RAM problems. HELP!!

[afterdark]

Hey everyone. This afternoon I got some Mushkin PC3200 memory from newegg.com. It's a twin pack of 512 sticks for a total of 1GB. I installed the modules and booted up my computer. The BIOS set the FSB to 166(333), which I thought was odd, but I let the computer boot up. I opened a few programs and such and everything seemed to run fine. Then, I restarted the computer and went into BIOS. I set the FSB to 200(400). All the timings were set to advertized levels. The machine would not boot, and gave me a long beep followed by a short one and then went into the BIOS "safe mode". I brought it back down to 166/333 and it was fine. I tried one more time at 200/400, but when the BIOS restarted the computer nothing would happen. I turned the computer off and then back on, but still nothing happened. No beeps, blank screen. I flashed the CMOS, still nothing. I put my old memory back in, and still nothing happens when I try to boot my machine.

I figure the memory is defective and it'll be no problem to return it, but what's going on with the rest of my system? How can I get it to boot normally again?

Here are the specs:
Athlon XP 2800+
Shuttle AN35 motherboard (Nforce 2-400 chipset)
Radeon 9700 Pro vid card

Old memory is cheapo PC2100.

 

[Crashman]

Silly guy, you have a 166MHz bus CPU (DDR333), your memory was just matching the CPU bus. You could use a different CPU:RAM ratio, but you would probably not gain any performance that way.

Unplug the system and remove the battery from the motherboard. It could take a while to completely discharge BIOS settings, but putting the battery in upside-down will ground the pins together and make it drain within seconds. Put the battery back in the normal way, plug the power back in, and try booting.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
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[afterdark]

Thanks for the help. You're right about the CPU speed. I forgot that the 2800 was 166 FSB rather than 200. I suppose I should have just been happy with the working setup I got at first.

Anyway. I had already cleared the CMOS via the jumper, but just to be sure I did it again your way. I left the battery out for about a half hour. It didn't work.

Computer is still dead. Fans whir, lights come on, but no beeps and no video.

I suppose I'll have to start testing parts one by one to see what went bad. If anyone has any other ideas, please please please post a reply.

 

[Crashman]

I had a similar problem with an MSI board (same chipset), I ended up having to replace the BIOS chip, nothing I did would get it to work again. MSI replaced it free when I explained to them all the methods I'd tried to clear the thing.

Hope you have better luck, then again a free BIOS chip would be nice too.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>