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Athlon XP 3200+ problem

eeper

eeper

eeper

Associate
Joined
10 Mar 2005
Posts
44
Hi all,

I have just got hold of an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ CPU to replace the 2600+ currently running on my MSI K7N2 Delta.

When I try to set the FSB to 200 in the BIOS and then reboot, the system just hangs with a black screen (no signal) on the monitor. If I leave the FSB at 100 or 166 the system boots fine. The BIOS and CPU-Z report the processor as running at 1.1GHz when I am sure it should be at 2.2GHz.

Whats going on? Have I been ebayed a duff processor? Or is there some sort of jumper/BIOS setting that I am missing.

Thanks in advance
 
Rakoon,

Its not a stupid question at all - one of my first fears was that I had been sold a duff processor. 3DMark05 reckoned it was only a 2500+, but I ripped out the processor again and it does have the magic digits 3200 on it, so I guess it is 3DMark that is confused.

Anyway, the story so far...

I have been getting some advice on another board at the same time and they suggested clearing the CMOS , which I duly did. In user mose the BIOS now reported the CPU running at about 1.5GHz. Hurrah, I thought and set the FSB to 200.

POOOOFFFF...

System dies and refuses to restart. After 3 minutes of me frantically hammering the power button the system powers up and then shuts itself down seconds later.

I now think that I have an overheting problem. From what I understand a CPU not properly in touch with the heatsink can overheat in seconds. Anyhow, I used jumpers to force the sytem to boot up in 100 FSB mode and it now boots up ok, altjhough the CPU is running in the high 50s. I have a new heatsink/cooler on order from OC and this will hopefully sort it out.

Does my diagnosis sound fair? Anything else you can suggest. Am I likely to have ruined my CPU permanently?
 
Rakoon,

You, sir, are a gentleman <doffs cap>.

If this new heatsink comes to naught then I may have to take you up on your offer. The BIOS is the most current version - I used LiveUpdate succesfully. Overheating is the most likely culprit I think.

Thanks for all your help everyone...
 
Hurrah, success. One new heatsink and a nice dose of Arctic Silver and the system boots up fine at 200FSB. The only problem now is the frequent blue screens of death that I am encountering. The Windows fault reporter says that it is a RAM problem and suggests I run a memory diagnostic tool, but that tool has found no errors.

Any suggestions? The RAM is 2xCrucial DDR PC3200 512Mb sticks.

Thanks for all your help and support so far.
 
I ran memtest for about 3 and a half hours and it didn't find a thing. The RAM is set to standard settings:

Latency 3.0
RAS to CAS 3
RAS Precharge 3
TRAS 8

I have no idea what any of that means BTW ;)
 
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