Retail H E double hockeysticks

[Full_Throttle]

I'm one poor ah heck who's behind the times with his hardware.

I've got an Asus A7V motherboard (not even the fancy schmancy A7V133). I'm running a Duron 750 with two 256mb memory sticks (one rated at PC100 the other at PC133). I've set the memory to 133Mhz.

Here's a little story bout a man named Jed. This Jed didn't shoot at a rabbit and find oil, he shot for some more mhz and hit himself in the foot instead.

Ok first off I'm laughing right now because it seems this tale will not end. No matter how much I want it too.

My system is aging like cheese and I don't have a lot of money to throw around. I have enough for a processor upgrade basically. So what do I do? I go to pricewatch and find me the the cheapest 1.2GHz T-Bird I can find. Who sells this relic of the past? http://www.target-sale.com does, that's who.

I got the chip in the mail after doing a phone order. I also bought some arctic silver 3 and some 600grit sandpaper to clean off the copper orb ( CORB ) I've been using on my 750MHz.

I get everything straightened away putting a little dab of AS3 on the fan, mounting it properly, yadda yadda...

I boot up my rig and I zip right into the BIOS. I'm there for all of 20 seconds when the system freezes and is dead forevermore... at least with that CPU anyway. Dropping my old 750 back in I find nothing else was damaged. -Oh aside from my MBR which won't load now. EASY you say just stick in your win2k disk and go to the manual fix emergency repair panel. No. Win2k disk doesn't recognize Alt or Slash characters. My (now old) admin password had 4 Alt characters in it. I am screwed.

Good thing I'm beta testing an online game right now or I wouldn't have ghosted my machine last week. BAM! Back together. Too bad I lost my D drive with all my MP3s on it.

I send the CPU back to these guys even after an on-the-phone conversation they were absolutly convinced my motherboard had a jumper for -get this- Duron to Athlon cpu switching. Yeah I believe that's the Power On button buddy.

So they get my chip in the mail and don't bother contacting me for several days. I call up... "Oh, well the chip works fine." - I don't believe this for 2 seconds.

"The reason it won't work on your motherboard is because it's a different 200fsb architecture than what your 200fsb motherboard supports." -RIGHT!!! LMFAO.

So I'm trying to see what this guy can do for me over the phone yet again. By the way I'm thoroughly convinced it's just one guy working out of his apartment. He was the sales rep on the toll free line, the voice on the automated answering machine and the guy I spoke with on their non-toll free Local Ohio number in tech support.

Well the guys says for $12 more I can get an Athlon 1.33GHz that is specially rated for my motherboard. Here's where I've been stupid. I was at my desk, I should have popped up Asus' site to make sure but you think it's all in good faith and whatnot. Now because I've just had this issue of "architecture" I make sure it's the right fsb, color, hairstyle whatever I can think of to make sure I get a cpu I'm going to be able to run.

I receive a confirmation email the next day stating that my 1.33GHz 266fsb chip is on it's way and will be on my desk in 3 days (today I think). I went bonkers. I mean I paid more money get that extra 130MHz from the 1.2GHz. Now if it even runs on my machine it won't even be 1.2GHz. Yeah, it's time to put down the BFG... you want to use it but you gotta think of the children... THE CHILDREEEEEEEEEN!!

BTW I contacted AMD to ask about this totally insane suggestion and they confirmed my thoughts. One architecture per fsb standard per class of cpu. I.E. if you have an AMD 200fsb motherboard that supports up to 1.2GHz Duron, Athlon T-Bird ANY chip in that acceptable range will work. Imagine that.

In fact here's the response from AMD:

Thank you for contacting AMD's Technical Service Center.

For your reference, the Athlon 1.2 GHz (200 FSB) was only made in one
architecture. Your motherboard is on our list of recommended
motherboards but only up to your original processor, the Athlon 1.2 GHz
(200 FSB). I would let you vendor know that there was only one version
of the Athlon 1.2 GHz (200 FSB) and also let them know that you cannot
use higher than than 1.2 GHz in your motherboard. Hopefully, you can
resolve the issue with them. For a list of the CPU's that your
motherboard is recommended for, please consult the following URL:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_182_869_1039^4046|48_3,00.html

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please feel free to
contact me.


Now, here's the response from www.target-sale.com concerning my problem with front side buses:

Dear sir,
This CPU can be installed in the board and will correctly operate, but on
the screen it will show you less then 1.33.

Best regards.


HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Here's a nickle go get yourself a lolly pop. Get outta here kid ya bug me!

Evidently because it's a 1.33GHz 266fsb cpu the "screen" ( ?BIOS? ?Monitor? ?Operating System? ) will not see it's awesome magnitude and tell me it's lower than it "actually" is rated for.

So in conclusion, brush after every meal. Don't take any wooden nickles and for God's Sake LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING THE STREET!

-FT

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

that is very unfortunate. However it was really funny!

You got scammed! just so you know.

check out www.newegg.com they sell older tbirds and a lot cheaper i'ms ure then whaty ou paid there. ad the tech supprot is awsome.

good luck! and listen to AMD not the other guy, and there is no such thing as a different "fsb architecture" that woud causey our cpu to no work. it's just a bunch of lines where data flows.

so you handed a bunch of bullshit! What i'd do is make a really bad name for this place and soon they will simply go out of business.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[Scout]

Strange that the 1.2 didn't work in your system... Did you conclude it was just a defective CPU? The A7V has jumper settings that allow manual setup, did you try that?

You're lucky you can run a PC100 stick of RAM at 133...

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[bront]

I realy hope you stick it to those guys. I believe pricewatch has a rating feature for their sites, so you can let everyone know about it.

Keep demanding all your money back, make a big stink about it. I've been screwwed before from some resellers, and I regret not sticking it to them.

Some company slapped a PC133 sticker on a piece of PC100 memory, and then tried to tell me that it was PC133 but wouldn't run at 133 Mhz. The reciept they sent me said 133 Mhz Memory, the return lable was PC133 100 Mhz memory. I should have nailed them for mailfraud, but I'd already spent more to get some micron memory from them. 5 months later, I picked up some PC133 ram at a show for 10% of what I payed for the other chip. I think it was some place called Computercraft in FL.

The Boogie Knights: Saving beautiful monsters from ravoning princesses since 1983.

 

[bront]

I realy hope you stick it to those guys. I believe pricewatch has a rating feature for their sites, so you can let everyone know about it.

Keep demanding all your money back, make a big stink about it. I've been screwwed before from some resellers, and I regret not sticking it to them.

Some company slapped a PC133 sticker on a piece of PC100 memory, and then tried to tell me that it was PC133 but wouldn't run at 133 Mhz. The reciept they sent me said 133 Mhz Memory, the return lable was PC133 100 Mhz memory. I should have nailed them for mailfraud, but I'd already spent more to get some micron memory from them. 5 months later, I picked up some PC133 ram at a show for 10% of what I payed for the other chip. I think it was some place called Computercraft in FL.

The Boogie Knights: Saving beautiful monsters from ravoning princesses since 1983.

 

[Full_Throttle]

I believe the cpu was doa. The jumpers were set to JumperFree mode. Asus claims that on jumperfree mode you can run a 1.4GHz 200fsb cpu on the board. It is my contention that I did everything I could to ensure the survival of the original cpu.

Before I installed the cpu I set my BIOS (v. 1011 - the most recent) to default for stability purposes.

UPDATE: I just received the 1.33GHz from the smiling FedEx guy. I'm gonna throw it on the motherboard and see what happens.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Full_Throttle on 08/23/02 02:05 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

If you're stuck with the 1333, you can unlock the multiplier and change it in BIOS, you should be able to get at least 12.5x100 out of it with the thing unlocked, I don't know what your highest multiplier adjustment is, but if you have 13x, you'll get most of your speed.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Full_Throttle]

Here's the new update: Pardon me but it's Monday morning and I have a lot of work to do here a the office.

Yeah...

Anyway, it IS Monday morning and I DID clock the 1.33 to 1.31. The highest multiplier on the board is x12.5 This makes the FSB approximately 104.. I have it set to 100 so I don't really know what's going on with that.

I downloaded MadOnion's PCMark2002 and ran it with all tests going. The cpu tests were find and so were the memory tests. The program launched the harddrive test and my computer rebooted. Mmmk.

Not sure why it wouldn't be stable but ok. Since Friday evening I have ran it through a rigamoral (sp?) of games, unzips and so forth. It hasn't crashed since the PCMark2002 so I "guess" it's stable.

I was flipping through my motherboard manual it says if I set the motherboard to JumperFree mode, I can set the multiplier in the BIOS. Well I set it to jumper free but the multiplier is not in the bios where the picture in the handbook shows it to be. Oh well, at this point I'm just glad I didn't get totally ripped off.