Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Computer people needed!

I have a problem with my computer but for the life of me I can't trace it. Anyway, here are the specs on my 3 year computer:

MB - ASUS A7V333
CPU - Athlon XP2200+ (1800Mhz)
Memory - 1024mb (2X512)
SB Audigy
NVIDIA GeForce 6200 (256)

So anyway, yesterday I lose video but I know just from the sounds that my computer is making it's working fine. So I pull out the video card, clean it off and put it back in........nothing. So I go and grab the monitor from my kids computer..........nothing. So I get pissed off unplug the computer three or four times.............nothing.

Ok so no biggie. I go get a new video card and put it in. Computer boots up but it's in the BIOS screen saying my CPU setting is wrong and is causing a problem. I double check what the 2200+ runs at and it's set right, 1800Mhz. So I hit enter and reboot.....PERFECT!. So later on in the day I had to unplug my computer to switch surge protectors. Turn the computer back on.........nothing. What the ?????? I went and got my kids monitor again and......nothing. I get mad again and unplug the computer, plug it back in and turn it on..........nothing. Then after leaving it for a few minutes it comes on in the same BIOS screen saying CPU speed is wrong. So I went from 1800Mhz down to 1350Mhz and as I sit here it works fine but I have yet to re-boot out of fear.

Anybody have an idea on why a 1800Mhz cpu doesn't want to run at it's designed clock speed or bus speed of 133? I even had to drop that from 133 down to 100 to make the system stable.

what brand ram do you have?

I'm guessing motherboard is the culprit, either that or cpu.

is it running fine at 100 all the time? rebooting fine etc?

Sounds like your CMOS battery may on its way out. It's located to the right of PCI slots 3 and 4. Replace it and see if that fixes your problem. If that doesn't do it, your CMOS may need to be reset. You could also try the following before replacing the battery.

Here's the procedure:

1. Unplug the computer.
2. Remove the battery.
3. Short the to solder points by touching both with a screwdriver or other metal object.
4. Re-install the battery.
5. Plug in the computer and power it on.
6. Activate the BIOS screen during boot-up by holding down the <Del> key.

that is what I thought as well until he said it was running fine at 100.

It's running fine but I have yet to re-boot it since it decided to work at 1350mhz. I'm going to re-boot shortly and see what it does.

If it's just a battery, VERY COOL! I don't feel like putting together another computer at the moment. This one when it works it plenty fast and works very well 99% of the time. After I re-boot I will post on what happens..............but it might be from my kids computer! lol

Thanks for the info guys!

I was going to say the same thing Peter, our corporate standard for PC's at work used to be the IBM's. You could always tell when the CMOS was going bad, seemed like a common problem.

Well I pulled the battery, shorted out the jumpers.....blah blah blah and it rebooted fine. I tested the battery and it was pushing 2.88 volts. Not bad for a 3 volt battery so I put it back in when I was done shorting out the jumpers. I have only re-booted twice since I did the battery thing but so far it seems fine and is running at 1800mhz and 133mhz.

Now can someone be so kind as to explain to me what I just did? I didn't fix or change anything but it seems fine now. I don't get it and I'm one of those guys who has to know!

Again, thanks for the help!

My take is that you bought yourself enough time to replace the battery before things go wonky again. I'm not 100% sure but I think 2.88 volts open circuit is low for a lithium cell.

Assuming the battery is actually OK -- I'm not sure about the voltage being adequate, though -- what you did was erase the CMOS RAM. By taking out the battery and shorting the two leads, you purged all contents on the BIOS/CMOS. Settings in there can occasionlly become corrupt and purging them lets you start with a clean slate.

Thanks guy's! I will change the battery just to be on the safe side.

Again thanks for the help!

Oops, I'm late to this discussion, but yeah, 2.88V on a LithIon cell IS low.

Had a buddy who "packed up" a hard drive... showed all the usual signs of a hard drive failure (noise on spinup, R/W errors, etc), so he bought a new one, same problems... I checked out his power supply (oops, that sounded homoerotic!) and found it was pushing ~11.6V on the 12V line and ~4.7V on the 5V line... with all the cool USB stuff and high-draw video cards and such, power supplies get taxed. New PS and off it went.

Funny enough, replaced a HDD in a friend's computer (in Weyburn last time I was out) it had been on the out for a while and she also complained the computer wouldn't start all the time, sometimes she'd have to hit the power button a dozen or more times... sure enough after the drive swap, took multiple attempts to start the... Jesus... the PS fan's seized... a quick trip (well, after FINDING a computer shop in Weyburn) to the local Computer Solutions, I think it was...
"I need an ATX power supply"
'Does it have to be ATX?'
"Umm, yeah?!"
'I can order that'
"You don't carry power supplies?"
'We do, just not ATX ones'
"Show me what you have...?"
...kid comes back with an Everest brand power supply with ATX connectors, I explain that ATX is the type of power supply... allows for "soft on" and has a single 20 pin power connector for the motherboard rather than the two on an AT. He was happy to have learned something new.

Bren R.

BrenR: reeducating the wage-slaves one at a time.

And remember to allot 3x as much time as you think you need when doing any repair with 4 and 7 year old "helpers"...

Bren R.

or 3 or 2 year-old helpers. Folding laundry with a 22 month-old helper is not productive.

"No, no. Leave the shirt in the basket. I just folded it. It's all done. Leave it please. Your job is to give me the shirts from the pile."

"Steven... would you... stop.... Arrrrrgghhh! Where's mommy?"