KR7A and KG7A boot problems

Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.abit (More info?)

I have a problem that I don't know how to solve, and I've not used Abit
boards until recently.

I aquired a used Athlon XP 2000 palomino CPU that I was assured was in full
working order. Separately I
had also acquired from different sources a used KR7A-RAID board and a used
KG7A-RAID board, and in each case I was assured that they were in good
working order. According to the Abit site both boards can take the CPU, so I
set about building a PC that had an ATI 4Mb PCI graphics card, 512Mb PC2100
RAM, a floppy drive and a 40Mb hard drive. I added a cooler that was more
than sufficient for the CPU.

I have tried with both boards, and I can't get either to boot. I've tried
resetting the BIOS to defaults too. In the case of the KR7A board all the
fans come on but the board doesn't initialise. The three neons on the board
all come on and stay on - the red one doesn't go out. There are no beep
codes - the machine doesn't seem to get that far. In the case of the KG7A
board, as soon as I switched on there was a whisp of smoke from somewhere
around the CPU and a slight smell of smoke, then it cleared before I could
even turn the machine off. The symptoms are now the same as the KR7A - the
fans are running but there's no video and no beep codes - but the KG7A has
no board lights so I can't tell if it is in the same state as the KR7A.

Actually I had a third board too - this time a brand new KR7A-RAID. Because
the others were used and possibly faulty, I tried this board too.
Immediately on power up there was again a faint whisp of smoke, this time as
far as I could see from a cylindrical board component next to a PCI slot.
Again I couldn't get the board to boot, so in the end I replaced the CPU
with an Athlon 1400 Thunderbird and it powered up straight away. I then
upgraded it to the latest BIOS and took a look at the BIOS settings to see
if, as the Abit site suggests, the upgrade allowed the Athlon 2000 to be
recognised (my assumption being that the boards perhaps couldn't recognise
the CPU without a BIOS upgrade). I was surprised to find that the BIOS still
only listed the Athlon 1400 as the fastest Athlon in its list.

I've now tried the Athlon 1400 in the other two boards too, but they still
won't boot, and I am left with one KR7A board running nicely at 1400MHz, one
Athlon XP 2000 CPU that I don't know what to do with, and two boards that
don't appear to work. The RAM, ATI card, FDD and HDD all all work fine
elsewhere.

Here are my questions:

1. Should the BIOS show the XP 2000 in its CPU list after the latest
upgrade? If not how am I supposed to get it to accept such a CPU?

2. Are the other two boards useless now?

3. Is the Athlon XP 2000 CPU incompatible with this board, and known to fry
it?

4. How do I check that the CPU itself is fine? Is there a simple way?

5. Can a dud CPU fry a mobo? I need to know this in case I go on to test the
CPU in a more modern board that is designed to take it without needing a
BIOS upgrade. I wouldn't want to ruin another board. Or is it safe to put a
dud CPU in a mobo?

6. Following on from the above, Can a dud mobo (if that's what I've got) fry
a CPU? Is it in fact possible for a good CPU to fry a mobo for which it
isn't suited, and in the process the now-dud mobo fries the CPU?

7. I read on the web that a simple way to check if a CPU is working or not
is to power it up for a few moments without its cooler to see if it gets hot
to the touch. This one does. I only did this for a few seconds with my
fingertip on the CPU cente until I was sure that it was getting hot then I
cut the power. But does this test really tell me anything?

Sorry that this has been a long posting, but I'm running out of
motherboards! Any advice welcome

Bob