A7S333 dies when starting XP @ 1800M

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bryan Schwerer
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Bryan Schwerer

I just added an Athlon 2200+ Thoroughbred to my system, an A7S333,
BIOS 1005.

I have PC2100 memory (266), a 400 watt power supply.

When booting for the first time, It comes up at 13.5X FSB 100. This
boots windows fine. When I try to switch to 13.5X 133, Windows
XPtries to boot then crashes and the system restarts. Manually
setting the frequency does the same thing.

Core voltage shows 1.6. I am getting conflicting info on core
voltage. One spec says 1.6 another says 1.65. IIs 0.05 volt enough
to mess something up? Any ideas? Not enough power?
 
yes. but that might not be the problem, your memory or power supply could
be lacking as well. is the throughbred unlocked? try running it at a
lower multiplier and see if it still runs.
 
Bryan Schwerer said:
I just added an Athlon 2200+ Thoroughbred to my system, an A7S333,
BIOS 1005.

I have PC2100 memory (266), a 400 watt power supply.

When booting for the first time, It comes up at 13.5X FSB 100. This
boots windows fine. When I try to switch to 13.5X 133, Windows
XPtries to boot then crashes and the system restarts. Manually
setting the frequency does the same thing.

Core voltage shows 1.6. I am getting conflicting info on core
voltage. One spec says 1.6 another says 1.65. IIs 0.05 volt enough
to mess something up? Any ideas? Not enough power?
Click to expand...

1) You have the option of JumperFree operation. The setting of
JEN also requires the DSW switches to all be in the OFF position.
That is necessary so some GPIO pins can drive the clockgen. If
some of the DSW switches are left on, while in JumperFree mode,
weird four bit values will get sent to the clock gen, which
might cause the PCI frequency to be out of spec. PCI is good
from 33MHz (stock) to 37.5MHz (overclock). Values higher than that
sometimes corrupt an IDE disk. Since you say you've tried jumper
mode as well, this probably isn't the problem.

2) Are you certain the memory is still being operated within its
PC2100 (DDR266 rate = 133MHz memory clock) limits ? It almost sounds
like a memory problem. Before booting into Windows, you should use
memtest86 from memtest.org, to test the memory. Try the board
with only one stick at first, and see if it passes memtest.
Place a single stick in slot 3, furthest from the processor (and
closest to the memory bus terminators). Once the sticks prove
they are good, you can reinstall them like you had them. If
using two sticks, try slot 1 and slot 3 as the best locations.

Have a look at "CPU/Memory Freqneucy Ratio" - 1:1 sounds good
for running FSB266 and DDR266 memory. The Auto setting would
presumably do the same thing.

You may eventually need to use a Windows utility to check
the settings being used by the BIOS. Of course, you cannot
be crashing, for that to work :-) A chicken versus egg type
problem.

3) I think your processor takes 1.6V, but a bump to 1.65V isn't
going to hurt it. A little extra voltage makes the processor
run hotter. Just stay away from whatever is the absolute max.
(the datasheet talks about Vcc_core_max+0.5V, which would be
2.15 volts or so - I have trouble believing it can take that
much, so research your own max value...)

4) For the "not enough power" question, have a look at the
hardware monitor page in the BIOS. See if the PSU voltages
are close to the +/- 5% tolerance provided by many ATX PSUs.
If the voltages are low by 10%, then power could be your
problem. The reason for the leeway between 5% and 10%, is to
make room for measurement error by the hardware monitor.

HTH,
Paul
 
1) You have the option of JumperFree operation. The setting of
JEN also requires the DSW switches to all be in the OFF position.
That is necessary so some GPIO pins can drive the clockgen. If
some of the DSW switches are left on, while in JumperFree mode,
weird four bit values will get sent to the clock gen, which
might cause the PCI frequency to be out of spec. PCI is good
from 33MHz (stock) to 37.5MHz (overclock). Values higher than that
sometimes corrupt an IDE disk. Since you say you've tried jumper
mode as well, this probably isn't the problem.
Click to expand...
Yes, I am running in jumper free mode. Sorry, I did not mean I went
out of jumper free. I meant I manually set the multiple and frequency
through the BIOS. I will check those switches.
2) Are you certain the memory is still being operated within its
PC2100 (DDR266 rate = 133MHz memory clock) limits ? It almost sounds
like a memory problem. Before booting into Windows, you should use
memtest86 from memtest.org, to test the memory. Try the board
with only one stick at first, and see if it passes memtest.
Place a single stick in slot 3, furthest from the processor (and
closest to the memory bus terminators). Once the sticks prove
they are good, you can reinstall them like you had them. If
using two sticks, try slot 1 and slot 3 as the best locations.

Have a look at "CPU/Memory Freqneucy Ratio" - 1:1 sounds good
for running FSB266 and DDR266 memory. The Auto setting would
presumably do the same thing.

You may eventually need to use a Windows utility to check
the settings being used by the BIOS. Of course, you cannot
be crashing, for that to work :-) A chicken versus egg type
problem.
Click to expand...

I will have to check into this. I was not sure that I could boot to
the command line safemode either. Does the BIOS boot the system at
the low clock rate (13.5X100), then Window XP switch it to the higher
rate (13.5X133 ) as it comes up?
3) I think your processor takes 1.6V, but a bump to 1.65V isn't
going to hurt it. A little extra voltage makes the processor
run hotter. Just stay away from whatever is the absolute max.
(the datasheet talks about Vcc_core_max+0.5V, which would be
2.15 volts or so - I have trouble believing it can take that
much, so research your own max value...)
Click to expand...
Actually it is rock on 1.6V. I beleive SiSSandra had some indication
that the core voltage was 1.65. I may be confusing too similar terms
here.
4) For the "not enough power" question, have a look at the
hardware monitor page in the BIOS. See if the PSU voltages
are close to the +/- 5% tolerance provided by many ATX PSUs.
If the voltages are low by 10%, then power could be your
problem. The reason for the leeway between 5% and 10%, is to
make room for measurement error by the hardware monitor.

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...


If I disable JumperFree, would it be worth trying 133/100 mode to see
if that allows windows to boot. That seems like it would indicate
something on the memory side, or would that cause other problems?


Thanks,

Bryan Schwere
 
Bryan said:
If I disable JumperFree, would it be worth trying 133/100 mode to see
if that allows windows to boot. That seems like it would indicate
something on the memory side, or would that cause other problems?
Click to expand...

Good idea, but I suspect the PSU. Which brand is it? Not Q-Tec I hope.
 
I just added an Athlon 2200+ Thoroughbred to my system, an A7S333,
BIOS 1005.

I have PC2100 memory (266), a 400 watt power supply.

When booting for the first time, It comes up at 13.5X FSB 100. This
boots windows fine. When I try to switch to 13.5X 133, Windows
XPtries to boot then crashes and the system restarts. Manually
setting the frequency does the same thing.

Core voltage shows 1.6. I am getting conflicting info on core
voltage. One spec says 1.6 another says 1.65. IIs 0.05 volt enough
to mess something up? Any ideas? Not enough power?
Click to expand...
A little more info. I set the CPU/memory clock ratio to 3:4 and it
ran fine with the clock at 100. I take this to mean the memory was at
133 and the CPU was at 100. This seems to point to the CPU.

Also, at the 1800M clock rate, I cannot boot windows to safemode with
command line either. It starts to print out the message about loading
drivers then blue screens and quickly resets the board. Does that
sound like a power problem?
 
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