The front side bus is the connection between the central processing unit and the rest of the computer. The speed of the front side bus determines the fastest data can travel from your CPU and other components, such as RAM, hard drives and video cards. A fast front side bus ensures many parallel avenues of information between your CPU and the various components inside your machine. Checking the speed of your front side bus can be useful in determining what kind of CPU to purchase for an upgrade.
Instructions
1. Power up your computer and enter the BIOS, a basic system that manages your hardware configuration. You can enter the BIOS by holding either the "F2" or "Del" key during the first few seconds of bootup. The exact key to press depends on your BIOS manufacturer. If you don't know what key to press, read the text that your computer displays right when it boots. It should say something like "Hit x key to enter setup," where x is the key you need to press to access the BIOS.
2. Navigate to the "Advanced Chipset Features" page of your BIOS using the arrow keys on your keyboard. Depending on your BIOS, this page may also be called "Advanced".
3. Look for the letters "FSB." They will be part of a sentence like "Adjust CPU FSB Frequency" or "FSB Reference Clock," depending on the BIOS manufacturer. The number besides this sentence is your front side bus frequency, in megahertz.
4. Press the "Esc" key to exit the BIOS. If it asks you to save or discard any changes, choose discard. Your computer will now reboot as normal.
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