Help Upgrading System (New MB & CPU)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jaggz
  • Start date Start date
J

Jaggz

Hi,

I have a friend who just recently decided to upgrade his Alienware-made
computer with a faster cpu and motherboard. He went out and bought both and
installed everything correctly, however, chaos struck. When first started
the system would not recognize the cpu at the right speed and after attempts
to make it closer or the actual cpu speed the computer became unstable and
eventually wouldn't load at all. He sent it to a shop to be looked at and
they couldn't figure out what the problem was (a well lost 60 dollars :( ),
and now the computer won't load up past the bios screen. If anyone has any
insight or knows of any problem or can help us get this machine working I'd
appreciate it greatly, as my friend is at the point of just going out and
spending a few grand just cause this rather good machine he has now isn't
cooperating...Thanks in advance...


His Old Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 2200 CPU
-Asus A7N266-C DDR Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC2100 133mHz (unsure of speed, perhaps 266) DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Audigy 1394 Soundcard

His New Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 3200+ CPU
-Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC3200 400mHz DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Integrated Sound Card (Onboard)

-Jaggz
 
Disconnect all drives and drive cables, look closely around and under the
mobo for any wayward screws, clear the cmos and try starting it up.
If this gets you to the point where you can access the bios then connect a
hdd and cdrom and try again, I would avoid setting the ram any higher than
the 333 (166) level untill you get satisfactory results with the CPU
settings, maybe your ram is not stable at 400mhz.(my understanding and it
may be wrong is that the memory can run at or above the cpu setting but not
below it, in other words if the cpu is at 166/333 the cpu has to be 166/333
or 200/400).
 
I have a friend who just recently decided to upgrade his Alienware-made
computer with a faster cpu and motherboard. He went out and bought both and
installed everything correctly, however, chaos struck. When first started
the system would not recognize the cpu at the right speed and after attempts
to make it closer or the actual cpu speed the computer became unstable and
eventually wouldn't load at all. He sent it to a shop to be looked at and
Click to expand...

Was that an AMD processor and he is trying to run it at the "AMD" speed
instead of what it actually is ? If so the speed needs to be setback and by
now it may have damaged the processor from overheating.
 
Hi,

I have a friend who just recently decided to upgrade his Alienware-made
computer with a faster cpu and motherboard. He went out and bought both and
installed everything correctly, however, chaos struck. When first started
the system would not recognize the cpu at the right speed and after attempts
to make it closer or the actual cpu speed the computer became unstable and
eventually wouldn't load at all. He sent it to a shop to be looked at and
they couldn't figure out what the problem was (a well lost 60 dollars :( ),
and now the computer won't load up past the bios screen. If anyone has any
insight or knows of any problem or can help us get this machine working I'd
appreciate it greatly, as my friend is at the point of just going out and
spending a few grand just cause this rather good machine he has now isn't
cooperating...Thanks in advance...


His Old Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 2200 CPU
-Asus A7N266-C DDR Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC2100 133mHz (unsure of speed, perhaps 266) DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Audigy 1394 Soundcard

His New Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 3200+ CPU
-Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC3200 400mHz DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Integrated Sound Card (Onboard)
Click to expand...

(A7N8XX would possibly have been a slightly better choice for XP3200,
and I don't understand why a XP2200 needed an upgrade in the first
place, but never mind.)

"installed everything correctly". Well unless you have a hardware
failure, that sure doesn't seem to be the case. Nor is common that
people knowingly does thing uncorrectly, thus your assumption that it
is "correct" is natural, and does not need to be explicitly stated.
This is just a convenient way of not telling what has been
installed/reinstalled, and what bios settings are used.
But how do you expect to get help?

"and after attempts to make it closer or the actual cpu speed"
- What settings have you chosen to do that?!

"computer won't load up past the bios screen". So you get to the bios?
Sounds nice. So is it a problem with RAM, hd/boot or OS-install?


ancra
 
Jaggz said:
Hi,

I have a friend who just recently decided to upgrade his Alienware-made
computer with a faster cpu and motherboard. He went out and bought both and
installed everything correctly, however, chaos struck. When first started
the system would not recognize the cpu at the right speed and after attempts
to make it closer or the actual cpu speed the computer became unstable and
eventually wouldn't load at all. He sent it to a shop to be looked at and
they couldn't figure out what the problem was (a well lost 60 dollars :( ),
and now the computer won't load up past the bios screen. If anyone has any
insight or knows of any problem or can help us get this machine working I'd
appreciate it greatly, as my friend is at the point of just going out and
spending a few grand just cause this rather good machine he has now isn't
cooperating...Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...

I can't see why those buttholes would charge any $$$ when they couldn't
figure out what was wrong with the machine in the first place. That bites.

http://www.ourstrangeworld.com
 
Hi,

I have a friend who just recently decided to upgrade his Alienware-made
computer with a faster cpu and motherboard. He went out and bought both and
installed everything correctly, however, chaos struck. When first started
the system would not recognize the cpu at the right speed and after attempts
to make it closer or the actual cpu speed the computer became unstable and
eventually wouldn't load at all. He sent it to a shop to be looked at and
they couldn't figure out what the problem was (a well lost 60 dollars :( ),
and now the computer won't load up past the bios screen. If anyone has any
insight or knows of any problem or can help us get this machine working I'd
appreciate it greatly, as my friend is at the point of just going out and
spending a few grand just cause this rather good machine he has now isn't
cooperating...Thanks in advance...


His Old Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 2200 CPU
-Asus A7N266-C DDR Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC2100 133mHz (unsure of speed, perhaps 266) DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Audigy 1394 Soundcard

His New Specs:
-AMD Athlon XP 3200+ CPU
-Asus A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
-1 Gigabyte of PC3200 400mHz DDR Ram
-Nvidia Geforce4 TI4600 128 Ram
-Integrated Sound Card (Onboard)

-Jaggz
Click to expand...

I have mellowed a bit, so despite I have no idea what info you're
probing for, and I don't have any 3200 myself, I'm gonna at least
loose what I think would be about right:

The XP3200+ correctly should run at close to 2.2GHz.

I think it should be:
external clock 200MHz
cpu multiplier 11

But I suppose you've already tried that? So:
external clock 166 MHz (gives you 333FSB which might be max for the
mobo.)
cpu multiplier (try auto first) 13.25 if available (I don't think it
is, so stick to 13 for a start, try 13.5 later)

memory frequency 200 MHz == DDR 400 MHz
precharge delay 8 (for starters)
RAS to CAS delay 3 (for starters)
RAS precharge delay 3 (for starters)
CAS latency 2.5 (for starters)
Do a reinstall/repair-reinstall of the OS and install new mobo
drivers.

Getting to the bios is really nice, and your problems should be
possible to fix. Take heart, grit and show some stamina.

What do you mean by "the computer won't load up past the bios screen."
Could this be a boot issue rather than a cpu/ram?
Can the bios see your harddrive?


ancra
 
Disconnect all drives and drive cables, look closely around and under the
mobo for any wayward screws, clear the cmos and try starting it up.
If this gets you to the point where you can access the bios then connect a
hdd and cdrom and try again, I would avoid setting the ram any higher than
the 333 (166) level untill you get satisfactory results with the CPU
settings, maybe your ram is not stable at 400mhz.(my understanding and it
may be wrong is that the memory can run at or above the cpu setting but not
below it, in other words if the cpu is at 166/333 the cpu has to be 166/333
or 200/400).
Click to expand...

You might be confusing 'external clock' and 'double datatransfer rate'
with bus frequencies.

166/333 on the cpu means you are running the frontside bus at 333MHz!
200/400 on memory means DDR400 on memory bus at 200MHz!

DDR400 MHz works perfectly well with a fronside bus frequency of
333MHz.


ancra
 
Sorry, I haven't responded as fast as I should have...we've made some
progress, but not much...

As of now, the computer will load up and freeze during the time that the XP
logo should appear. We've tried safe mode, xp boot->repair,
reformat->reinstall (a few times on a few different hard drives) and it
still doesn't load. Now when it should show the XP logo it shows just a
black screen and locks up....any thoughts?


-jaggz
 
Back
Top