Hi,

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Do some load testing, fire all ports in a progressive load test, slowly increase from 0 to 100%, the SIS machine will freeze or crash at a little over 40%, the VIA machine will probably drop the partition at approx 50%.
The intel machine will start to show signs of stress at about 80% but not crash.
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Don't think I'll have time to configure these four machines to obtain a meaningful comparison. These guys didn't seem to identify any real problems though : http://www.digit-life.com/articles/p4fsb533/

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If you think it is such good gear, why are you asking us why you are receiving weird readings in the system console.
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I'm asking why I'm receiving weird readings in the system console because I think it's such good gear <g>. In fact I've never claimed any of my machines to be 'such good gear' - just that all (except the new purchase) are perfectly adequate for my needs and show no noticeable differences in performance or reliability dependent on chipset.

Sticking to the machine in question I can find no references to indicate that the choice of chipset (or a faulty chipset) can result in a slower CPU speed. If you believe the chipset may be to blame can you point me to any supporting evidence.

On the other hand, the following snip from a Dell forum seems to indicate that XP SP2 may (odd as it seems) play a hand in this:

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I have exactly the same experience. Brand new 1150, XP Home. SP2 was the full version downloaded from Microsoft. After installation which went with no problems, System Properties reports the CPU as Celeron(R) CPU 2.40GHz 287MHz. From what I understand, 287MHz is a measured speed. It certainly behaves as if it's a 287MHz machine! ....
Uninstalling gets the machine back to full speed, a measred 2.4GHz.
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Regards,
Viv