Clock Multipliers Etc Help Needed...

[Big Dave]

I am trying to set up an Athlon 1800 (AX1800DMT3C) on an MSI KT3 Ultra (MS-6380E) board. When the board powers up it reports the cpu at 1150Mhz and despite trying various combinations of cpu fsb clock and cpu ratio in the bios nothing seems to work. The fsb clock defaults to 100mhz and can go up to 220mhz. The cpu ratio goes from 6.0 to 15.0 in 0.5 increments. There is also a spread spectrum value which defaults to +/- 0.25 and can go to 0.75 in 0.25 increments or be set to disabled.

Does anyone know what values I should be setting.

Thanks.

[Big Dave]

Having investigated further I read that the fsb should be set to 133 and the ratio to 11.5. Tried this and it still does not work. The machine just refuses to boot. Not sure where to go from here so all suggestions welcome.

Thanks

[dave87]

What RAM are you using?

It should be DDR-266 at a minimum.

Otherwise, is Voltage etc set to auto?

[Ferral]

This should help you :

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD...1800DMT3C.html

Looking on the site it is the top one.

[Zak33]

What RAM are you using?

It should be DDR-266 at a minimum.

Otherwise, is Voltage etc set to auto?

is it two sticks, or just one? Try one then the other.

IS THE HEATSINK ON PROPERLY WITH THERMAL PASTE? Needs to be, those cpu's get very hot VERY fast if it is not on properly.

Do you have the power supply cable to the motherboard AND the extra, 4 pin power plug plugged in?

Is the heatsink fan spinning?

IS THE BATTERY ON THE MOTHERBOARD FLAT? ie does the BIOS remember your settings when you change them?

Is the JUMPER for the CMOS set to RESET mode by accident.

And yes, I'e done nearly everyone of those cock ups myself sometimes, all of them at once

[Big Dave]

Thank you for all your replies.. here are mine to you..

1. The ram used is either ddr266 or ddr400. Have tried single and various combinations.
2. All voltages are set to auto in the bios.
3. CPU-World is where I found th multiplier info. I have bookmarked it for future reference.
4. There is no 4 pin power connector on the motherboard. I did check as that caught me once.
5. Power is getting to the board, the fan spins and I get it working, just not at the right speed.
6. I actually changed the cmos battery as wen I first started this it did not hold set values.
7. I have been using he cmos reset to get the motherboard back to default settings to try another set of values.

8.... Now what I have not tried is cleaning and reseating the cpu and heat sink. Will be doing that shortly. Here's hoping.... Will let you know.

Thanks for the advice.

[Big Dave]

OK so here is the latest:

Cleaned cpu and heat sink and used some arctic silver 3. Installed everything and started the process of adjusting fsb and ratio's again. The best I can get to is an fsb of 120 which gives me a reported speed of 1380. It does not seem to matter what ratio I use it still reports 1380.

My only other thought is if I need to upgrade the bios to allow for faster speeds. So back to trawling the internet I go...

[dave87]

Otherwise, could it be a knackered chip?

It isn't exactly a young'un


Do you need to stick with SoA, and what chips does the board you've got support?

[Ferral]

Is this the board? :

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/d...c/KT3Ultra.htm

You can still get the bios from the MSI site, last one dated 2003, cant get a direct link to the file but the site has 3 dropdowns for finding the bios. Easy enough to navigate.

Before flashing the bios though make sure you have the right model number etc or it will knacker your board (best to double check, better to be safe than sorry), no one here is responsible if you accidentally flash it with the wrong bios!!!

http://www.msicomputer.com/support/bios_result.asp

[Zak33]

OK so here is the latest:

Cleaned cpu and heat sink and used some arctic silver 3. Installed everything and started the process of adjusting fsb and ratio's again. The best I can get to is an fsb of 120 which gives me a reported speed of 1380. It does not seem to matter what ratio I use it still reports 1380.

I dont suppose, by sheer weirdness, that their is a jumper somehwere, that allows you to use higher FSB's is there?

I once had a mobo that was at 100, but to get to the 133 and 166 buses, I needed to move a jumper!

[Ferral]

Yeah, a lot of the socket a boards had that jumper you mention Zak. Theres a manual on one of the links I posted.

It needs to be set to 133 as it doubles up to 266, the cpu chart shows it has an effective speed of around 1500Mhz

[Big Dave]

The link to the board is correct except that my board is an Ultra 2, not that I think that makes any difference. I have the manual and cannot see any jumpers apart from the clear cmos one. I will be looking into updating the motherboard when I feel brave enough. I believe it is two release out of date so I am not overly hopeful that this will cure the problem.

Thanks for all your help.

[hibby]

Have you got a spare BIOS battery you can try? I think I've had the same problem resurrecting an old motherboard where the BIOS battery had gone flat. This left it booting its safe settings and not being able to save any changes.

[Big Dave]

hibby

Tried that one to no avail. In fact I may have thrown away a good battery as I noticed the date and time were getting reset. It was only later that I realised that this is part of what gets reset when you do a cmos reset. I am now looking to try and set the processor up on a chaintech board but without a manual I am having trouble getting nything on the screen. I have posted another thread in this respect.

Thanks for the thought.

David

[Zak33]

Big Dave

Firstly... thaks for being concise and accurate on your reply to this. We love helping people who WANT to be helped and who help us to help them. So far, you've done good work.

Secondly....

and chance of a nice, brightly lit, high res photo of this board pls?

Daylight, good camera kinda shot?

[Big Dave]

Zak33

Thanks for the words of support. Will get a photograph done and posted but have to admit never done it before. Time to get my son involved in this respect so bear with me for a short while.

Big Dave