Dirty Harry

Now I believe that you have a cpu intended to run 266 Mhz, its written on the processor. Look here for more details on what those CPU numbers mean. Have you or have you not resetted the CMOS properly ?? See my previous post. What settings does it then come up with as default, 100/100 or 133/133 ? You wrote: "When I reset the bios it said something like "run setup" and it set the default settings at 1050MHZ @ 100MHZ/100MHZ". If this is the case there is no need to even think about installing windows, your CPU should be 1400 @ 133 MHZ. This can only be caused by hardware problems or wrong settings in BIOS. Bios should be at default settings as CMOS is cleared, but if you have a option like "load fail-safe defaults" use it. So, if its not a bios setting its a hardware problem: You may indeed have a heat problem, your CPU temp is not 38C as you've previously reported, but 56C. Recalling that you claim to always run case open, this is really on the high side as an idle temp. For comparison, my overclocked CPU-temp (1400@1600) case closed is 45 C Your voltages are off, in some cases way off. You'll need to test with another PSU to eliminate this suspect. What make and model is your PSU ? BTW, you have a setting "Auto Detect DIMM/PCI Clk: Enabled", what are your options there ? Ironwalker and Davros pretty much said (again) what else neeeds to be done. H.

OK, we are getting back on the slow road forward again... First of all, pretty much everyhting can be overclocked except your grandma. Including your board and CPU. Not that I recommend it, but for instance this LINK gives advice on how to OC your particular board, just for the record. Your issue could be another OC one. A common trick to OC Athlons is to close a few bridges on the CPU with a pencil to change or release the multiplier. It could also be possible to run a Athlon made for a FSB of 100Mhz at a higher 133 Mhz speed. Eventually, the graphite from the pencil wears off, and BANG, you are in trouble. Thats why you should take off the heatsink and write down the text printed on the CPU. This is the only way we are ever going to be 100% sure what speed your CPU was intended to run. It doesn't make much sence to do this trick with a board where you cannot change the multiplier, but who knows? And once more, what makes you so certain that your CPU (not your mobo)is made for a 133 Mhz FSB? Your theory is "As for the processor, it is OBVIOULSY 1.4GHZ since it was working at 1.4GHZ" ... sorry this is crap, my Athlon 1400 is running at 1600, what does that OBVIOUSLY make it ? Secondly, if you boot into DOS from a floppy all extra hardware disconnected , and encounter problems (running for example a CPU testing program for an hour) you know for certain that it's the memory, the CPU or the MoBo thats defect. If you don't encounter problems, you can start with a clean XP install (without printers, sound cards and ZIP drives, like you now have). Only one HD, one basic CD player and graphics card. N o t h i n g extra, just as barebones as you can to install XP. Again, test and you'll know what hardware works OK. Nad leave the memory timings on slowest possible when you troubleshoot. A few questions on another possibility, and please answer: exactly how is your CPU identified in Bios and boot up screen ? Something or somebody is setting (or has set) at least one parameter wrong. The correct voltage for your CPU is NOT 1.8V. Where did you get the 1.792 value from? Just look what its set to be at in Bios and report. Your CPU should be running at 1.75V. Can you manually set the voltages? And last, you wrote about clearing the CMOS "As for resetting the BIOS, I HAVE done that by shutting down/power off, removing the power chord, and removing the jumper for 10 seconds before placing it back in". Well, if you literally did that, you wouldn't have resetted the bios on my board at least, you need to switch the jumper from pins 1-2 to pins 2-3 for 10 secs to clear the CMOS. See your manual for details. I still suspect that your main problem is that your CPU is not identified as a 10.5 x 133= 1400 Mhz Athlon because your bios settings are wrong. The second thing I'd test is a different power supply, if you have one handy. The third thing to do, IMO, is to take out the CPU, clean it (note the numbers) and make sure that the temp diode beneath it is in contact with the bottom of the CPU. BTW, don't you get 2 or 3 temp readings - what are they ? H.

Staeted with an 8088 back in 1987 or -88 if I recall correctly. It's so long ago ... 15 years. Did my first (Pascal ??) programming in 1983 on a thingy that didn't even have a monitor, the output device was the printer H.

Don't know what Shassounes real issue is, but he is not reading the advice given or even care to reply on several important matters. I get the feeling that there's something he doesn't wanna tell.. It is really a waste of time to try to help here before we know: Why he claims its a fresh windows install, then posts a link to a several weeks old sysinfo which is everything but fresh. He also says he has a "minimal set of hardware (hard drive, DVD drive, and video card") and again the sysinfo shows loads of other stuff. Secondly, why is the CPU voltage wrong ? Apart from proving that he did not clear the CMOS as he claimed, it strongly suggests that the system is or was overclocked. Maybe somebody sold him a stepped up CPU ? We don't really even know what CPU he has, do we? And thirdly, he steadfastly refuses to determine if it is a hardware or a windows issue which easily could be done by booting to DOS (or his Linux partition). Neither do we get answer to what the CPU settings are in bios and how the CPU is identified on boot. H.

Even more odd is that I voted for Abit, but Abit has 0 votes. H.

Quote: And how does something being shiny relate to it's ability to being flat? It doesn't necessarely, but if its hiny you can see the scratches. Besides, metall tends to become shiny when you polish the roughnesss away... Of course if its uneven, or rough, it doesn't matter if its shines or not. H.

So tell us ! H

NO, NO, NO Are you trolling ? What you say about a rough black surface absorbing heat is only true when you talk about radiating heat, like collecting heat from the sun or radiating heat from a heating element. Basic school physics already teach that heat can be moved in three ways, transferring (like pouring hot water into cold), radiated (=adsorbed on the receiving end) and conducted. Conduction is much more effective than radiation and the color is irrelevant for this. To conduct heat the contact is essential, the better the contact is the better heat gets conducted. Opposite, when you insulate something you put a layer in between that conducts poorly (like air). A heatsink is conducting heat from the CPU and radiating it from the fins on top. In order for it to conduct heat from the CPU the best thing is to have as perfect contact as possible. That's why you want the bottom of the heatsink should be perfectly smooth, and the contact ensured with paste (preferrably Arctic Silver) H.

1. Copper is definately better than aluminium, but more expensive. Which heatsink speced for an Athlon 1400 or higher you use is less important than the amount of air blowing on it and that you have perfect contact between sink and CPU. Put arctic silver inbetween, and follow the instructions for applying it literally.. 2. Your CPU temp is reported as a perfectly normal 38 C. An Athlon is speced to work at 70C altough you don't want to see that high temps. Either your heat sensor is defect, not touching the CPU properly or heat is not your problem. I still think the first steps to perform is to connect a floppy drive and see if you can boot to DOS running 1400 Mhz. You cannot have that big a heat problem that this wouldn't work. I noted that you have the voltage setting at 1.80, if my memory serves me correct the default value for your CPU is 1.75V. So your bios settings are wrong !! I'm starting to wonder what is going on here; it appears - you ignore the simplest troubleshooting solutions - your Win install is apparently not a fresh one - you have not resetted the CMOS succesfully H.

No, I buy bulk The stepping was important to me. What was wrong with the plastic box ? H.

I'm on a KG7-raid board without running any raid. For all practical purposes the HPT controller is just another IDE channel. Don't worry about the raid you don't have. Easiest way to install is to install the OS with the HD connected to the IDE channel, then load the VIA 4in1 drivers, then switch the cable to the HPT plug. You can also load the driver during startup, but it seems to cause trouble sometimes. After you've switched the cable from IDE1 to HPT 1 you switch the boot sequense in bios to ULTRAATA100 or whatever they call it there. Note, to get full speed out of your HPT /ATA-100 drive you also need to install the HPT driver. The version should correspond to the HPT-bios. Whenever you updtae the system bios, first update the HPT driver. H.

Yes, you are right - but not all of the world is listening. The marketing guys in the DDR dept just love the 266 stuff. H.

Well, I agree with Palos on that one. Anyhow, I have an ABIT KG7-raid (Athlon 1400), KA7-100 (Athlon 800) and a stone-age BE6 (PIII 450) running great here, all mildly overclocked. Never had a problem with any of them, multibooting and all. While I'd agree that Asus is a bit more solid in some ways, they bring stuff to market later than Abit. Epox are propably good too, I just have the impression they are a bit more flimsy so I never tried one. Maybe Tyan would be a choice too, dunno. H.

Quote: 4.) This is a FRESH INSTALL of Windows XP. Meaning I already DID format and fdisk my hard drive. OK, I took alook at your sysinfo file out of curiosity, altough I've already stated that you should leave Windoze out of the loop before you know your hardware is OK. Your sysinfo says you have a floppy drive, and on a fresh install of XP you have TweakUI, Nero, Real Player etc etc installed ? You also seem to have plenty of programs loading with Windows. Just outta curiosity, how come your sysinfo is identifying your CPU correctly "Family 6 Model 4 Stepping 4" and saying it is running at the correct speed "AuthenticAMD ~1394 Mhz" and dated two weeks ago ?? I hope you have done a reformat & reinstall since this sysinfo was run... in which case this file doesn't describe your current system at all. Once more, do your self a favour and don't even try to boot into XP before you get the system booted full speed from a DOS disk. If your current XP install doesn't work then you should try a barebone XP installation from scratch with the bare minimum of hardware connected. No extra cards, no printers, nothing extra. H.

Good luck, concentrate on getting the sys up full speed on a DOS floppy ! H.

Now, one thing at a time. Don't try to tinker with Bios, hardware and windows settings at the same time. - Its unlikely a heat issue if your CPU temp is 38C (unless you burn your finger on the heatsink). - Its unlikely a BIOS setting, because you've resetted BIOS by the CMOS jumper. Where does this leave you ? I'd put my next research efforts on the "faulty hardware" theory. Remove all components, put back only the very basics including floppy and see if you can boot. Then test mobo / cpu / ram separately. H.

Hey Admiral, there are no Mobos or CPU's or RAM running a true 266 FSB as you describe it. They all do 133 FSB counting one upwards and one downwards on the sinus curve. So - whats your point ? H.

You anger is understandable, your system should run as designed. Do I understand this correctly, you say the BIOS defaulted to a FSB of 100 after you resetted CMOS and reverted back after you changed the FSB manually to 133 ? That implies that the CPU is not identified properly. Does your BIOS tell what CPU is found ? Can you set the CPU manually also ? If so, set the multiplier to 10,5 and the FSB to 133. Check that your RAM latency is at 2,5 (or 3). If you can set the multiplier manually in BIOS, try lower multipliers (8,9,10) and the FSB still at 133 to see if that works. If you have any settings between 100 and 133 for the FSB, try them also. Also, some boards (my Abit KG7 for one) are picky about which slot the DDR-RAM is poulated from, could it be that you have switched slot for your stick lately? Just another check; you did reset the BIOS by the book? Power off, powercord out, short the jumper for a few seconds. Taking the battery out for 30-60 minutes does the same thing. Your temps would be good to know. The heat conducting tape/sticker grows old sometimes, and the heatsink and fan collect dust. Also, if you've had the CPU out of its slot lately you could have inadvertedly caused a bad contact between CPU and heatsink. I'd guess your bios has a "health" screen where you can see the CPU temp, for an not O/C Athlon 1400, you should be looking at a temp of max 40-50 C idle, case open. What are your temps? As you are in the BIOS, please post your voltages too. BTW, ...put a floppy drive in the system. If you can boot with 133 Mhz at all (doesn't sound like it) boot from a good ol' DOS floppy. One thing is for sure, if you can't run DOS, you're very unlikely to be able to run XP, and this way you can better differentiate between a hardware failure and a WIN failure. I take it you bought the Athlon from a reputable vendor and then you are likely to be OK. But, be aware, there has been many reports of ppl selling overclocked CPU's as the real thing. If (or maybe rather when...) you decide to replace the heat conducting material, you'll anyhow first need to clean the CPU carefully. Write down all the text on the CPU, this is the only positive way to identify which CPU you have. H.

If I read your previous post you are saying these precise parts were functioning and the CPU is made for, and was running 10,5 x 133 so it can function - unless some hardware part has broken. I would narrow down the possible source of the problem by: 1) clear the CMOS to be sure no Bios setting is causing this. 2) reformat and reinstall XP to see if something went wrong there If that doesn't help you have to test the CPU on a different Mbo to see if its still OK, and run the Mobo with a diff CPU to see if has blown. Oh, one more idea - could the CPU be overheating? H

This must be one of the most confusing (-ed) threads in the history of NTcomp. Your problem pretty much must be a hardware issue and caused either by a wrong setting in BIOS or faulty/loose parts. No MS-dump is going to tell you anything useful. In your first post you say that the error message is different depending on BIOS setting, try to set all settings back to fool proof default settings and see if that helps. Clear the CMOS via the jumper. - Just to be sure, when you say you disabled cache you are talking about the L2 cache on the CPU, right ? Not the RAM, and not the page file ? You are really sure that you have a CPU made for 133 FSB, Athlon 1400's come in two flavours, 100 Mhz and 133 Mhz. - the fact that you can run 10,5 x 100 Mhz =1050 but not 10,5 x 133 strongly points in the direction of wrong/defect RAM or wrong memeory settings in Bios. If you can, try with another stick, which you are very sure is rated for 133 Mhz FSB. Set your RAM timings (latency) to highest (slowest) available, either 2,5 or 3. Use only one stick of RAM when troubleshooting. - Another possibility is that one of the components cannot handle the 133 FSB speed. Can't imagine anything else than defect mobo in that case. - A third possibility is a classic suggestion, power supply. Have you had this exact combo running Win 2K w/o a hitch ? Can you try another OS to see if that works, nothing else changed ? Most would claim that a Athlon 1400 needs at least a 300W PSU, on the AMD site there is a list of approved/recommended PSU's H

It's definately possible, I do it right now. My first guess would be that you haven't created the user account and access needed. Log on a user on the W98 one, and create a corresponding user account on the XP one. Share something on the W98 one. Can you ping the machines from eachother ? Are you on static IP's or using DHCP? H.

Quote: I am interested in this MBR issue. If I understand you correctly, D.I. rewrites the MBR to load this virtual floppy (as they call it) into the root of 'C'(I assume) and writes a command line to point to this folder or file to load this program on the reboot? Yep, thats pretty much how I've understood it. You can start your studies at http://www.powerquest.com/support/primus/id1811.html there they describe the fix. I think I saw somewhere at PQ a description of how it works too. H

Glad you got it working! Yes, its supposed to be a one time deal (back and forth every time you use it), but I've seen posts from ppl where it turned out to be a one way deal (didn't revert). I have no idea how frequently problems occure, but Powerquest has a support page with instructions on how to fix it. It involves running fdisk/mbr etc, so I've choosen to run a dual boot to DOS, which I find useful for some other reasons also. I'm running two HD:s, one CD-R and one CD-RW and have four ATA channels - each on its own channel. H.

Quote: TO set something straight... When You use 2 different speed hard drives or devices on any ATA 66 or 100 or 133 IDE controller .... IT IS NOT LIMITED TO THE SLOWEST SPEED DEVICE...... THey can both function as thier peak speeds. OK, I stand corrected, apparently this is only an issue on the classic ATA-2 controllers. Still, pretty much any tweaking guide will tell you that it does degrade overall performance if you use the Master/slave config and you are better off having the devices on separate controllers. Or I you saying that it doesn't matter ? And frankly I don't understand how one controller with a capacity 100 MB/sec can receive data from two devices each spitting out 100MB/sec at the same time. Not that that happens often, sustained transfer rate is not the same as burst speed but it looks like a bottleneck to me. In this case we are talking about using the BIOS as a boot manager and shutting off one drive completely through BIOS, I doubt that is doable with a master/slave config. H.

Careful with that boot to dos w/o floppy. Drive Image rewrites your MBR to do this and while great when it works it could spell doom too. I prefer to have a dual boot menu with DOS, makes life easier in general and makes backup with DI a snap. H