Motherboard FSB problems

[vargasjhu]

Hey all, I built my computer last year, and I recently installed some new DDR 2100 ram. About a month later my system began to hang while running common programs such as Word, windows media player, etc. Just idling the pc would not make it freeze up though. I had to clear the CMOS memory several times while trying to diagnose the problem, and basically what I've found is that my pc is not stable at an fsb of 133 mhz. After each cmos clear the bios would boot to the stable 100 mhz, but I don't see why there are problems at 133. I'm not running sdram with ddr ram or anything like that. Perhaps a memory leak?

I'm running xp on an abit kg7 motherboard with 512 ddr ram and an athlon xp 1700+ processor. (I took out the ram i recently added).

Can anyone offer advice here? Should I update the bios, or change a bios setting? Any help would be awesome. thanks

-Dan

 

[vulcan1]

OK, I know this is an old thread, but I'm troubleshooting my wife's computer and seem to be having an extremely similar problem. I have NOT cleared the CMOS, but have checked the HD's, the power supply (used a different one in the comptuer and had the same results), tried swapping RAM...all with no results.

It started as occasionaly lockups and random restarts but now won't boot up at all. I can't even view the inital bios sequence.

A friend told me it is probably a "broken" motherboard, but this would be a first for me, and I'm just wanting to make sure I didn't miss something obvious. Any suggestions???

 

[mlek]

Although I've never 'broken' a mobo myself, I've comes across alot that haven't worked. There were problems with bad capacitors on some older boards causing instability and stopping the board from even POSTing. Are any of the caps leaking?

 

[zenmaster]

if you have multiple memory sticks, you could try booting with just one.
Normally you will have the DIMM slots marked. You likely need one in DIMM1 at least.

 

[vulcan1]

I guess the frustrating thing of this is that in about 10 builds, I have never had a mobo go bad. Plus, I'm more than aware that sometimes minor things can make a computer act totally screwy and seem like a big problem.

In general, it started as random lockups or restarts, but very infrequent. I ran diagnostics on the RAM, HDD, heat levels, and system utilities with no problems indictated. In about 3 days, it progressed to the point that it won't even completely go through the BIOS. I know this is way simplified, but bear with me: I get the initial beep, the hard drive starts up, then stops...and nothing. Nothing on the screen either.

Here's what I've done so far...
--Tried a different power supply...no change
--Tried current power supply in different computer--worked fine
--Tried swapping HDD'S --no change
--Tried HDD in anther computer -- worked fine.
--Tried using only 1 Dimm (have 2), then swapped them, then tried both in reversed position, then back to original position, --no change.
**Note: I have NOT tried the Dimms in another computer (I don't have one that's compatible anyways), but I have strong doubts that both dimms would go bad at the same time (???).

As to your replies (thanks, by the way!), I tried the Dimm switch with no results. I have looked for bad capacitors, but am not 100% clear on what I am looking for. I have been told that it would look like a leaked battery, but I see nothing on my MOBO that suggests any problems.

The progressive nature of the problem has me stumped. If it IS a bad mobo, would it progressively die like this? Is it possible one RAM died and progressively took the other one with it (seems highly unlikely).

All in all, I'm just trying to make sure I didn't miss anything simple before trashing the thing.

Any suggestions are MORE THAN WELCOME. Thanks for your earlier replies!

 

[vulcan1]

OK, if it helps, I'm running a...

Mobo: Abit KG7 w/ Athlon Thunderbird 1300
1 Gig of Crucial DDR Ram
Vid: GeForce 2 MX
Power supply is a 450 watt