[chickmazta]

Hi! I just need a little help from you guys. A friend of mine ask me if I can do something about their old PC. Ever since the problem occured they didn't use the PC anymore and decided to keep it in the attic. So after 4 years of beeing kept in the attic we decided to try and fix it if possible. I was shocked to see the PC, it was all covered in dust, spider webs and dead insects. After the cleaning we set it up, I was overwhelmed to see that the PC booted, i set the bios to current settings and date, suprisingly it still booted onto windows. Everything was fine and seems to be there's nothing wrong with it. I've checked the memory modules for errors nothing registers. The psu is still ok, hard disk has no bad sectors. the optical drives are fine. The PC is on for 6 hours it seems that there's really nothing wrong with it.

I turned off the PC and decided to check it the next morning. The next day when I turned it on it directed me to bios again. Every changes was lost and it loaded me the defaults even the date. I've encountered this problem with my PC and it seems that the cmos battery was drained so we purchased a new one. The problem is still there. So I checked every component installed in the system and I found out that the board only supports 400mhz of FSB. The current cpu installed has an FSB of 533mhz. How did that happen? From the moment they purchased the computer the mobo and the cpu is not compatible. Is that possible? I'm not a tech kind of guy I just don't understand how a computer shop would sell and ordinary person a computer which has incompatible parts. I hope you guys can help us out. TNX Advance!!!

This is the PC specs:

PROCESSOR: Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P4S-X
MEMORY: 1GB DDR333 PC 2700
VGA: Nvidia GeForce 2 MX400 64MB
HDD: Seagate 40GB
OPTICAL: Lite-On DVD combo drive

and a 300watts power supply

hope this helps, by the way SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH ^_^

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When you replace the battery you have to set the BIOS up again. You can't just put a new battery in and expect it to remember everything from four years ago especially if the battery charge ran out in that time.

Your manual says the board supports FSB 533 if overclocked. The current processor was probably overclocked - made to run faster than it was designed. By default they all ran at FSB 400. There's no benefit to anybody selling stuff that's incompatible.

[Neil Jones]

When you replace the battery you have to set the BIOS up again. You can't just put a new battery in and expect it to remember everything from four years ago especially if the battery charge ran out in that time.

Your manual says the board supports FSB 533 if overclocked. The current processor was probably overclocked - made to run faster than it was designed. By default they all ran at FSB 400. There's no benefit to anybody selling stuff that's incompatible.

[chickmazta]

Thanks for the immediate reply. Since I inserted the new battery I already made changes in the bios and saved it during exit. But then again, the same error occur. This happens when I turn of the AVR or unplug the power cord directly from the power source.

If the processor was overclocked then the bios must have beeen set in order for the cpu and the motherboard to be synchronize. If this is the case, I guess I need to configure the bios but it wont let me do any changes. When I try to set the CPU SPEED to maual, the only CPU EXTERNAL FREQUENCY option that it displays is 133/33 and the highest is 166/ sorry I forgot whats under 166. And also the CPU FREQUENCY MULTIPLE is locked, cannot make changes to it.

Honestly I don't know how to overclock, I'm just an average user giving my neighbor a hand. I've read in the internet that there are 2 types of Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, a 400 FSB and a Pentium 4 2.4B GHz with a 533 FSB I forgot the codename of those processor. And also I dont see any jumperfree mode settings in the motherboards layout. But to anilize the situation further, the processor might have worked correctly when it was newly purchased. The only thing is, I do not know what is the right settings to input. I would still keep trying any configuration in the bios that would let me enable the synchronization. Thanks again for the reply, I hope you would continue helping us. Tnx again!!!

By the way, in the bios settings beside the CPU SPEED there are 2 options "MANUAL and 2400Mhz"

Edited by chickmazta, 16 December 2008 - 02:39 AM.

[baula]

try to set optimal default setting and save/exit.

[chickmazta]

I already reset the bios and load the default or factory settings, still the same error happen. I'm getting confuse now T_T

This is the change that so far I've made.

CPU SPEED = 2400Mhz
CPU FREQUENCY MULTIPLIER = locked/ cannot be changed/ greyed out
CPU EXTERNAL FREQUENCY = 133/33
MEMORY FREQUENCY = Auto

After saving and rebooting the PC this error appears in BIOS "During the last boot-up your system hung for an improper cpu speed setting. Your system is now working in safemode. To optimize the system performance and reliability make sure the cpu speed conforms to the specifications of your cpu".

When I try to set the CPU SPEED to "MANUAL" the other message appear "During the last boot-up your system hung for the improper frequency combination. Your system is now working in safe mode. To optimize the system performance and reliability make sure the frequency combination conforms to their specifications of your cpu, dimm and other connected devices".

There's one thing that really concerns me the "CPU FREQUENCY MULTIPLIER" cannot be change nor it is highlighted.

This also comes to my mind. Bios corrupted is this possible? processor damage, incompatible cpu and mobo, overheating processor, motherboard damage and motherboard jumper settings. I guess this post is really hard to determine. I'm still open to others advice. Tnx AGAIN!!!

By the way. thanks baula ^_^

[123Runner]

Here is a link to the manual.
http://support.asus....SLanguage=en-us.
page 2-15 talks about the bios screens. Also mentioned is "When the motherboard is set for jumperfree mode". Unfortunately I haven't found where that is described. It does say that a feature of the board is that it is jumper free. Which contradicts the previous sentence.

[chickmazta]

As of now I still haven't found any solution to the problem. I guess people find my post difficult to solve. Anyway thanks for the replies. I hope someone would read this post and give me some advice.Tnx again!