Biostar Viotech 3100

[Just_tweak_it]

I have this passively cooled motherboard from Biostar. I contacted them about a question that I had regarding cooling, but they have yet to respond. They probably never will.

It contains a VIA C7-D 1.8 processor, but on their website they say it is a 1.6+ Ghz. Is there a reason that they are lowering the operating frequency? Is it due to the passive cooling?

Unfortunately I've always been loading the "optimal defaults" in the BIOS which puts the processor at its max speed of 1.8
I never noticed any strange behavior that would make me think it was over heating. Do you think the processor was damaged? Should I put it back down to 1.6? I had no idea how to change the speed, and only recently found the ratio setting and played around with it until I got it to show 1.6. I discovered that I could even take it down to 800Mhz. I wish there was a way to attach a fan or a different heatsink, but with these processors there really isn't a socket, or mounting bracket. The included heatsink is attached with push pins.

[Gizmo]

IIRC, when the C7-D was released it topped out at 1.6 GHz, with the later releases eventually getting up to 2 GHz. I suspect this is just a case of BioStar building a mobo and then putting whatever they could get into it. Don't forget, these mobos were designed as bargain-basement, cheap-as-chips, use-it-till-it-breaks-then-throw-it-away products.

If your CPU is a 1.8 and the BIOS sets it up that way, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Just_tweak_it]

I'm trying to find out the temp specs on the processor, and maybe then I can decide how well the passive heatsink is cooling.