Fake Athlon 3200

[camberiu]

Hello,

I suspect I have been sold a fake Athlon XP 3200. I bought it from a online retail store and the CPU does come labelled as a 3200. However, it will NOT work at all on my Shuttle AN35 Nforce 2 ultra motherboard if I set the FSB to 200 mhz and the voltage to 1.65v. However, it will work fine if the FSB is set to 166 mhz, but the system will recognize it as an Athlon 2500+. Now, if I set the FSB back to 200mhz and change the voltage to 1.725 volts, the computer will work. However, this is what anyone would do to OVERCLOCK an Athlon 2500+ to 3200+. So I suspect that I've been sold a 2500+ that was labeled as a 3200. Again, the label on the CPU states 3200 (it is a green CPU). Is there anyway I can confirm if this is a fake CPU or not? Thank you in advance.

 

[Spikesoldier]

if you look on the black rectangle on the chip itself, with the text, you should see 3200 on there.

the 3200 was a 400FSB chip only, runs at 2.2GHz and carries a multiplier of 11x.

try setting the CPU settings to AUTO and see what you get. if it doesnt work at 1.65v or whatever the default vcore (set this to auto also), then i would say its a faulty chip and return it.

but i seriously doubt you got a 'fake' chip, if it has no physical defects/damage/tampering anywhere on the CPU, came in a sealed package, and under AUTO settings in a board will detect 11x multi and 400FSB.

maybe your memory isnt up to par? do you have ddr400?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Start by seeing what CPU-Z IDs it as. What is the name of the e-tailer you got it from and was it OEM? There have been reports of counterfeit AMD CPUs being seized as recently as feburary so anything is possible.

 

[camberiu]

The black rectangle clearly states 3200. But I think it should not be very difficult to alter that. I did set everything to auto (except the FSB) and it will NOT work. Now, once I change the voltage to 1.725, it will work fine (just generate a lot of heat, about 46 C idle if the room is at 74 F). That is why I am very suspicious. From my understanding this would be the exact behavior of an Athlon 2500+ once it is overclocked to to 3200+. I am using MICRON 2700 DDR memory, but it is my understanding that that should not matter.

 

[LTC8K6]

What does CPU-Z or WCPUID say about it?
What numbers are on it?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Black label is not hard to fake but it is hard to get perfect

 

[camberiu]

When I run CPU-Z it simply states it is a 3200+. Should I check any other tab where it would give me a serial number or something like that? Also, won't CPU-Z and similar programs report the same CPU number as the bios? So, If I overclock a 2500+ to say a 3000+ I think that the program will report it as a 3000+, no?

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, it might matter if your 166mhz ram won't run at 200mhz.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Clear the CMOS or pick fail-safe settings and see if it boots@3200+ speed without issue.

 

[camberiu]

" Well, it might matter if your 166mhz ram won't run at 200mhz. "


On the BIOS I am setting the RAM speed to 166mhz, so that hsould remain constant. I thought that the memory bus and the CPU bus were two different things and you could have the FSB set to 200mhz and the memory bus set to 166mhz. But if what youa re saying is correct, then why would the system work fine once I set the core to 1.725v? How would increasing the core CPU voltage make the RAM able to run at 200 mhz?

 

[PumpActionWalrus]

Id almost say you got gayed

 

[Shimmishim]

Originally posted by: camberiu
When I run CPU-Z it simply states it is a 3200+. Should I check any other tab where it would give me a serial number or something like that? Also, won't CPU-Z and similar programs report the same CPU number as the bios? So, If I overclock a 2500+ to say a 3000+ I think that the program will report it as a 3000+, no?

a 3200+ in cpu-z will always say its a 3200+ even if it's overclocked.

a 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ will still say 2500+.

since 2500+ have an 11x mult it makes sense...

11 x 166 = 1826 (~1833) makes it a 2500+

11 x 200 = 2200 makes it a 3200+

you have the most recent bios installed?

are you sure it's not a mem issue at all.

you can run your fsb at 200 like you said and set your ram at 166 and it should be fine...

did you leave all your timings (mem timings) on auto?

 

[camberiu]

Yes, I've set the memory bus to run at 166 mhz and the FSB to 200 mhz and it WILL not work, UNLESS if I raise the core voltage to 1.725. The timings are set to auto. However, again, if it is a memory issue, how come raising the core voltage of the CPU to 1.725 makes everything work?

Finally, It seems that one of the L-12 bridges is burned. Does anyone know if on the Athlon 3200 the L-12 briges should have burns or not?

 

[LTC8K6]

From a Hexus.net review of the board:

Notes and issues

Here's where it gets interesting. We tried the AN35N with 2 pre-tested sticks of Corsair's excellent XMS3500 RAM. Not only have these sticks run as a pair at DDR-400 with 2-6-2-2 timings, they have done so with default volts. This has been tested on a number of cross-platform motherboards from various manufacturers. Imagine our surprise, then, when the board failed to load a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional with these timings (we always install the OS with relatively relaxed timings). Raising the voltage to the maximum 2.7v didn't cure our stability problems. Using another pre-tested pair of Mushkin EMS PC3500 modules didn't help either. Using any number of high-performance PC3200+ modules resulted in almost instant crashing when loading the OS. However, relaxing the memory timings to 2-3-3-7 cured all ailments. It appears as if the board is applying some odd latencies when set to 2-2-2-6 in BIOS. To confuse matters a little more, running at 166FSB caused no problems whatsoever, even with the tightest latencies. The sample board also had a problem restarting from 200FSB upwards. It was even money whether it would reboot correctly or not. In its defence, it did power-up perfectly each and every time.