XP2500+ Barton Voltages

[peterwilkes]

I have an Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard with a Athlon XP2500+ Barton processor and 512Mb of PC3200 (400Mhz) DDR RAM

When I first booted the system it was very unstable but the FSB was set to 100 Mhz so the processor was actually running at about 1080 Mhz. The system hung several times and restarted about 3 times.

I have correctly set the FSB to 166 Mhz in the Bios and now runs at 1.83 Gigs.

After I set the FSB correctly, the system will complete the POST but when the Win XP startup screen should appear the screen goes blank and stays blank all the time untill reset. The processor runs at 48 degrees C and the motherboard at 30 degrees C.

I have checked the settings on the bios and have even changes them back to 100Mz but the system still does not boot. I have tried booting from a floppy disk and a CD-ROM just in case the HD had packed up.

In the BIOS the Vcore voltage is automatically dected at 1.65 volts but in the bios hardware monitor page, it runs between 1.66 and 1.68 volts.

Is this the cause of the problem? Could the processor be running at too higher voltage. The motherboard has the ability to change the voltage but will not go any lower than 1.65 volts.

The other voltages are as follows
3.3v --- 3.28v
5v --- 4.91v
12v --- 12.41v

The power supply is rated at 350 watts

Any suggestions would be great!!!

Peter

[Bruneau]

It could (I'm not saying it is) be a vid card problem. Try reseating the video card.

Hell, try reseating everything. Maybe even increase the core voltage and ram v. too.

Good luck.

[MDdan]

I am very sure your problem is not voltage. 1.68 is well within an acceptable range. If it was rated at 1.65, and it was actually getting 2.1, then yeah....I'd be concerned.

I think your problem is likely to be assembly related would be my guess. I would not mess with CPU and RAM voltages.

Do you have a decent Powersupply? A cheap one could fluctuate enough to cause the problems you're referring to.

[Bruneau]

Try relaxing the memory timings. That too can cause problems like you describe.

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[Omardeth]

whats is the memory ? what do you have it set for ? i think it is default at spd and at 166 i think that sets the memory at like 200 . if you don't have pc3200 that will keep it from booting correct .so it might be your memeory . what kind do you have ?

try setting the memory to auto i bet it will boot and be fine then .

[Strawbs]

It's possible it could be a heat issue, Asus don't seem to have mastered the art of accurate temperature monitoring yet (my 2600+ on this board, blacks out at anything over 60oC)! do what we all forget to do at least once in our "self-built" life, check the HSF is on the right way around and if yes, check the amount of thermal goop is as little as possible.

There is also a known issue with some Corsair PC3200 RAM and this board! What Make and Model is yours?

[peterwilkes]

The RAM that I have is some cheapo stuff, it has Ramol on the chips. I have since found out from other forums that the mobo is very picky with the make and model of the RAM and Asus has issued a list of tested ram.

I have returned the ram and have some good stuff on order. The good stuff is Samsung.

The BIOS correctly identified the multiplier at 11 so a FSB of 166 is needed to take it up to the full 1.83 Ghz. If the ram speed is set to SPD, the ram runs at 200Mhz si I needs to set this to manual at 200% because the RAM will be DDR400 / PC3200

Omardeth - Tried all sorts of RAM speeds including auto. Still no boot.

Strawbs - HSF is on the right way round, I have used coolermaster premium silver HS compound. There was a stick on template and you spread it on, probably comes out about 0.2mm thick. I have some dow corning stuff that came withb the HSF but I dont think that it is good as the coolermaster stuff.

Does this sound OK to you or may I be making a mistake?

[Strawbs]

that's the same stuff and template I use, so you can hardly be doing anything wrong there!

[Bruneau]

You don't want to set it to 200%. Damn man, what are you thinkin. No wonder it wont' boot. You always want to run in sync fsb/ram speed.

The fsb is double pumped by the board... so you set it to 166 it gives you 333 automatically.