On Wednesday 29 June 2005 13:17, Vaughn Treude wrote:
> Hello everyone:
> I have a system that seems to be cursed like the Diamondback's bullpen.
>
> :-( I was thinking maybe with all the experience and wisdom in this
>
> group, that someone could recommend how I should proceed on this.
>
> I've had a system that's been flaky for a long time and getting flakier
> (looking in the system logs revealed a scad of "dazed and confused"
> errors, the system wasn't stable at all past a 2.4 kernel, and it had
> started to occasionally hang with the beeper on.) I tried replacing the
> Soyo KT333 MB with a new one from Abit, one that was compatible so I
> could use the same Athlon 2400 processor and DR333 memory. It started
> out by having seg faults every time I tried to install Linux, so I took
> out the old ram and got a new DR333 memory stick. That improved things
> quite a bit, but it would still hang at least once every time I tried to
> reinstall Linux. I decided to return the new board and go back to the
> Soyo in the meantime.
>
> But when when I moved the CPU and memory to the Soyo, and got it back in
> the case, it didn't work right at all! It would tell me I had a bad
> bios checksum. I could update the bios, but once I saved the settings
> and tried to boot, it would hang hard with a high-pitched squeal out of
> the beeper.
>
> The troubleshooting guide at the Soyo website suggested (a) bad power
> supply or (b) overheating CPU. So first I tried replacing the
> several-years-old 300W supply with a new 400W Antec. That didn't help.
> Then I realized I had forgotten to reapply thermal compound to the CPU.
> That didn't help either. I replaced the coin cell on the motherboard,
> so I wasn't losing my BIOS settings any more. But now it would hang
> immediately unless I used the clear-CMOS jumper to reset the BIOS,
> allowing me to get back into there.
>
> One complication of this MB is that it allows you to select different
> CPU core voltages, RAM voltages, and AGP voltages. There's a default
> setting for each but it doesn't say what that default actually is. I
> left the RAM and AGP settings alone, because the screen implied that the
> default values were the nominal voltages in those cases. But the
> default for the CPU had no such guideline. Checking the specs from AMD,
> the 2400 is supposed to be either a 1.60 or 1.65 V part, but neither of
> those voltages work - it hangs and squeaks again. So I cleared the CMOS
> again and checked the "PC health" area of the BIOS, which showed that in
> BIOS-setting mode it was running at 1.5 V. I reset the CPU voltage
> setting to this value. This time I could get as far as the LILO
> selection screen (I hadn't erased the whole disk, just tried to install
> into a new partition, so I figured I could still boot into Mandrake 8.)
>
> I still don't know about the CPU temperature, but I know the fan is
> running and the CPU core temperature in the PC health section showed it
> to be at 75 degrees C, which was 8 degrees hotter than when I added the
> thermal compound! This seems a little hot so perhaps it's hitting the
> 85 degree limit. With all those fans on, I don't know why! Perhaps I
> damaged the CPU somehow when moving it back and forth. I know that the
> clip on the CPU heat sink is an absolute SOB to get on and off, and it
> seems to take an inordinate amount of force to unclip it in particular.
> The Soyo manual had no advice whatsoever about this except to "be
> careful not to scratch the board" and it took me a while and a couple of
> slips to figure out how to unclip it using a screwdriver and needle nose
> pliers simultaneously.
>
> Any ideas or recommendations? I've now tried replacing everything
> except the drives (though I did try unplugging some of them, didn't
> help) and the CPU. Maybe I need to get a new CPU - but only if I also
> replace that profoundly evil heat sink.
>
> Thanks in advance for any help you can give me,
>
> Vaughn
I've been here many times.
firstly, part of your problem was questionable ram.
second, there is the possibility of heat related damage to the cpu (it still
works, so its only a possibility)
third: have you checked to make sure you aren't accidently overclocking
things. try changing the value of the cpu clock (in bios) to a lower amount.
also, change the clock value for the memory to a lower figure.
one last point, it sounds like that soyo MB is on its last legs. the newer
board sounded like it worked a lot better.
btw, I use a kt333 (in the ECS K7VTA series board) with an XP 2400 here. only
trouble I had with it locking on boot was when the cpu core frequency was set
too high.
also, due to a recent power supply failure, I am now down to 4 PCI slots on
this board (the last 2 (shared) failed as a result of PSU failure).
if you can find a Sempron 2400 or 2600 to try on that board, I would suggest
it. if that works with no problems, then you know you have a heat damaged cpu
on your hands.
TMH
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