AMD CPU's and an ASUS Board.

[Ferret]

I got an AMD Athlon XP 2600+ on an ASUS A7N8X-X.

And it will/would run at 1250Mhz... Anything above that, and it doesn't want to know, I just get BSOD's. (BSOD's trying to run Windows or even install Windows :x :angry:)

I just rung up the place I bought it and they said that the FSB should be 166Mhz and the Multiplier 12.5x but it still only runs at 1250Mhz...

I've flashed the BIOS to the latest version.

Could anyone point me in the right direction, coz I don't really wanna send it back !!!

Thanks,

Ferret !

[shark1]

Have you changed the FSB values on the BIOS ?

[Ferret]

Yes...

I've just figured something though, I originally bought a DDR266 stick of RAM just to get the machine up and running...

266 / 2 = 133

133 x 12.5 (Multiplier) = 1.6Ghz.

But when I had that DDR266 stick, it would still only run at 1.2Ghz.

100 x 12.5 = 1250Mhz (1.2Ghz)

That seems to suggest that since I got the board, it was ALWAYS running at a 100Mhz FSB.

I've set the FSB in the BIOS to 100Mhz, 133Mhz, 166Mhz and 200Mhz.

Even played with the jumper on the board it's self, but to no avail.

But whats getting me, is even with the original DDR266 and my current DDR400, why won't the FSB lift above 100Mhz ?!?

Is it really damaged, there can't be anything thing else, i've read the manual from front to back and theres only ONE jumper for the FSB/CPU and that didn't do jack**** !

Thanks,

Ferret !

[Garrett Socling]

There is a solution but I don't have time this morn to go step by step.

The problem you are having is due to automatic configuration done by the Asus BIOS. I don't agree with the amount of control that certain vague settings give the BIOS as far as setting timings and stuff, I have fourd that even when it seems that basically you are defining the settings the BIOS can sometimes still override you.

I recommend playing with the BIOS until it seems you have EVERYTHING defined manually.

If you can't figure out good settings I'll check back later and help ya out a bit.

G

[unimatrixzer0]

you try pulling out the DDR266, putting in the DDR400 and resetting the CMOS?

[Ferret]

I've tried both RAM sticks, resetting the BIOS... Just about everything I could think to do...

Garrett Socling: I've set EVERYTHING (To the best extent I could) in Advanced Chipset Features to Manual settings -- And guess what, 1.2Ghz, supprise supprise.

So that walkthrough would be greatly appreciated please mate !!!

Thanks alot mate,

Ferret !

[Damien_Old]

are you using the stock BIOS that came with the board or have you updated it?

[Ferret]

Rev. 1006 now...

I'm gonna try an "Uber" BIOS from nforcershq.com ;)

[vincent]

doesnt asus boards come with a bios update utility? mines did at least,

maybe u can update your bios with that?

[Ferret]

I did that mate - Upda\ted with the latest BIOS, but that didnr't work...

ANYWAY, goooooooooooood news, after trying to set ALL the options to manual, then that didn't work, I set them back to AUTO and guess what..

I got a working AMD Athlon XP2600+ :D:D:D:D

Why this has done the trick I don't know, But i'm never gonna enter the BIOS again incase it goes again.

Thanks for all your help,

Ferret !

[Spyder Veteran]

i'd hate to say it, but if it was messed with all your manual settings, and now it works with auto settings, that seems to suggest to me that you set it up wrong. glad it got itself working for ya :)

[Ferret]

Spyder: I've played with all the settings, half were manual, half auto... all manual, all auto, etc etc...

But it works now, and i'm finally back on my proper machine :)

Thanks,

Ferret !

[Spyder Veteran]

i know mate.. i read through the thread, and i'm sure you're very computer literate, but I still think something was set wrong somewhere because things don't just not work and then all of a sudden start working.

but hey thats just my opinion :) again, glad its working!

[uniacidz]

In the advance settings, you may have had it set to Agressive instead of Optimal? This couldve stuffed things up.

[Garrett Socling]

That sounds very typical compared to what I have experienced with this BIOS.

A setting that would not work one try would work at a different date.

As far as setting stuff to manual and it not working, I'd say 95% of the settings I tried didn't work. Even dumb things like lowering the multipler from 10.5 to 10.0 as the inital step of overclocking prevented posting.

Then, when I tried to raise the FSB, if I did it in too great of steps it wouldn't post. I had to do it in like 3Mhz increments to reach 155. Then, it wouldn't go above that for a while. Now it is at 160Mhz/160Mhz...Wierd.

Finally, I think the board has issues with memory. I have Crucial PC2700 (2x256). Some relaxed settings would not post.

If you under-clock the memory, the board automatically increases the aggressiveness of the memory settings, even in full-auto mode. Hence, when I set the board to full auto, and it gave me 133/166, and I changed it to 133/133, it would not post (lowering the CL didn't go over well with the memory?). After bringing the mem and FSB in synch, I had to raise the FSB high enough to raise the CL to get the board to post. Then, it was fine and dandy.

Very very complicated. If the board is going to make assumptions as to what is optimal, it should at least do a basic quick-test/post routine to find out what 'optimal' settings are valid. I dunno...I just didn't like the 'I know what is good for you' attitude of the board, especially when its know-it-all configs wouldn't post...

I think I am going to reboot and go for 166/166...all this talkin about it has me interested.

I'll get a pic of my current BIOS settings while I am there...

G

[Garrett Socling]

I apologize for the poor pictures...I wasn't planning on taking so many and wasn't really planning ahead...

BIOS Default -

This is what I have been running at as my default setup. It is stable and has decent performance. Basically, the initial bootup settings overclocked from 133Mhz to 160Mhz. This is what I stepped up 3Mhz at a time when I was overclocking. It would not accept jumps of more than 3 or 5Mhz at a time, but if I went slow it went up without a problem. At 166Mhz, the system is not 100% stable, and I believe the problem is my ancient Palamino. Shame I can't drop the multiplier...

Full Auto -

This is completely what the BIOS chooses when it first boots up, except for choosing 133Mhz over the initial bootup of 100Mhz. Note the incorrect CL settings (considering that it is running the memory at 166Mhz, this stick of Crucial ram is not rated for 2 at 166, and the Active Precharge Delay set to 6. Not that the BIOS says its is gonna run the memory at 166Mhz...all you see is the vague 'auto'...What happens if you aren't really BIOS tweaking inclined and you can't install Win XP because when set to full auto the mobo pushes your memory to the point it isn't stable? Memory Timings, notice, are set to Optimal.

Auto SPD -

This is what happens when you change the BIOS default from 'Mem Freq - Auto' to 'Mem Freq - By SPD'. Basically, when you enable SPD the mobo realizes that it was running the memory too agressively and backs the CL off to 2.5 and the Active Precharge Delay to 7. Memory Timings are still set at Optimal...the previous settings weren't so Optimal after all...

Auto Agressive -

This is simply 133Mhz with all of the auto-config settings set to agressive. Please note that I set Mem Freq to 100% to take that oddness out of the loop... All it shows on the surface are 'across-the-board' agressive memory timings, but it claims to also increase 'System Performance' - whatever that really is, it isn't obvious from the BIOS. I wasn't blown away with the increased performance when changing this to Agressive, but it does have a marginal effect. Probably decreases stabilty a hair too. Memory Timings set at Agressive have some of the same effects as changing the Memory Frequency from 'Auto' to 'By SPD'...Why is this so complicated?

Auto Optimal/Agressive -

With this schitzophrenic setup, the end result is basically what you get at 'Full Auto' - of course, I have Mem Freq set to 100%, so who knows what you'd get with Mem Freq set to 'Auto' or 'By SPD'...though I bet that Auto and 100% are exactly the same thing - as far as memory timings go. It still recognizes that the memory is 166Mhz, and runs it accordingly when set to Auto. If this doesn't seem excessively obtuse to you yet, I hear they don't have a solid theory on gravity and probably could use your help...

Auto 166Mhz -

With this setup, which is simply full Auto and Optimal with the CPU memory forced at 166Mhz, everything starts making sense again :

Even though the BIOS doesn't recognize the memory as 166Mhz memory under all circumstances when it comes to Memory Timings, and yet will run it at 166Mhz when set to Auto, it obviously is doing some sort of guess-work as to how to run the memory when set to Auto. Notice here that even though Auto results at 166Mhz when the CPU freq is set at 133Mhz or 166Mhz, with the CPU overclocked the Memory Timings are relaxed...

To wit : There is a lot more going on here than is at first obvious.

1750 -

She booted and ran for a few hours at 166Mhz, but Hot CPU Tester revealed that the CPU was not 100% stable. A short while later the computer spontaneously rebooted (but did not generate a BSOD error). When she did that I reduced the FSB/CPU to 160Mhz, set the System Performance and Memory Timings to Agressive, and have been running on that since. Hot CPU Tester says these settings are stable...Unfortunately I forgot to get a new pic of these settings...which are not represented above...doh...

Ok. Thats it. Draw your own conclusions, but I say the BIOS is poor. I don't like it very much, I don't like the way it acts, or reacts to changes, I don't like the way it is hiding all of the important decisions it is making, I just don't like it. It shouldn't be so hard. Oh...and this doesn't even include the fact that I can't lower my multiplier...

Please note that I did not actually try to boot any of the above settings except for the first and last. I know that most of them won't boot, because the first day I got this board I spent about two hours trying all sorts of combinations to find something that simply worked...much less work well...

I have been threatening to write a review of this board...if I do, I'll be sure to get SiSoft Sandra CPU & Memory, 3DMark 2001, 3DMark 2003 and AquaMark3 results for all of the combinations that I manage to get to boot...of course I'll probably never get around to it...I'll have to review the board, compile test results, include the above text on the BIOS...take more and better pics...oofa...

G

[Garrett Socling]

Correction : Changing the settings from Optimal to Aggressive made a signifigant difference in performance.

Now, my 1600+ is running like an 2000+ :

Aquamark3 - 16810

3DMark01 - 10924

3DMark03 - 1565

SiSoft CPU - 6284/2528

SiSoft Mem - 2400/2244

I decided to benchmark the system since it was stable and I didn't feel like changing the BIOS settings back...

I'll try to pin down exactly what increased the performance (I suspect the vague 'System Performance ;)) and quantify the improvement...

G

[desaul17]

Setting system performance to aggressive bumps your vcore .05v. It won't show it in the advanced chipset features but you will notice it in asus probe or mbm5. I suspect if you check the model #'s on your crucial ram that you'll find they are from the batch that were having compatibility problems with the A7N8X but I could be wrong since you have an -x board and the problems were with rev 1.x versions.

I don't think there's any way to access lower multi's without doing an L3 bridge mod and I think AMD made that pretty difficult with the 1600+ by perforating the space between the cut.

Anyway, good luck and thanks for the interesting read.

[uniacidz]

Just one word - Palamino

Crappy overclockers so you shouldnt stress over it.

I know, i have one myself.

[Garrett Socling]

Thanks for the heads up on the compatibility issues...I suspected that there were issues (I thought I remembered reading something about it a while ago). I don't know why I didn't before, but I googled for a7n8x crucial problem and got a pile of results to read throug, so I can check it out. As far as the L3 mod, I had thought that the A7N8X automatically unlocked them, but if it doesn't...well, that explains that problem! Hafta break out the old pencil...

I think that this Palamino is a good overclocker, but I have no frame of reference. I guess some people are used to massive overclocks, but with my K7S5A all I ever had was like a 50Mhz overclock, so anything seems good to me in comparision ;)

Again, thanks for the info!

G

[Ferret]

Garrett Socling - Thats one hell of a read...

I notice you said you got your CPU from 1600+ to 2000+ - All I can say is thats wicked, but I ain't touching bugger all after that experience of mine...

I personally wouldn't recommend this board to anyone, it's nice, but the BIOS is crap !!!

You know that 'Uber' BIOS I was on about, it's actually working alot better than the Offical BIOS, so I may have an attempt to overclock and see what happens ;)

Thanks again,

Ferret !