GFD Broken on Classical Athlon ???

[roth]

I got a v2.0 northwind GFD in the mail yesterday. I got it off eb*y. My processor is a 700Mhz, defualts to 1.6 volts and I'm using an Abit KA7 I started out with settings on the GFD of the normal 700Mhz and 1.6 volts OFF-ON-ON-ON for 700Mhz and OFF-ON-ON-OFF for 1.6 volts, and the computer wouldn't boot. I took it off about 3 or 4 times, moving jumpers around, and it would never boot. So I tried other settings. I finally got it to boot one or two tries when it was set to 700Mhz or 750 Mhz and 1.65 and 1.70 volts on the GFD. I was going straight into BIOS after every boot though, and it said running at 700Mhz and 2.05 volts! That scared the crap out of me and I turned the computer off immediatly. Every time I got the computer to boot, 3 tries out of maybe 25 or so, it always said 2.05 volts in Bios, but I NEVER had all 4 voltage dips set to ON. What's wrong??? Is it broken? The CPU is fine, I'm using that computer right now. But I'm worried about continuing to try, if its going to keep feeding 2.05 volts to the processor. Would it be allright to just put on user defined settings if I can get it to boot, and with that set it lower? Even if it's defaulting to 2.05 from the GFD?

Thanks, Robert

 

[stockjock]

My guess is one of two things:
1. Your rite and the GFD is broken!
2. Or you mite be putting it on backwards...I have done that before. Make sure you have it on the correct way as the GFD will fit on either way.

Just my .02 worth.

 

[roth]

I've installed it with the switch side toward the heatsink like it says on Northwinds web site.
http://www.northwindcomputers.com/gfdinstall.html
So it's not that...
damn. this sucks.
I've emailed the guy at northwind but he hasn't replied yet.

 

[subhuman]

Had the same problem with my northwind, computer didn't post with it connected =( Never got it working, either.

 

[roth]

Did you have success with other GFD's??

 

[subhuman]

haven't tried anything else yet, think it's fine at 600mhz for now. kinda annoying to have burned open the case to get access to the golden fingers, leaves an ugly hole there.

if you find out anything, email me or PM me, i would love to get it working. post your findings here too. i've asked this about the northwind 2.0 before, and no luck.

 

[roth]

OK. IT works now!
The trick is to unplug ALL power to the computer before you put the GFD on. If I take out the power cord for at least 10sec, put the GFD on, plug it back in, and then boot. Everything works fine.
CPU Speed and Voltage report correctly in BIOS as set on the GFD.

I wonder if that would of worked for you too Subhuman...

Now the problem is that even if I set the L2 Cache to 2/5 or 1/3 in bios, it still always reports in SiSoft Sandra AND CPUID that it's still at 1/2.... wierd...

 

[subhuman]

roth, I think SiSoft Sandra may just report what it reads out of the BIOS, not necessarily what your computer is running at. For example, my ram is CAS2,2,2, but it's SPD is 3,3,3, and SiSoft Sandra reports the SPD even though I'm running it way faster (and this can be verified by the benchmarks).

BTW, I've emailed my friend who I was helping with this, haven't heard back from him yet, we'll see if your method works...