A7V8X-X won't boot with correct frequency with T-Bird

[Mauriat]

I have an (brand new) A7V8X-X motherboard and a 1133Mhz T-Bird Athlon
CPU which will not boot properly. At 8.5x133Mhz it just keeps rebooting,
however at 8.5x100Mhz it works correctly. I'm using DDR333 memory.

* I flashed the bios from v1006 to v1007. I've physically reset the cmos
battery/settings also. No help.
* I have a (brand new) 350W PSU, with NO extra peripherals connected
(vcard only). Its not a power issue.
* The CPU works fine at 8.5x133Mhz in both an Asus A7M266 and an Abit
KT7E motherboard.
* The memory works fine at 333Mhz and at 266Mhz (tested on 2 separate
machines).
* The VCORE jumper has no affect with this setup. I've tried VCORE from
1.75, 1.8 and 1.85 - no affect.

Changing memory settings makes no difference (i.e. between 266 and 333).
I've tried over-clocking it slightly and under-clocking it slightly -
undermultiple ranges/settings, makes no difference. I've played around
with every relative CPU and memory setting available in the BIOS.

I think that running it at 850Mhz unacceptable. Is there a chance this
motherboard is defective?

Ideas? Suggestions? Please help.

Please note, this the *2nd* A7V8X-X mobo I bought from the same source.
The first one I have running 100% perfectly (2 months so far) with the
following config:
2500 XP+ (11x166Mhz), v1007 bios, DDR333(@333Mhz), 300W PSU.

 

[Rob]

I have an (brand new) A7V8X-X motherboard and a 1133Mhz T-Bird Athlon
CPU which will not boot properly. At 8.5x133Mhz it just keeps rebooting,
however at 8.5x100Mhz it works correctly. I'm using DDR333 memory.

* I flashed the bios from v1006 to v1007. I've physically reset the cmos
battery/settings also. No help.
* I have a (brand new) 350W PSU, with NO extra peripherals connected
(vcard only). Its not a power issue.
* The CPU works fine at 8.5x133Mhz in both an Asus A7M266 and an Abit
KT7E motherboard.
* The memory works fine at 333Mhz and at 266Mhz (tested on 2 separate
machines).
* The VCORE jumper has no affect with this setup. I've tried VCORE from
1.75, 1.8 and 1.85 - no affect.

Changing memory settings makes no difference (i.e. between 266 and 333).
I've tried over-clocking it slightly and under-clocking it slightly -
undermultiple ranges/settings, makes no difference. I've played around
with every relative CPU and memory setting available in the BIOS.

I think that running it at 850Mhz unacceptable. Is there a chance this
motherboard is defective?

Ideas? Suggestions? Please help.

Please note, this the *2nd* A7V8X-X mobo I bought from the same source.
The first one I have running 100% perfectly (2 months so far) with the
following config:
2500 XP+ (11x166Mhz), v1007 bios, DDR333(@333Mhz), 300W PSU.

Have you changed the AGP Freq from Auto to 66 MHz? When running the CPU
at 133 MHz is the memory timing at 100% instead of Auto?

Rob

 

[Mauriat]

Have you changed the AGP Freq from Auto to 66 MHz? When running the CPU
at 133 MHz is the memory timing at 100% instead of Auto?

Rob

There is no specific AGP Freq control on this board. The only setting I
can control is "CPU External Frequency" which I want at "133/33".

Memory timing at 100%, I take it you mean 266. Yes, I've tried that.
I've tried all variations of the memory timing.

No luck.

 

[Rob]

There is no specific AGP Freq control on this board. The only setting I
can control is "CPU External Frequency" which I want at "133/33".

Memory timing at 100%, I take it you mean 266. Yes, I've tried that.
I've tried all variations of the memory timing.

No luck.

With the 1007 BIOS you should find the AGP Freq. setting by sliding down
to just below the settings for Vcore and Graphics Aperture Size. The
NForce Chipset likes the memory to be Sync'ed with the processor. This
can best be assured by setting the Memory Frequency to 100% instead of
it's default of By SPD. I know this may seem like it's under utilizing
your memory but it is the most stable area to operate in. Another
possibility is that you need to slide further down that same page and
increase the DDR voltage from 2.6 to 2.7 because of the additional load.

Rob

 

[Mauriat]

Rob wrote:

With the 1007 BIOS you should find the AGP Freq. setting by sliding down
to just below the settings for Vcore and Graphics Aperture Size. The
NForce Chipset likes the memory to be Sync'ed with the processor. This
can best be assured by setting the Memory Frequency to 100% instead of
it's default of By SPD. I know this may seem like it's under utilizing
your memory but it is the most stable area to operate in. Another
possibility is that you need to slide further down that same page and
increase the DDR voltage from 2.6 to 2.7 because of the additional load.

Rob

This is not an NForce series motherboard. It uses the VIA KT400 chipset.
There is no setting for AGP Freq control and also no setting for DDR
voltage. Modifying memory settings from SPD to manual also makes no
difference.

So frustrating.

From the looks of other posts, this board seems to be really trouble prone.

 

[Rob]

Sorry. Eyesight must be going. I completely missed the "V".

 

[Mauriat]

I have an (brand new) A7V8X-X motherboard and a 1133Mhz T-Bird Athlon
CPU which will not boot properly. At 8.5x133Mhz it just keeps rebooting,
however at 8.5x100Mhz it works correctly. I'm using DDR333 memory.

* I flashed the bios from v1006 to v1007. I've physically reset the cmos
battery/settings also. No help.
* I have a (brand new) 350W PSU, with NO extra peripherals connected
(vcard only). Its not a power issue.
* The CPU works fine at 8.5x133Mhz in both an Asus A7M266 and an Abit
KT7E motherboard.
* The memory works fine at 333Mhz and at 266Mhz (tested on 2 separate
machines).
* The VCORE jumper has no affect with this setup. I've tried VCORE from
1.75, 1.8 and 1.85 - no affect.

Changing memory settings makes no difference (i.e. between 266 and 333).
I've tried over-clocking it slightly and under-clocking it slightly -
undermultiple ranges/settings, makes no difference. I've played around
with every relative CPU and memory setting available in the BIOS.

I think that running it at 850Mhz unacceptable. Is there a chance this
motherboard is defective?

Ideas? Suggestions? Please help.

Please note, this the *2nd* A7V8X-X mobo I bought from the same source.
The first one I have running 100% perfectly (2 months so far) with the
following config:
2500 XP+ (11x166Mhz), v1007 bios, DDR333(@333Mhz), 300W PSU.

Problem discovered:

I flashed the motherboard BIOS back to the v1003 from the ASUS website.
I can boot the computer at proper CPU freq setting.

I also tried v1004 but that exhibited the same problems as the v1006 and
v1007.

I suggest anyone with similar problems complain to your motherboard
retailer AND asus tech support.