Help with AMD chips

[Guest Andrew]

I just installed an AthlonXP 2400 and cant work out what settings I need in BIOS, When I start WindowsME with a 100mhz FSB and look at MYCOMPUTER/PROPERTIES, I see an ATHLON XP 1800+ and it runs stable for hours. But if I set the FSB to 133 It shows ATHLON XP 2400+ under MYCOMPUTER/PROPERTIES and the after a while running 3DMARK 2001 the system restarts for no aparent reason.Now I know an ATHLON is not rated on how fast the chip is, but on its equivelent speed, so what should I see ,and how do I find out what settings to use?Yours truly AndrewSystem is AthlonXP 2400+ ThunderbirdMSI KT4V (AGP8 + USB2.0)512 MB DDR GeForce 4TI 4200 no overclockSB LiveWestern Digital HDD (10 G)Seagate HDD (80 G)Fugitsu 19inch monitorAnd a partrige in a pear tree.

[crvm 0]

You should make sure to ALWAYS run 133/133 in your bios for that chip. If your system is "rebooting" on its own thats most likely your RAM. Check your ram settings also and make sure you have them set to "Speed" and no faster than 2.5 . You did not say what speed your Ram was, ddr could be 2100,2400, etc. I hate to say this but the MAIN reason for restarts in 3d mark is overclocking either the video card or cpu. So if you are bring it back down. Your system is FAST so you would not need to overclock "unless you can't help yourself" Best Wishes, Randy Smith

[Guest Andrew]

I tried it at 133mhz FSB again and got a Windows protection fault and could not get into Windows at all ,100mhz FSB is fine though.RAM is 266mhz P2100 dunno about latency though. And CPU temprature is around 55 C at 100mhz FSB with a THERMALTAKE VOLCANO 9 heat sink rated to AthonXP 2600+still no fix but thanks for trying.Andrew.

[MKaprocki 3]

55C is pretty hot, especially at only 100mhz FSB. Did you use AS3 or some other thermal paste?Can you bump up the FSB to a little below 133 to check the temps there, or will it reboot at anything above 100? Are you using the correct multipliers with the FSB that you choose?MattAsus A7V333Athlon XP2000+512MB Samsung PC2700Gainward Geforce4 Ti4600

[Guest Andrew]

MKaprocki"55C is pretty hot, especially at only 100mhz FSB. Did you use AS3 or some other thermal paste?"Yes I used thermal paste"Can you bump up the FSB to a little below 133 to check the temps there, or will it reboot at anything above 100? Are you using the correct multipliers with the FSB that you choose?"Yes it runs ok at 120mhz FSB but is not very stable, and i'm not sure what my clock multiplyer should be.

[MKaprocki 3]

It looks like you should be using a multiplier of 14.5. 14.5 x 133 = 1929. What were your temps at 120?Matt

[Guest JonP01]

An athlon XP 2400 + actually runs a 15 x multiplier at standard clock speed. I've seen these sorts of problems on another Athlon board (ASUS A7S333) where the user attempts to set the configuration manually (of course it should work manually, but...)If your board supports automatic settings (this could well be a jumper on the board - check your mainboard manual), I would suggest first clearing your CMOS (unplug the A/C power cord first) then try booting the machine with automatic CPU detection setting enabled. Hopefully the board will correctly recognise the required FSB (133 Mhz), multiplier (15 x) and voltage (1.65 volts).I checked the MSI website and it does not clearly state which BIOS version you need to recognise the Thoroughbred "B" CPU. The list indicates with the 1.4 BIOS it should recognise all CPUs up to the 2700 +. But it also says the earlier 1.2 BIOS supports even the 333 FSB CPUs. It doesn't really make it clear though, whether the original 1.0 BIOS supports the thoroughbred "B" or not.Perhaps if you continue to have problems, you could try putting your old CPU in, clearing CMOS and then attempting to upgrade to the latest BIOS if your current BIOS version is earlier than version 1.2.I also agree that your memory timings need to be double checked so as to eliminate this as an issue.

[Guest]

Hi,I upgraded my system, and got into all sorts of problems, protection faults would,nt go into windows, same sort of symptoms. Only to find out my Power Supply could no longer cope with the new upgrades. Soon as i upgraded the power supply everything went back to how it should be.Bests Shaun :)

[Guest JonP01]

A good point. Cetainly power supply deficiences can cause widespread problems, especially when machines run state of the art graphics cards.In this particular case, any power issues could best be determined by first checking what processor used to be in the machine before the 2400 + was swapped in. The thoroughbred "b" has *relatively* thrifty power consumption clock speed for clock speed when compared to the older Palomino. For example, thermal dissipation and current draw of the 2400 + is very similar to the old 2000 + Palomino (well the thoroughbred needs a tiny bit more current because the thermal dissipation is the same but voltage is 0.1 volt lower). So if the old machine was running a Palomino successfully around the 2000 + range, it is reasonably likely the power supply would be up to feeding the 2400 +. However if I think there are power supply issues in an unstable rig, I usually temporarily swap two power supplies into the rig to help diagnose any possible power issues. It is certainly something worth trying.

[Guest Andrew]

Problem solved, Im now running at a reported 2400+ or 1940 MHz actual speed and all is well with no crashing in 3D MARK 2001 SEPower box is 450 wattsFSB is 125 Multiplyer is 15max temprature is around 58 C but no higherThanks to all who gave there advice.Yours trulyAndrew Simmons

[Guest JonP01]

Glad you have it running, but it still isn't running quite right. You should be getting a full 2 Ghz stable from that CPU as that is it's normal clock speed on the standard 133 Mhz FSB. The temps also seem pretty high unless the room you are running the machine in has a high ambient temperature.I would be interested to see what exact code is written on that CPU of yours so that I can compare it to AMD's technical documentation on the series 8 processor. I guess it is all tucked away now, however.You might also want to be very sure that your heatsink is correctly seated on the CPU core. I usually use a mica shim to ensure this. But the temps you are getting at a 120 Mhz FSB are just too high for a 2 Ghz thoroughbred "B".