I'm unable to RESTART the PC after CPU upgrading 3

[PaulAlexander]

Hi Guys,

Unfortunately the problem of an infinite series of beeps during "RESTART" persists after the PC has been working for sometime.

The problem appeared after I have upgraded the Mobo's Award BIOS to handle Athlon XP CPU's over the 1200MHz limit of my old AMD thunderbird. The new CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ palomino.

I have checked the case of Power Supply overloading by disconnecting every peripheral device in turn including PCI cards.
I have also checked the RAM sticks by taking them off one at a time and reseating them cleaning first the area.

I noticed that the 128Mb RAM sticks are PC133 SDRAM made by Micron Technology but I'm sure that they indicate a time response of 20 nsecs??
I wonder whether 20nsecs RAM sticks can handle an AMD CPU upgrade from 1200MHz to 1530MHz ??
Shouldn't this RAM be accessed in the region of 7.5 nsecs??

I also wonder whether the CMOS battery could be failing - my PC is almost 2 & 1/2 yrs old. Not to mention that I have tried to reset the BIOS through the MOBO jumber !

I have also checked the Mobo Capacitors and they look all OK. I have even added a cooler fan on the GeForce2 MX400

The only time a soft or hard "RESTART" works is when the system has been left to cool down for more than 5 minutes and force a restart very soon after switch ON !!

With the CPU temp at around 49 Celsius and the system working for more than 10 minutes a SOFTW or HARDW RESTART will lead to a hangup with a contineous series of BEEPS and a MONITOR detecting no VIDEO !!

One more thing I would like to ask you is whether the upgrading from the thunderbird 1200MHz to the Athlon XP 1800+ palomino requires a better PSU.
The details of mine are listed below:
PSU = 300W
+3.3V +5V +12V -5V -12V +5VSB <--- Voltage O/p
28A 30A 15A 0.3A 0.8A 2.0A <--- current O/p

1. My PC System details.
a) Mobo : MicroStar K7T Turbo (MS6330 Ver 3.0)
b) This Mobo is an AMD CPU platform capable of operating in a range (640 MHz - 1500 MHz).
Chipset the VIA KT133A, System Controller VT8363A (552 pin BGA) and the VT82C686B (352 pin BGA). The first controller manages 3 SDRAM sockets where 168 pin DIMMs are seated (32x8).
c) Total SDRAM memory on board : 384 MB(PC133 SDRAM)
d) Initial CPU : AMD Athlon 1200 MHz (Thunderbird)
e) AWARD BIOS : Initially Ver 3.06
f) 2 HDDS 40GB each(Primary Master&Slave config)
g) HDDs are Western Digiral 40GB
h) DVD Hitachi 7500 (Secondary Slave connection)
i) Display &quot;Vibrant&quot; type.
j) Graphics Card: GeForce2 MX400 using NIVIDIA chip
k) DirectX 8.1 and &quot;full 3D Acceleration installed.
l) OSystem: Win Me. Mobo is capable of ACPI & RAID.


Any help & suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks for your time. PaulAlexander.

BIOS settings: Freq. multiplier (11.5 to 15) adjustable
Mobo clock frequency =133 MHz.adjustable(133 to 144)
Plug & Play-disabled, Bank Interleave=enabled
Proper AMD CPU frequency is = 1532 MHz.
Vicore CPU Voltage:Initially 1.55 V now 1.65V
card in case the Video Card was running hot!!

Any ideas or thoughts will be very much appreciated.
Thank You.

 

[PaulAlexander]

Final succesful &quot;assault&quot; to this persisting problem, which has been creating RESTART problems for very long time.
The following points are useful to be made:

1. The final cause of the problem wasn't the Video Graphics Card. I used a replacement and I noticed that the problem was persisting.
It was a component Thermal runaway as it is known in electronics. The &quot;culprit&quot; was a MOSFET semiconductor the threshold voltage of wich was dropping due to an increase of the MOSFET's temperature. This is usual after continuous MOBO operation for a number of years.
It may also appear,after a BIOS update and in particular after overclocking!
In my case, I had to replace the MOSFET in order to sustain the output voltage required by the rest of the circuitry.
Of course someone must have knowledge of Basic Electronics and know his way around the PC MOBO.
The greatest problem is to detect the faulty MOSFET. In the case of a thermal problem a good way is to use a FREEZE spray, (avoiding of course short circuits), on each MOSFET in turn that rely next to the CPU. If the PC can do a RESTART then the specific under freeze MOSFET is the failing one. Then it's replacement may follow.
All's well that ends well.
Thank you for your time. PaulAlexander

 

[BadBigBen]

Hi there Paul,

yep, at this time in my life... what you have said is a bit over my head...*G

what I mean is I actually understood what you said and appreciate it that you explained it so well, but I wouldn't have found that error in my life up to today... (going through electronics school)...

I am glad you found your culprit...

wish you well...

Ben

- sometimes hits the nail right on the head by just throwing things out and then thinking about the foolishness I've just spewed... *Major Grin*