Here are the specs on my girlfriend's PC:
Asus A7N8X mobo
Athlon XP 2800+
2GB Corsair TwinX2048-3200PT RAM (upgraded recently)
After upgrading her memory from 1GB, we noticed her PC was still running very slowly. I ran MemTest86 to check the new memory, and it tested fine, but the test ran much slower than expected. That's when I noticed MemTest was reporting her FSB as 99Mhz.
I checked her BIOS, and found some odd settings:
CPU External Frequency - 100Mhz
Memory Frequency - Auto
FSB Spread Spectrum - 0.50%
According to Asus, the Athlon XP 2800+ supports a 333Mhz FSB. The manual also states that the FSB is twice the CPU External Frequency setting, so I reset it to 166Mhz. It is also supposed to support DDR400, so I changed the Memory Frequency to By SPD, which apparently resulted in 200Mhz for RAM.
FSB Spread Spectrum feature is not explained at all in the manual, other than the default setting being Disabled, which I set it to.
Despite what the manual says about the FSB being twice the CPU External Frequency, MemTest and POST now report the FSB as 167/166Mhz (respectively).
The new memory tested fine, and the test did run faster with the new settings, though still not as fast as I would have expected (each pass still took about twice as long to run on her machine than on my rig: 2.4 P4C, 2GB RAM, Abit IC7-G).
So, here are my questions:
What ARE the proper BIOS settings for an Athlon XP 2800+ on this mobo?
What the heck is the FSB Spread Spectrum setting for?
On top of that, last night both our PCs rebooted overnight (probably due to a Windows Update), but hers crashed during shutdown (stuck on the "Windows is shutting down" screen). We reset it, and then it was getting stuck on the Windows loading splash (the loading bar would just keep scrolling and get to the log in screen). Then I rebooted into Safe Mode, and it seemed to be fine, but when restarting into normal mode again, it would get stuck at the same place.
She suggested doing a cold boot, so I turned it off and back on, and now it doesn't even POST!
I'm wondering now if the settings I put into the BIOS fried the CPU. Were my settings horribly overclocking it in some way?
Any suggestions?
As I write this, I am leaving her PC off to let it cool completely to room temp before trying to power it up again. I'm hoping it will work long enough for me to put the BIOS back the way I found it. Even if the settings it had were wrong (such as the 100Mhz CPU Ext Freq/FSB), maybe we can at least get her up and running again.
Asus A7N8X mobo
Athlon XP 2800+
2GB Corsair TwinX2048-3200PT RAM (upgraded recently)
After upgrading her memory from 1GB, we noticed her PC was still running very slowly. I ran MemTest86 to check the new memory, and it tested fine, but the test ran much slower than expected. That's when I noticed MemTest was reporting her FSB as 99Mhz.
I checked her BIOS, and found some odd settings:
CPU External Frequency - 100Mhz
Memory Frequency - Auto
FSB Spread Spectrum - 0.50%
According to Asus, the Athlon XP 2800+ supports a 333Mhz FSB. The manual also states that the FSB is twice the CPU External Frequency setting, so I reset it to 166Mhz. It is also supposed to support DDR400, so I changed the Memory Frequency to By SPD, which apparently resulted in 200Mhz for RAM.
FSB Spread Spectrum feature is not explained at all in the manual, other than the default setting being Disabled, which I set it to.
Despite what the manual says about the FSB being twice the CPU External Frequency, MemTest and POST now report the FSB as 167/166Mhz (respectively).
The new memory tested fine, and the test did run faster with the new settings, though still not as fast as I would have expected (each pass still took about twice as long to run on her machine than on my rig: 2.4 P4C, 2GB RAM, Abit IC7-G).
So, here are my questions:
What ARE the proper BIOS settings for an Athlon XP 2800+ on this mobo?
What the heck is the FSB Spread Spectrum setting for?
On top of that, last night both our PCs rebooted overnight (probably due to a Windows Update), but hers crashed during shutdown (stuck on the "Windows is shutting down" screen). We reset it, and then it was getting stuck on the Windows loading splash (the loading bar would just keep scrolling and get to the log in screen). Then I rebooted into Safe Mode, and it seemed to be fine, but when restarting into normal mode again, it would get stuck at the same place.
She suggested doing a cold boot, so I turned it off and back on, and now it doesn't even POST!
I'm wondering now if the settings I put into the BIOS fried the CPU. Were my settings horribly overclocking it in some way?
Any suggestions?
As I write this, I am leaving her PC off to let it cool completely to room temp before trying to power it up again. I'm hoping it will work long enough for me to put the BIOS back the way I found it. Even if the settings it had were wrong (such as the 100Mhz CPU Ext Freq/FSB), maybe we can at least get her up and running again.
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