Did I Just Fry A Motherboard? - Help Needed

[dukeofcrydee]

Ok I was at a friend's house and he was complaining that his 2.8GHz CPU was only showing as a 1.75GHz CPU. We go right into the BIOS and unfortunately I couldn't set the speed specifically. All I was able to touch was the CPU Clock Speed which was already set at 133MHz.

We noticed it went as high as 300MHz so my friend told me to jack it up since it supports 400MHz FSB. So we do it and once we exit the BIOS nothing happened. Just a black screen and the computer would not make a peep. You just turn it on and nothing.

We took it apart and I noticed the CPU was an AMD XP 2800+ (something I know I should've asked beforehand just to make sure) which is only 2.08GHz. So I'm wondering if we jacked the CPU Clock Speed up to high in the BIOS and therefore fried something on the mobo.

The chip wasn't burnt and there was no burning smell from either the chip or the motherboard.

Also, we tried popping the mobo's battery out and unplugging the AC for 1 hour. Nothing changed.

Also, I'm not to sure CPU Clock Speed means what I think it means. So if anyone with more brains than me would like to put me in my place, please do so.

And if you have ANY idea how to resurrect this thing I'd definitely appreciate that. Although i'm not sure what can be done outside buying a new mobo.

 

[Coyote]

Don't worry, everything is prolly OK. I'm pretty sure all you need to do is "clear" the CMOS. This will reset the BIOS and allow the pc to boot. You've prolly upped the FSB to far. By clearing the CMOS it will reset BIOS back to default and allow you to post.

Get the manual out for the motherboard, you will find instructions on clearing the CMOS. Usually ther is a jumper (pin) you move to another position (do this with the pc off and unplugged) for a moment or two. Then put it back into the original position, plugg in pc and boot up.

Once booted up, go into BIOS and set FSB speed to 166

Barton 2500+
Abit NF7-S v 2.0
Maxtor 60GB ATA 133 7200RPM
512MB Corsair Twinx 3200LL
9600 Pro
Enermax Noisetaker 420 watts
Win98SE

 

[dukeofcrydee]

1) I feel really good knowing that what I thought was the FSB was really the FSB I was f**king with.

2) You are officially the man for today and a tip of the hat to ya. The damned manual that came with the board sucked ass. It's a DFI board and I was trying to find anything about this last night.

I check the PDF version just now and it's got like 4 times the pages and one dedicated to unf**ing the CMOS.

 

[DonnieDarko]

A xp 2800+ has a 333mhz fsb but the fsb is the mhz speed times 2. so if you want it running a 333 you have it have it set at 166 mhz. also the processor frequency on a athlon is the fsb (as in this case 166mhz) times the muiltipler, which i think on your model is 12.5. (166x12.5=2075) To fix your problem you have to flash your bios.

 

[dukeofcrydee]

Ahhhhh, yeah that's right! Thanks for the as well Donnie.

 

[Crashman]

To fix your problem you have to flash your bios.

What are you talking about?

<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>

 

[pat]

Flash the BIOS....I dont understand how you want him to flash his BIOS when he cannot even boot! What motherboard is he using?

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Mr_Nuke]

Check the jumpers on the mainboard. There is one very close to the battery. unplug the power cord, change the jumper position and keep it for about 3 seconds, then CHANGE IT BACK. That resets the BIOS. The FSB of athlon 2800+ is 333(166*2), so in the BIOS set the FSB clock to 166Mhz.Make sure he's got DDr 33 or PC2700 RAM.

 

[Mr_Nuke]

Why flash the BIOS? And how if the PC is not booting?
HA!Ha! You know nothing about this. You only need to flash your BIOS if the instruction manual of the mobo states "up to XXXX+"or"up to XXXXMhz " and there is a BIOS for your mainboard model that supports ahiger "up to". That is usually reffered to as "added support for ...". Of chourse whoever sold him the computer knew about that.

 

[dukeofcrydee]

Well I just got an e-mail from my friend and last night he managed to fix the problem based on the initial response to this thread.

The jumper did the trick and thankfully the PDF manual I found online had a page dedicated to which jumper it was. (note: DFI motherboards come with crappy docs)

On the Flash the BIOs thing from Donnie. I know enough to realize flashing wasn't an option if we couldn't boot the box. I took his last sentance as a possible suggestion, just in case the current BIOS didn't give me the support for the proper multiplier or something.

Now the next fix is getting his overly large hard drive to show up in XP as one big chunk. I think it's 160GB and some 48-bit LBA bullshit is making him "lose" 30 or so GB. Thankfully I have the knowledge base article for that next time I'm there.

Again everyone, thanks for the help!

 

[darko21]

Re: Why flash the BIOS? And how if the PC is not booting?
HA!Ha! You know nothing about this.

What grade are you in. I mean give the guy a frigging break. everyone makes mistakes.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.