A7V133 won't boot reliably at 133 MHz

[dmcmahon]

I have the A7V133 with CAS2 PC133 SDRAM and a C-type 1.2G Athlon CPU. The board is set in jumper-free mode. In the BIOS, I set things up for 133 MHz operation (both CPU and RAM), with a 9x multiplier. PCI clock divisor is automatically 4 according to the BIOS. In other words, totally within spec. Yet, about half the time, the system won't boot right away, and after some delay eventually comes up in "safe mode", meaning 100 MHz. I can then reestablish my settings in the BIOS, exit saving changes, and the system comes up no problem. Once it's up it runs stably for hours. I've considered changing to jumpered mode to force the board into 133 on start, but I'm concerned that (a) this might cause it to not boot at all, and (b) that by doing this I'm treating the symptom but ignoring a potentially serious disease. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Megatonone]

i'm having similar problem with my 1.1 amd w/ a7v133 KT133A mobo. powers up about one out of every 20-25 times. have checked power supply and ram and i'm set up in the jumper-free-mode. still no luck...i sure would appreciate any help as to what the problem might be.... thanks

Megaton

 

[Guest]

check all the cables on the power supply. my flatmates got a psu where the 5v rail is always coming disconnected, so before he turns his computer on, he's gotta push the 5v wire into the atx connector part...hehehehe.....but that might be your problem...both of you

___________________________________________

Smoking is a major cause of statistics.

 

[Megatonone]

thanks for the suggestion mr man...i'll give it a shot.

Megaton

 

[dmcmahon]

I'm going to try the jumper mode and see if it becomes reliable. 1/20 is pretty poor odds, I seem to get it going on the first draw about 1/2 the time. Doesn't seem temp related, I have powered off and then shortly afterwards powered back on, and still had the problem on occasion (though less often).

mr man, thanks for the tip, but seems like this is not my problem since the problem is correctable every time with just the BIOS, no physical changes to the mobo or PWR supp at all. I will double-check my connections just in case but I believe they're solid. I'm using the Antec workstation case.

I wonder if a BIOS upgrade will help? I downloaded the 1003a and 1004 versions from ASUS, will try them soon and let you know.