cpu is unworkable

[Guest]

When I restart my computer or turn it off & then back on I get the message "CPU is unworkable or has changed. Hit F1 to continue or check CPU Soft Menu." I haven't changed anything that I can tell or added or deleted anything. When I hit F1 it continues to boot through & work OK. Anybody familiar with this message? What can I do to eliminate this problem?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

When I restart my computer or turn it off & then back on I get the
message "CPU is unworkable or has changed. Hit F1 to continue or
check CPU Soft Menu." I haven't changed anything that I can tell or
added or deleted anything. When I hit F1 it continues to boot through
& work OK. Anybody familiar with this message? What can I do to
eliminate this problem?

That's your BIOS. Not Windows XP.

Look into hardware issues and settings in your system BIOS.

 

[Jim]

This message is coming from your BIOS. It typically means your CPU is
"underclocked"! (i.e., NOT performing as fast as it is capable of). This
can happen if you have a sudden loss of power, spontaneous reboot, failing
CMOS battery, or a host of other quirky events. You need to enter your BIOS
(typically via F2 or delete key on boot-up, you should see a message). Then
hunt around for a page where the CPU speed is set. Since I don't know the
CPU or motherboard type you have, I can't be exact here. But there's going
to be a place where the CPU frequency is specified (e.g., 100 MHz). Using
Intel as an example, it's not uncommon for an Intel based machine, when one
of these quirky events occurs, to drop the CPU freq down to 100MHz as a
safety measure, when in fact, it should normally be much higher, either
133MHz or 200MHz (depends on the processor, you'd have to tell me the specs
before I could be definitive). You merely need to change it, save the BIOS
again, and reboot. If done correctly, the message should disappear (and you
should be running MUCH faster too!).

HTH

Jim

When I restart my computer or turn it off & then back on I get the message

"CPU is unworkable or has changed. Hit F1 to continue or check CPU Soft
Menu." I haven't changed anything that I can tell or added or deleted
anything. When I hit F1 it continues to boot through & work OK. Anybody
familiar with this message? What can I do to eliminate this problem?

 

[Chuck]

What your saying makes sense, I had an issue with my
cable modem not connecting & when I tried to reboot, the
machine would not shut down. Neither the reset buton or
the on/off button would work & I had to unplug the
machine to shut it down. Here's a little about my machine:
Intel Pentium 4 2.80C GHz processor with an 875 chipset
The motherboard is an ABIT IC7-G
When I enter the Soft Menu to look at the set-p I see
this info:
Pentium 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
Frequency 2.80 GHz
Cache 512k
CPU operating speed 2800 (200)
Ext clock CU/AGP/PCI 200/66/33 MHz
Estimated new CPU cloc 2.80 GHz
N/B strap CPU as By CPU
DRAM ratio (CPU:AGPCI) Auto
Fixed AGP/PCI Frequency 66/33 Mhz

CPU Power Supply CPU default
CPU Core Voltage 1.5 20 V
DDR SDRAM voltage 2.6 V
AGP voltage 1.55 V

With that, would you be able to give me any more help
with my problem? Am I seeing what I should be seeing in
my set-up? Should I change anything in my set-up?
Thanks, Chuck

 

[Jim]

Unplugging the machine while running, that'll do it!

The P4 2.8C is a 200MHz (FSB) processor, and if your machine was indeed
"unworkable", the CPU would probably be running either 100MHz or 133MHz.
But based on your description, it would appear it *is* running at spec, the
reference to 2800 (200) is the freq setting, which is correct, so something
else is wrong here (you're still getting the message, correct?). Btw,
everything else on that page appears normal too.

Do the following, go into that same BIOS page, but this time, change the CPU
speed *manually*, you'll need to enable this first, then the CPU field will
be enabled. Just right click it, and enter in the 200MHz value, and hit
enter again. Now hit F10, answer Y to Save, and reboot. See if the message
goes away.

If the problem persists, you may either need to short the CMOS battery for a
few seconds, so the system resets (just pop that little silver disk battery
on the motherboard for 30 seconds or so), then reinsert again, and reboot.
May require resetting the CPU speed AGAIN, as above.

If all these steps fail, one last possibility is, the BIOS is corrupted
(killing a PC while running could do this). In this case, reflash the BIOS.
Just a matter of downloading the latest BIOS from Abit, create a bootable
floppy (visit http://www.bootdisk.com is you need one, like MS-DOS 6.22),
and copy the files to floppy. Then reboot the floppy, and run the RUNME.BAT
file, the process is fully automated, just follow the prompts. When done,
reboot and the BIOS will be updated. As before, there's still the
possibility of the CPU needing to be manually reset, do it if necessary.

HTH

Jim

 

[Chuck]

Jim, manually changing the speed did the trick. Thanks a
lot. You had a lot of good thoughts on how to rectify
this for me, I'm very appreciative. Thanks again, Chuck.