Any suggestions, please? -UPDATE - BUT NO JOY -- RESOLVED....WELL SORT OF......

[Basil Chupin]

On 16/09/2010 00:17, Christopher Chan wrote:
> Basil Chupin wrote:
>    
>> On 13/09/2010 10:54, Christopher Chan wrote:
>>      
>    
>>> Basil, own up, You bricked your motherboard on a botched BIOS flash
>>> upgrade did you not?
>>>
>>>        
>> Probably did, when I did it some 5 years or so ago.
>>
>> Such things eventually catch with you, you know....
>>
>>      
> Good on ya, mate, for being cool about your troubles.
>    

Well, the problem lay with the Giga-byte motherboard. Which part of it I 
don't know.

I bought a pre-loved ASUS A7N8X Deluxe mobo and, using the existing PSU 
(which many people, including myself, thought was the culprit) and all 
the other bits, the ASUS boots.

This is the good part.

The bad part is that I cannot get the whole sheebang to actually work 
properly.

The CPU I have, Athlon XP 3200+ which should be showing as pounding away 
at 2200MHz is showing up as a 1100MHz CPU - and the 'system' will not 
even run the Ubuntu Live CD :-( .

I've searched for an answer but all the gobbledygook I see really 
doesn't satisfy my need to get a STRAIGHT answer.

At this point I have to say that I have never had this hassle before 
with other brands of mobos - predominantly Gig-byte - until this ASUS 
and I have come to the conclusion that I will never buy another ASUS again.

The problem seems to be connected with the CPU-FSB setting - which is 
set to 400/333/266 by default (with alternate setting of 200MHz) and the 
BIOS setting for CPU External Frequency which is set to 100Mhz by default.

OK, the RAM I am using is PC3200/400 so the FSB of 400 is OK, right?

I then set the BIOS CPU External Frequency to 200Mhz - and I have problems.

The Athlon XP 3200+ has a multiplier of 11 so 200MHz X 11 = 2200MHz, right?

But somewhere in here I must be misunderstanding something, or missing 
something. As I stated, with the Giga-Byte mobos everything was done 
automatically: plug the CPU in, plug-in the RAM and "thank your mother 
for the rabbit". But not this ASUS.

Can anyone see the flaw in the above which, when corrected, would get 
the beast working again?

BC

-- 
I didn't know it was impossible when I did it.