GA-7NNXP / AthlonXP 3000+ -- Clock speed troubles

[Nebben]

I'm working on a friend's PC, with the following specs:

GA-7NNXP
Athlon XP 3000+
512MB Crucial RAM (PC2700? Not totally sure. He bought it using their compatbility testing thing on the website, so it's either 2700 or 3200.)
Radeon 9600 Pro, or somesuch.

The issue is this: It won't boot up at the proper speed for a 3000+ (2.167ghz). No matter what settings I try, it'll always boot up as an XP 1700. There's a clock switch on the motherboard to switch between 100mhz FSB and "Auto", and it won't boot at all if it's set to auto. It's possible I'm overlooking something in my settings, but I can't figure out what.

It should be set to an FSB of 166mhz with this setup, right?

I've looked through all of the stuff on the Gigabyte website, and their documentation is pretty terrible and full of Engrish-like phrases. Not a big help. Nothing helpful in the FAQ, either.

I'm probably going to do a BIOS flash, as his bios is version 18 and it's up to 20 or 21 now on their website. But I'm a little wary of doing that unless it's most likely the issue.

Anyone have experience with this combo or a similar one, or anyone have any ideas on what I could try before the BIOS flash?

 

[homestarmy]

Have you read the motherboard's manual cover to cover? No FSB option in the BIOS?

 

[Nebben]

Yeah, there is an FSB setting in the BIOS. But it doesn't function unless the switch is set to AUTO instead of 100mhz, and it won't boot in AUTO no matter what I try. What I'm looking for is the correct setting combination, which I thought I knew, but it apparently won't work.

When it boots up into the lower 1700xp speed, it does pass memtest fine. But that's running at half the speed it should be.

 

[Willoughbyva]

What speed RAM are you using?


Perry

 

[Nebben]

512MB PC3200

That's the exact stick that's in the system.

 

[Fardringle]

Depending on the specific CPU, it could be 333 or 400Mhz (166 or 200) FSB. Gigabyte says the motherboard supports both versions fully so compatibility shouldn't be a problem. However, if the CPU is the 400Mhz version, that could very well be causing the boot failure. The patch notes for BIOS version F19 say that the version fixes issues booting at 200/400FSB so if you have a 400FSB CPU and only have BIOS version F18, updating the BIOS might resolve the issue. You can get BIOS version F20 (the newest on Gigabyte's site) here.

 

[Nebben]

All righty, I'll give the BIOS flash a shot, then. I just tend to try to avoid doing that unless it's likely to be the solution, because I've heard horror stories about BIOS flashes on certain boards. But I suppose this could be my best bet.

Thanks for the help