O Crap

[badassmak]

I went and turned my machine on this afternoon...and...it gets to the screen where it says "Pheonix-awardBIOS v 6.00PG...etc.etc...


Then it goes no further, but it says half way down...*Warning!!!CPU have overspeed!!!*

I'm thinking this is very bad . I have never messed with BIOS, or overclocking, so WTF is going on here???

[RWhite]

That message is a new one too me... and I've seen a lot. I'm guessing since it's a Phoenix BIOS, its probably a Dell. Can you get into the rest of the BIOS?

Most likely culprits are probably the CPU or motherboard, which I know you don't want to hear. But did you make any hardware changes to the machine lately?

[badassmak]

I built this machine late January, early February.

athlon xp1800
A7N8X mobo
512 ddr ram
40 gig wd hd


This is the basics of whats in there. I have not installed any new hardware since then. The last piece of software was over a week ago.

And yes I can get into the rest of the BIOS, but I don't know what to look for.

Any help is mucho appreciated .

[ambi]

What kind of cpu fan/heatsink combo do you have on there?
Open it up see if the mobo fan or cpu fan worked it's way loose and fell off or some shit.

Do you mean it's over heating?

Anything that speed needs serious cooling. You have to be careful, but if you are running the standard cpu fan/heatsink that came with the chip it should be fine.

[badassmak]

ok yea...there is more stuff in my computer lol...duh...

Enermax EG365P-VEFC powersupply (dual fans, there is a variable speed control, but I hav never messed with that either)
Thermalright SLK-800 heatsink/panaflo medium flo fan
The ram is micron brand.

In the BIOS it shows the mobo temp. to be fairly steady at 30 degrees
The processor shows steady at about 40 degrees.

[badassmak]

I've looked inside as well, everything appears to be normal. Everything is attached. No burnt smells . All the fans are turning. The heatsink was installed on the processor for me. I'm also bouncing around through search engines here, there are some results to typing in *CPU have overspeed*...because that is what the error message reads.

[Slackmaster2K]

In the BIOS, reset the CPU FSB, multiplier, and voltages back to the defaults for your processor. If there are no CPU settings on the motherboard then you will most likely have to flip jumpers.

I had an Asus board that had an annoying habit of freaking out like that, and I ended up manually setting the jumpers on the board instead of using the BIOS CPU setup feature.

Slackmaster 2000

[badassmak]

Yea, that appears to have done the trick, thanks a lot man. I just loaded the default, and saved, and it boots right up. I don't get why after all this time it decided to wig out now. Most of my search results were bringing up results of cooked processor and ram, so that wasn't overly appealling. However, I don't know if I can safely rule that out at this point and time, using deductive reasoning.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed just the same. Once again I thank you .

[Robertyu]

I have the same motherboard, and can help...

I doubt it is hardware jumper settings, because all the processor/bus settings are in the bios, except for one, and that would have already caused an obvious problem if it was wrong.

The ASUS A7N8X is known for a batch that made it out with a bad or marginal battery. For quite a few users, this has caused the bios settings to be lost, and then the machine would come up with the error message you mention. That error message is because the default bios settings may not match your processor.

I would go into the bios by pressing the [DEL] key upon hearing the first POST beep, and re-setting it all up the way you did when you first set up the machine. If it happens again another day, then go out and purchase a new battery for your bios. that has fixed this problem for most people, although I have not had this happen to me (yet).

Good choice on motherboard in spite of the problem you are running into. It's an outstanding choice for a DAW outfitted with a low-latency audio interface.

[badassmak]

Very interesting, I shall keep that in mind if I have more problems down the road. It would appear that resetting to default was the answer, but ya never know , especially when you refer to it being obviously wrong. But if the thing just decides to be nutty once in awhile, well as long as it doensn't fry itself. Why exactly would it have changed settings anyway?

I'm pretty sure the shop I got the parts from setup the BIOS for me, cause I sure as hell didn't . They put the ram in, processor and heatsink, as well tested all those components after they assembled them. I just put the rest together.

Thanks for the appraising on choice for mobo. I bought it for a variety of reasons, test results indicated it was pretty much the board of choice, for a number of uses. So far my machine ticks nicely, well todays glitch kinda freaked me out, so now I am wary.

[Slackmaster2K]

Yeah a bad battery can definately cause strange problems, although usually on modern systems they will manifest themselves as a wandering clock (e.g. if your computer can't keep time, then it's time for a new battery). Luckily these days most motherboards use large watch-style batteries that can be purchased from just about any store and are easy to install. On occasion you'll find a board where the battery is integrated with the RTC which calls for a much more delicate replacement procedure, but is still doable. Robert can probably clue you in as to what you'd need, or you could check the manual (alternatively, if you see a big round silver disc-shaped battery mounted on the motherboard, that's it). I'm not sure how a battery could cause the symptoms you describe, but I've seen stranger things.

Slackmaster 2000

[RWhite]

Originally posted by Slackmaster2K
In the BIOS, reset the CPU FSB, multiplier, and voltages back to the defaults for your processor. If there are no CPU settings on the motherboard then you will most likely have to flip jumpers.

I had an Asus board that had an annoying habit of freaking out like that, and I ended up manually setting the jumpers on the board instead of using the BIOS CPU setup feature.

Slackmaster 2000

I had the same situation. I have two ASUS P3V4X motherboards at home (I service a bunch more of them at work). By default they detect the CPU speed automaticly on each bootup, although you can hard-set the speed by jumper. About 1-2 times a month this one particular board that I own pops into the BIOs, saying it detected a CPU speed change. I just reset it and reboot and then its fine. Somewhat annoying but harmless.

There is one pssibilty I just thought of - hopefully not true. Some shady places have been known to sell CPU & motherboard combos where the CPU is already overclocked. They advertise the higher speed but sell an overclocked chip to make a few bucks. The only way to check that out for sure is take out the cpu and look at it. But if its working now, I'd say leave it alone.

[badassmak]

Yea, I could see how taht kindof thing can happen. I watched them put this thing together tho, and saw all the parts beforeheand. They were actually extremely hgelpful, and I most definately would give them my business again. If its just a matter of resetting things once in awhile that is liveable, although personally I prefer perfectionism, so it doesn't neccesarily sit well.

As a side note, I booted up today and magically it found a corrupt file. The little note went away before I got to read it, so there wasn't much recourse. Then again this afternoon I switched the machine on, it went thru CHKDSK and apparently sorted the problem out. I wonder if this had something to do with things. Things definately don't appear peachy, altho it is working.

I am kinda backin up all kinds of mundane things as we speak .