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What can I do to help my MB to recognize my Processor?

O

Old Man River

Member
What can I do to help my MB to recognize my Processor?

I have not had much help in doing so in calling for help from AZUS.

I have just built my first build some few months ago using the old AMD Athlon XP 2700+ ?Thoroughbred? 2.17GHz Processor mounted on an old ASUS "A7N8X-X" nForce2 400 Chipset Motherboard Socket A.

Upon booting up, it?s very fast and I think I see XP 1500. Upon selecting my system summary, it displays: Processor x86 Family 6 model 8 stepping 1 authenticAMD ~ 1293 Mhz.
It recognizes my MB, however, my processor is supposed to be a 2.17Ghz Processor, not a 1293 Mhz. Processor.

With a gig of ram, it runs fast enough in some ways, but in other ways it doesn?t. I?m wondering if there is anything I can do to help that situation before I start building my next system. I would like to have what I?ve planned on and paid for. This was a cheep trial build for me. I think everything else is running fine.

This sort of leaves me a little perplexed and frustrated.

Please use whole words and keep to the English language so this ol man can understand your advice. LOL

This system, my first system build consists of this.

ANTEC ?SONATA? Case with True 380W PS
AMD Athlon XP 2700+ ?Thoroughbred? 2.17GHz Processor
ASUS "A7N8X-X" nForce2 400 Chipset Motherboard Socket A
Two Corsair Value Select 184 Pin 512MB DDR 400 PC-3200
Seagate 80GB 7200RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive
ASUS nVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 64-bit
Zonet V.92 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem
Samsung 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy Disk Drive,
Lite-On 52X32X52X16 Combo Drive
Logitech S-100 BLK 5 Watts RMS 2.0 Speaker
Windows XP Home
Office 2000 premium
Kaspersky Personal Security Suite


My next build I think I will use an :

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ ?Venice? 2.4GHz 1GHz FSB 64-bit 939 processor.
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard.
ASUS EN6600/TD/128 Geforce 128MB 128-bit DDR PCI Express Video Card.
And a gig, or so of ram.
 
Looks like the CPU has a multiplier of 13x.
13x100 = 1300, your current speed.
13x166 = 2158, your desired speed.
Try to adjust FSB in bios to 166.

If motherboard does not support this 166MHz FSB CPU, you can always do the simple jumper wire in CPU socket trick. Do a search for more info. This method was common to use on older boards. Since your board is a nForce2 400, Bios should have settings for you to adjust FSB to 166MHz.
 
Wentelteefje

I have the latest bios update from AZUS. The first CD that came with the AZUS MB didn?t have anything on it and they shipped me another one and told me it was the latest.

I have no idea what you mean, or how to do it when you ask me, ?Check with CPU-Z if it runs at full speed.?

I recently installed a laser printer and a UPS Battery Backup and was immediately taken to the BIOS setup and told in some manor to adjust the CPU speed. I still have some common sense where fear set in as I navigated through the arrows to see something familiar to my CPU Type/speed, but as my eyes begin to cloud over, and backed out and saved before I screwed everything up and saved what I originally had. I don?t want to live in that unfamiliar S.O.L world.
BIOS setup is too new to me.

RobsTV,
I will try to see what I can decipher from your suggestion and go from there. Remember, I?m 71 years old and though I?m no dummy, this BIOS stuff is all too unfamiliar to me. I will desperately try to learn more about it.
?Jumper wire in CPU socket trick?? LOL

 
No, what I meant was using an external program to verify at what speed your processor actually works... It mentions XP 1500+ (1.33GHz) and 1.293GHz, but those could be mistakes as well... Normally that processor should be reasonably fast, no matter what you do with it...

Therefore I advised on checking it with a program that's very good, and gets right almost everything... Download CPU-Z here... It is a ZIP and needs no installation, just double-clicking on "cpuz.exe" and you're fine...

About the overclocking RobsTV mentions... He made a correct calculation, and advises to overclock your FrontSide Bus... This is the actual speed at which your processor exchanges data with your memory etc (yours is supposed to be at 166MHz)... Multiply it with your "multiplier" of 13, and you should get some 2.16GHz...

Your FSB is probably only at 100MHz (which equals some 1.3GHz, minimal differences are of course possible), and should be raised to 166MHz in order to get the full speed...
 
I just noticed something that might be the solution... "need to set 166/200 jumper"... If you can find out where that jumper's located (the product manual should state so), you can manually set it to 166MHz, and all you're problems will be solved without having to enter the BIOS... 😉

I'll look up more about it...
 
Page 20 (1-10) of this online manual gives you the exact location of the jumpers we're looking for... If they appear to have been set right, then you'll have to overclock through your BIOS...

EDIT: It does seem, however, more likely to be a BIOS fault... I mean it being not up-to-date enough to fully recognize it... But if you say you have the newest version, that sounds odd to me... Their newest one is 1010...
 
The order... 😉

1. Check jumper settings...
2. If they are ok, try a BIOS update...
3. If that didn't work, give manually overclocking it...

Someone else's got an idea?
 
They sent me the second DC ? the good CD that worked:

BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A7N8X-X ACPI BIOS Rev 1011, 8/4/2004
SMBIOS Version 2.2

I would assume that would be the latest version over the 1010. Could I be wrong?

I followed the instructions and set the FSB Jumpers for 400/333/266 (The Default setting)

I?ll recheck again sometime tomorrow.
As you recall, I stated I?m a little bit jumpy in fooling with the BIOS Because I?m unfamiliar with navigating it. I?m also quite a bit jumpy in downloading that Download CPU-Z ZIP too. I?ll try to study all this later on tonight, or through tomorrow and let you all know.

Thanks guys.

 
Hmm, that's pretty good indeed... 🙂 So we can exclude the BIOS... :thumbsup:

CPU-Z isn't really that scary or dangerous or difficult...

1. Download it (to your Desktop for instance)
2. Unpack it with either an external program (WinZip, PowerArchiver etc.), or the built-in utility of Windows XP
3. Go into the folder you just extracted (do know where it is)
4. Double click "cpuz.exe" (it takes a little bit of time to open)

There you'll find all the things you need to know about your processor, and there we'll be able to see if the culprit is the low FSB...
 
There is not really another option than going into BIOS and set CPU frequency to 166 MHz. When the board is first powered, it is at default, at the lowest speed possible for CPU. Because one might put a 100 or 133 MHz FSB cpu in it, having it set at 166 right on would have cause the board to not post and cause a lot of RMA and headaches to Asus.(they seem to have enough right now with their current nforce4 line of board). But, setting it at 100 will only cause a faster CPU to run at slower speed..

Don't be effraid to go into BIOS. take the time to read your manual to see how to navigate in it and it is pretty easy.. simply not as intuitive as with a mouse.
 
Don't fear entering the Bios.
It is just like opening the hood of your car.
You can safely look around, then exit, and nothing will change.

After entering Bios (tap DEL as soon as you reboot or power up), read the text info along the bottom of each screen. It will explain how to move around in Bios, and how to make changes, When you are done, it will ask you if you want to save changes and reboot. If you select no, nothing will change. So it really is pretty safe and foolproof to look around in Bios.

When you do make a change, if you make a mistake and really screw something up, it is still easy to correct. For most motherboards, this works most of the time. Remove power cord, wait a couple minutes, hold down Insert key and keep it depressed, plug in power, turn on PC (while keeping Insert depressed). PC should then come up to Bios screen again, where you can then correct what you messed up, or simply choose defaults if in doubt, which should get you going.

Changing an Air Filter in a car is harder, and more risky to do than Bios adjustments.
 
what everybody has said so far is correct. I also have the A7N8X-X and an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+. By defualt, it ran at 1100 Mghz. I changed the FSB to 200 and it ran at 2000mhz.
don't worry about entering the bios. u can't do any harm. if the settings are wrong, either the mobo will revert to default settings or windows will simply not boot. just experiment carefully. good lcuk.
 
How to raise the FSB of your processor:

1. Go into the BIOS (Press Del on startup)...
2. Navigate with the cursors to Advanced Chipset Features (there you should see a screen like this one)...

Some facts:

- CPU External Frequency will probably be set to 100MHz...
- CPU Frequency Multiple should be 13x...
- Memory Frequency should be set to 100% (the Resulting Frequency should be 100MHz initially, this will change to 166MHz, the same as your FSB)...
- CPU VCore Setting should be on Auto...
- CPU VCore should be 1.650V, if not, you'll have to change the CPU VCore Setting to Manual and adjust it, but it will probably be fine...
- AGP Frequency needs to be at 66MHz, or maybe that's Auto or so...

If you happen to see something like a "PCI Frequency", let it be on Auto, or otherwise its speed should be 33MHz...

3. You'll have to check the aforementioned settings, when they're ok, you can start...
4. Raise the CPU External Frequency (5MHz at a time)...
5. Exit your BIOS (don't forget to save!) and let your computer restart (reboot)
6. Check CPU-Z if there is any difference (if you have raised your FSB by 5MHz, the speed should be some 1.365GHz - 13x 105 - (minimal differences are possible)
If it shows this speed (approximately), then you know you're doing right and you can restart your computer, go back into the BIOS, raise another 5MHz and so on...

DON'T raise your FSB by, let's say, 25MHz at a time just to have it done faster... Your mobo may crash when doing so... Slowly raising will give you no problems...

If you have more questions, don't hesitate on asking...

Good Luck!
 
No need to pray... 😛 When you're doing it thoughtful and are not messing with every single setting, you should be perfectly fine... It may sound frightening if you read stories about fried mobos and messed up comps, but I can assure you that, when not exaggerating, everything will go well...

EDIT: BTW you shouldn't really be checking those torture test programs, as you are not actually overclocking, you are just bringing back your processor to its nominal speed, at which it should be stable... 😉
 
Okay. I took a look and with the instructions from you, things started to make a little sense. What I found was:
CPU External Frequency was set to 100MHz...
CPU Frequency Multiple was 13x...
Memory Frequency was not set to 100% it was [BY SPD]
the Resulting Frequency was not 100MHz, it was at 200
CPU VCore Setting should be on Auto... It was on Auto
CPU VCore should be 1.650V, it was 1.650V
AGP Frequency needs to be at 66MHz, or maybe that's Auto or so... It was Disabled

If you happen to see something like a "PCI Frequency", let it be on Auto, or otherwise its speed should be 33MHz...
Click to expand...

This item was not there. It was not displayed on that page.


I ask, when I set the FSB to 166, will all those other readings that are off, or disabled need changing too? And will I change that at another time?

4. Raise the CPU External Frequency (5MHz at a time)...
5. Exit your BIOS (don't forget to save!) and let your computer restart (reboot)
6. Check CPU-Z if there is any difference (if you have raised your FSB by 5MHz, the speed should be some 1.365GHz - 13x 105 - (minimal differences are possible)
If it shows this speed (approximately), then you know you're doing right and you can restart your computer, go back into the BIOS, raise another 5MHz and so on...
Click to expand...

Why would I want to do this? Is this what I would do if I wanted to overclock the CPU? If so, I may want to do that once I find things are stable, but I may need help in doing so.

 
I ask, when I set the FSB to 166, will all those other readings that are off, or disabled need changing too? And will I change that at another time?
Click to expand...
Normally you should be perfectly fine, that's why asked about the AGP Frequency Setting... It's locked, and therefore will not grow together with your FSB... Which is perfect 🙂
Why would I want to do this? Is this what I would do if I wanted to overclock the CPU? If so, I may want to do that once I find things are stable, but I may need help in doing so.
Click to expand...
I would certainly do so for the first time, just to see if you're doing allright... After that, you can just up the FSB, save and exit, let it reboot, and when Windows has started, restart and do another 5MHz...

Do not take jumps that are too big, you could damage your mobo... It needs some patience...

About the memory... 200MHz is fine, but I would suggest setting the Memory Frequency to 100%... With an AMD Athlon XP processor, your system benefits the most when it is run at the same speed of the FSB (166MHz)...

 
Okay. Thanks.
I wont do it now, maybe tonight, or tomorrow. I need to do some work on my files; I?m a publicist, an author and am a little busy.
Have a good night.

You know, I built this computer myself for somewhat less than $999.00. I just bought me an ACER Laptop for more than that cost and it zucks, unstable as hell. Goes to show ya, you build it yourself, and it?s better then what is on the market.


 
I build my computers myself too... Gives you the opportunity to look around, compare and look for the best prices, and work at least with branded equipment, no OEM stuff...
Good luck with it... Don't hesitate on asking more...
 
I had the same issue on an A7N8X board a few years ago. It sometimes doesn't recognize the processor the first time and sets the FSB to 100 as a precaution. Just set it to 166 manually and it will work fine.
 
I did it! I have: Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~ 2162 Mhz

I was unable to select and change the Memory Frequency from 200 to 100. The curser just skipped right over it. This was also a lesser shade of black, (Gray) so I don?t think they wanted to change this value.

I?ll raise the CPU External Frequency (5MHz at a time)... sometime later.

It seems to be somewhat faster, I know from the start this system has run very cool. The only fan that is running is the processor and PSU. It?s still the same way.

Damn! I?m happy. Thanks.


 
Huh? You haven't raised your FSB, and all of a sudden your processor runs at its nominal speed? I'm confused... 😕

BTW, I didn't mean setting it to 100MHz, but to 100% eh... In your case it should be 166MHz then... BUt leave it at 200MHz, if everything works fine, I'm glad... 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Wentelteefje
Huh? You haven't raised your FSB, and all of a sudden your processor runs at its nominal speed? I'm confused... 😕

BTW, I didn't mean setting it to 100MHz, but to 100% eh... In your case it should be 166MHz then... BUt leave it at 200MHz, if everything works fine, I'm glad... 🙂
Click to expand...

I changed the CPU External Frequency from 100 Mhz to 166 Mhz. I looked but I didn't see any FSB setings. I assumed changing the CPU External Frequency to 166 would do it, and it seemed to do it.

I wen't back into BIOS and checked and it has stayed that way. It's at 166 still. Did I do wrong?
edit
Oh, and it tells me somewhere on boot up that it is an AMD 2700
 
LOL... 😀 That's what you mean... No, the "FSB" we were talking about actually IS that CPU External Frequency... 🙂 I should have pointed it out more... Nonetheless, I'm glad you're doing well now... (So no need to dive into your BIOS anymore... 😉)

If you want help with the new system you're planning on putting together, don't hesitate to ask... 🙂
 
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