Hi,

I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me. About a month or so ago my computer started acting unstable. It would crash (during a game) and then when running some longer things (a long download, or virus scanning my entire hard drive). Sometimes after it crashed it would it would give me an error about media detected in drive A when there was nothing there. I finally decided to look in the BIOS. At one point I went to the section where you set the CPU speed. I noticed it was set for 500 MHZ. I didn't think I set that, but I wanted to see what it would say if I exited without saving and then came back. After that it wouldn't boot up at all. I could hear something happening but nothing came up on the screen. So I decided to reset the CMOS. Once I did that I could get to the setup menu again. So I went in, noticed it was set for 500 MHZ, and changed it to the correct settings, 1200(133). After saving and exiting the computer just beeped and beeped and wouldn't start. After reseting it a few times, I decided to see what would happen if I just left the defaults. I did that and lo and behold, it started. However it seems to be set for a 900 MHZ CPU. After doing this I went back and set it to 1200(133) again with the same results. Just beeping, and nothing else. So now I'm running at the default 900 MHZ. So first of all, how do I set it to the correct 1200(133) that it ran on before. Sescondly, what happened to my computer?

I appreciate any help anyone can give me.

Thanks,

Dan

Hopefully you have your motherboard manuel handy, if you do find the jumper setting on the motherboard to set the FSB, it should have a jumper to go between 100/133Mhz, it most likely is set at the current time on 100Mhz which I have seen cause the problem you are having. Now I'm not saying this is your problem but somethign I would check. So check that and get back to us or wait for someone else to reply.

KTTD

Kevin,

Thanks for responding. This motherboard doesn't seem to have jumpers. It uses a menu to make the various settings. And when I set it for 1200(133) MHZ, it modifies the other settings appropriatly, setting the FSB to 133. When I set it to this it hangs and beeps. I am convinced it's the FSB, though, because now I have it set for 1200(100) and it works, but it should be working at 1200(133). I've had this computer since around the beginning of the year, and it's worked great until about a month ago. I wonder if it's possible that somehow the memory or something on the CPU got messed up and can no longer function at 133? I don't know, but at least I have it mostly working. I'd appreciate any other suggestions that you or anyone else has.

Thanks,

Dan

Dan,

At least it is stable at 100Mhz FSB for the time being. Now I'm going to recommened something I don't often but you might consider flashing the BIOS. Will this correct the problem? Who knows, it is worth a shot if you are comfortable with flashing the BIOS. Just make sure you read and follow all the steps as this can render a system useless. Why the problem just started? Who knows, it could be a faulty motherboard as well. Any other thoughts are welcome.

KTTD

The RAM might not be up to doing 133MHz.

KTTD,

I didn't have a chance to look at it the rest of this weekend, but I'll look into flashing the BIOS, and once I see what is involved I'll give it a try as long as I feel comfortable about my ability to do it without messing it up. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Ben - the RAM should be fine. I've been using it since the beginning of the year and didn't have a problem until recently. It's PC2100 from crucial. Do you know if there's a way to double check just by looking at the chip, just in case?

Thanks,

Dan