to the same computer or to a different physical computer of the same make and model.

Mass storage device is your hard drive. The STOP error is complaining that there is no accessible bootable mass storage device. That usually indicates that it is missing a necessary driver.

Newly assembled PC not powering on.

Bought the following components on 23rd Jan 2008 from Lamington Road:

Intel DG33FB motherboard (Rs 4500)
2 GB transcend 800 mhz ddr2 ram (Rs 1700)
Intel core 2 duo 1333 mhz 2.33 ghz e6550 (Rs 7000)
logitech keyboard (Rs200)
Frontech optical mouse (Rs 150)
Iball cabinet Super engine x (Rs 1450)

The newly assembled PC wont power on. It seemed that the power supply was bad as nothing moved when the multimeter was connected. However the flea power on the motherboard was on.

While testing the power supply, you have to short two cables to check if the fan starts rotating. This is how you check a power supply without connecting it to the motherboard. One should not power on the SMPS without connecting any load to it. Connecting CD DVD as load wont help because the motors do not rotate continuously.

Suspicion pointed towards the way the front panel connectors were connected. The mistake was with the power switch connector. It was connected to the power led connector pins. This meant that when the power switch was pressed, the pins 6 and 8 weren't shorted and the circuit was never complete. Changed the position of the front panel power switch to the right pins on the motherboard. Issue resolved.