Yes, thanks for the reply.

I have got the same problem. Here is my dmesg
[xpedition@localhost xpedition]$ dmesg
Linux version 2.4.22-10mdk (nplanel@no.mandrakesoft.com) (gcc version 3.3.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.2 3.3.1-2mdk)) #1 Thu Sep 18 12:30:58 CEST 2003
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000001fffc000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000001fffc000 - 000000001ffff000 (ACPI data)
BIOS-e820: 000000001ffff000 - 0000000020000000 (ACPI NVS)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
511MB LOWMEM available.
ACPI: have wakeup address 0xc0001000
On node 0 totalpages: 131068
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 126972 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
ASUS P4B266 detected: force use of acpi=ht
ACPI: RSDP (v000 ASUS ) @ 0x000f8cd0
ACPI: RSDT (v001 ASUS P4B266LA 0x42302e31 MSFT 0x31313031) @ 0x1fffc000
ACPI: FADT (v001 ASUS P4B266LA 0x42302e31 MSFT 0x31313031) @ 0x1fffc100
ACPI: BOOT (v001 ASUS P4B266LA 0x42302e31 MSFT 0x31313031) @ 0x1fffc040
ACPI: MADT (v001 ASUS P4B266LA 0x42302e31 MSFT 0x31313031) @ 0x1fffc080
ACPI: DSDT (v001 ASUS P4B266LA 0x00001000 MSFT 0x0100000b) @ 0x00000000
ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000
ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x00] lapic_id[0x00] enabled)
Processor #0 Pentium 4(tm) APIC version 20
ACPI: LAPIC_NMI (acpi_id[0x00] polarity[0x1] trigger[0x1] lint[0x1])
Building zonelist for node : 0
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=linux ro root=305 devfs=mount hdc=ide-scsi acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent
ide_setup: hdc=ide-scsi
bootsplash: silent mode.
Found and enabled local APIC!
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 1793.394 MHz processor.
Console: colour dummy device 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 3578.26 BogoMIPS
Memory: 514692k/524272k available (1508k kernel code, 9192k reserved, -1961k data, 156k init, 0k highmem, 0k BadRAM)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: Trace cache: 12K uops, L1 D cache: 8K
CPU: L2 cache: 256K
Intel machine check architecture supported.
Intel machine check reporting enabled on CPU#0.
CPU: After generic, caps: 3febfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 3febfbff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz stepping 02
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Enabling unmasked SIMD FPU exception support... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enabling vector: 00000000
ESR value after enabling vector: 00000000
Using local APIC timer interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 1793.3087 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 99.6280 MHz.
cpu: 0, clocks: 996280, slice: 498140
CPU0<T0:996272,T1:498128,D:4,S:498140,C:996280>
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
ACPI: Subsystem revision 20030813
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xf1060, last bus=2
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: ACPI tables contain no PCI IRQ routing entries
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Enabled i801 SMBus device
Transparent bridge - Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB/EB PCI Bridge
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX [8086/2440] at 00:1f.0
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.3
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1f.5
isapnp: Scanning for PnP cards...
isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x0b (Driver version 1.16)
Starting kswapd
kinoded started
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
devfs: v1.12c (20020818) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
devfs: boot_options: 0x1
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xf6000000, mapped to 0xe0800000, size 1875k
vesafb: mode is 800x600x16, linelength=1600, pages=3
vesafb: protected mode interface info at c000:03c5
vesafb: scrolling: redraw
vesafb: directcolor: size=0:5:6:5, shift=0:11:5:0
Looking for splash picture.... silenjpeg size 107888 bytes, found (800x600, 107840 bytes, v3).
Got silent jpeg.
Got silent jpeg.
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 92x32
fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
pty: 1024 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI ISAPNP enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 32000K size 1024 blocksize
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ICH2: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:1f.1
ICH2: chipset revision 5
ICH2: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xb800-0xb807, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xb808-0xb80f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: SAMSUNG SV8004H, ATA DISK drive
blk: queue c0180d20, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
hdc: Hewlett-Packard CD-Writer cd16f, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-616F, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 156368016 sectors (80060 MB) w/1945KiB Cache, CHS=10341/240/63, UDMA(100)
Partition check:
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 p3 < p5 p6 p7 >
ide: late registration of driver.
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP, IGMP
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
Linux IP multicast router 0.06 plus PIM-SM
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
Resume Machine: This is normal swap space
Swsusp 1.0.3: kswsuspd starting
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 299k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Mounted devfs on /dev
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Mounted devfs on /dev
Freeing unused kernel memory: 156k freed
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 12:42:04 Sep 18 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Assigned IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.2
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.2 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xb400, IRQ 9
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.4
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 02:0b.0
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.4 to 64
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0xb000, IRQ 9
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usbdevfs: remount parameter error
usb.c: registered new driver usblp
printer.c: v0.11: USB Printer Device Class driver
hub.c: new USB device 00:1f.2-1, assigned address 2
usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x4a7/0x229) is not claimed by any active driver.
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,5), internal journal
Adding Swap: 536720k swap-space (priority -1)
hub.c: new USB device 00:1f.2-2, assigned address 3
printer.c: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 3 if 0 alt 0 proto 2 vid 0x043D pid 0x0021
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
hdc: attached ide-scsi driver.
scsi0 : SCSI host adapter emulation for IDE ATAPI devices
Vendor: HP Model: CD-Writer cd16f Rev: 1.1D
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
hdd: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hdd: ATAPI 40X DVD-ROM drive, 512kB Cache, UDMA(33)
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3 FS 2.4-0.9.19, 19 August 2002 on ide0(3,7), internal journal
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
NTFS driver 2.1.4a [Flags: R/O MODULE].
NTFS volume version 3.1.
ohci1394: $Rev$ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 02:09.0
ohci1394_0: OHCI-1394 1.0 (PCI): IRQ=[9] MMIO=[f3000000-f30007ff] Max Packet=[2048]
ieee1394: Host added: ID:BUS[0-00:1023] GUID[0020e5000002d003]
eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://www.scyld.com/network/eepro100.html
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin <saw@saw.sw.com.sg> and others
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 02:08.0
eth0: Intel Corp. 82801BA/BAM/CA/CAM Ethernet Controller, 00:E0:18:4C:14:B9, IRQ 9.
Board assembly 000000-000, Physical connectors present: RJ45
Primary interface chip i82555 PHY #1.
General self-test: passed.
Serial sub-system self-test: passed.
Internal registers self-test: passed.
ROM checksum self-test: passed (0x04f4518b).
inserting floppy driver for 2.4.22-10mdk
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a National Semiconductor PC87306
Attached scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
sr0: scsi3-mmc drive: 40x/40x writer cd/rw xa/form2 cdda tray
sr0: mmc-3 profile capable, current profile: 0h
sr0: mmc-3 profile: 0h
sr0: mmc-3 profile: 0h
sr0: mmc-3 profile: 0h
sr0: mmc-3 profile: 0h
Installing knfsd (copyright (C) 1996 okir@monad.swb.de).
Intel 810 + AC97 Audio, version 0.24, 12:41:23 Sep 18 2003
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 00:1f.5
PCI: Sharing IRQ 9 with 00:1f.3
PCI: Setting latency timer of device 00:1f.5 to 64
i810: Intel ICH2 found at IO 0xa400 and 0xa800, MEM 0x0000 and 0x0000, IRQ 9
i810_audio: Audio Controller supports 6 channels.
i810_audio: Defaulting to base 2 channel mode.
i810_audio: Resetting connection 0
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: ADS96 (Analog Devices AD1885)
i810_audio: AC'97 codec 0 Unable to map surround DAC's (or DAC's not present), total channels = 2
parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778) [PCSPP,TRISTATE,EPP]
parport0: irq 7 detected
lp0: using parport0 (polling).
CSLIP: code copyright 1989 Regents of the University of California
PPP generic driver version 2.4.2
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 0 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 1 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 2 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 3 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 4 changed to on
Looking for splash picture.... found (800x600, 14470 bytes, v3).
Splash status on console 5 changed to on
0: nvidia: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 NVIDIA Kernel Module 1.0-5336 Wed Jan 14 18:29:26 PST 2004
Linux agpgart interface v0.99 (c) Jeff Hartmann
agpgart: Maximum main memory to use for agp memory: 439M
agpgart: Detected Intel i845 chipset
agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xf8000000
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
[xpedition@localhost xpedition]$

Please look it over and tell me what those strange messages mean :)

I am assuming you mean these lines?

..... CPU clock speed is 1793.3087 MHz.
..... host bus clock speed is 99.6280 MHz.

ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx

Host bus clock speed is also the one that has me worried. The guys here believe that it is merely the multiplier for the bus, or rather the "base" clock speed of the bus. I haven't found anything to prove that otherwise.

PIO modes are an old transfer method for hard drives. Since your using UDMA this is not a problem.

The pentium 4 series of processors uses a quad pumped f.s.b. This is where it sends four signals per clock. e.g. A 400 f.s.b P4. will need a host bus speed of 100 mhz. A 533 f.s.b p4. would need a host bus of 133 and so on. This is why some mother boards will only work with certain chips. Anyway, google around for the term ¨quad pumped bus¨ . you will soon get all the verification you need.
cheers.

FSB and other speeds
 

The bus speed is 400MHz because it is "quadpumped" from 100MHz to 400. This is similar with DDR. That is why 400 (100MHz) and 533 (133MHz) FSB processors can run with PC-100 and PC-133 ram. Basically, this is what every P4 system does, and it's not bad. Because the FSB was reported to be at ~99MHz, which is practically 100MHz, you're fine.

The motherboard uses a "divider" for each other bus. There are multipliers, too (FSB × CPU multiplier = CPU speed; i.e. 100MHz × 20 multiplier = 2GHz CPU, 400MHz bus if it's a P4). The PCI divider is set to 3 for 100MHz FSBs (effectively reaching ~33.3MHz for the PCI bus) and 1.5 for the AGP bus.

Motherboards have worked like this for a long time, and they continue to work like that. Multipliers and dividers do not affect performance because even if they do, we have no systems without multipliers and dividers to use as benchmark standards to see that we're doing something wrong. This is one of the reasons for why you have the northbridge and southbridge chipsets.

You have checked that your FSB is all right because you have found out that it is working at a native 100MHz FSB, effecitvely 400MHz (QDR), and your motherboard showed that you have a 33MHz bus, so that was for the PCI slots because you can't have two buses for one component.

By the way, I was looking for PCI bus transfer rates on Yahoo when I stumbled upon this forum. I apologize to all whose posts came before mine. I scrolled down to the bottom of the page, registered, and posted a reply without looking at the latest posts.

I have done that too.

:D :D :D :D

I love hardware.