[admin]

I think sensor one goes to Winbond 1 diode, and sensor 2 goes to Winbond 2 diode. Just guessing, but you should be able to figure it out through trial and error. The lower temp reading will be your MB temp, and the higher your CPU temp.

133mhz FSB = 266mhz, fuzzy math DDR (double data ram 133 x 2 =266mhz)
Actually the P4 uses "quad pumped" memory, so 133mhz FSB = 533mhz.

This is the relative speed that the memory is running at, and is just theoretical bandwidth.

When you first boot your computer your CPU will be cool, you really need to run it at 100% utilization for a while to see where it's at. That's what I think your system is possibly doing. When the CPU is running wide open, it's getting too hot and causing the system to freeze. MBM5 can tell you the CPU temp as your running an app so that you can identify if this is the cause.

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I just had one of those head slapping, duh! moments. I don't think this motherboard is compatable with the Barton CPU!

The BIOS is dated Feb 2003, before the Barton was available, and it doesn't mention anywhere in the manual that it's supported.

Also, the Barton's DEFAULT FSB speed is 166 (333mhz), PC2700 DEFAULT memory speed is (333mhz). I think you either need a BIOS update (which doesn't seem to be available), or another motherboard.

[admin]

I just had one of those head slapping, duh! moments. I don't think this motherboard is compatable with the Barton CPU!

The BIOS is dated Feb 2003, before the Barton was available, and it doesn't mention anywhere in the manual that it's supported.

Also, the Barton's DEFAULT FSB speed is 166 (333mhz), PC2700 DEFAULT memory speed is (333mhz). I think you either need a BIOS update (which doesn't seem to be available), or another motherboard.

[DrD]

Oh man. I was wondering... But yet I can set the FSB to 166 in the Bios.
But the system wont come up. Maybe thats why. Rats, my rotten luck.
Guess I'll start researching again tomorrow for a new MB.

Dr D

[admin]

I highly recommend the Epox 8RDA+ Currenty $82 @ newegg.com, with free shipping. This is the board I would use.

Just click on the "RMA Request" button on their homepage, and them and tell them that you discovered that you're MB isn't compatible with the Barton CPU, and you'd like to exchange it for another one.

[DrD]

Ok, sounds good. It's definitely compatible with the Barton ?

[admin]

Ok, sounds good. It's definitely compatible with the Barton ?

Yup!

[DrD]

You know I was talking to a friend at work today, and he started asking me
about my power supply. It happens to be a fairly generic (250W?) supply that
I had put in the system 2-3 years ago. Is it possible that this kind of instability
could be a power supply problem ? I always thought power supply problems
would mean it powers up/or it doesn't, or maybe you have a lot of heat. But I
didn't think that a system freeze could be caused by that. Yet many people on
AMD and Anantech forum pages say the power supply is one thing to check.
Your thoughts ?

Dr D

[admin]

A 250 watt generic power supply is probably too small for your system, especially when overclocking. However, it's been my experience that an under powered, power supply will cause random reboots, not lockups. Of course, anything is possible. There's a wide variation in power supplies, I'd rather have a quality 250W, than a cheapo 400W.

It is unusual that even though your motherboard doesn't appear to support the Barton core that it does boot up. However, you should be able to boot your system at 166 MHz FSB, and can't. A power supply could cause this, but you probably wouldn't have to reset the BIOS if it was the power supply preventing the system from booting.

Going back to your original problem of random lockups, I highly doubt that this was caused by your power supply, still most likely an overheating problem or the fact that this MB doesn't support the Barton.

It sure wouldn't hurt to upgrade your power supply, but I'd probably start with the motherboard.

[DrD]

You know it's interesting. I've found some posts at www.amdmb.com of
people who seem to be running the 2500+ Barton with the Epox 8K9A2+
board. There is a very intersting post where a guy said he had to raise his
Vdimm voltage to 2.6 and another posted he had to set the core to 1.8V.

Epox Motherboards Topic at AMD MB Forums

One guy even has it in his sig file...

TormentoR
Member
Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Tampa, Florida
Posts: 48
My 2500+ was also unknown to my system until I upgraded my BIOS. I am using the one dated from 2/12/2003. I haven't had any issues with it thus far.
__________________
EPoX 8K9A2+ w/ Athlon XP 2500+ Barton @ 2.3Ghz
ThermalTake Volcano 7+ 43C Idle / 47C Load
2 X 256mb Samsung PC2700 DDR RAM
PNY GeForce4 Ti4200 64mb DDR RAM
Windows XP Pro / SP1

I'm definitely gonna play with this a little before I send stuff back. I've got
till Wednesday before I go out of town so I figure it gives me a little time.
I'd like to have the MB (or culprit hardware) on its way and back while I'm
gone on holiday next week. I'm learning a lot by reading the posts here.
Here's what one guy posted about the board:

affebaffe
Junior Member

Registered: Jun 2003
Location:
Posts: 4

Thanks

This is just the kind of information I'm looking for.

It seems like the 8k9a2+ comes in in two flavours. One that works perfect and one that drives people crazy. TormentoR you seems to be a winner in the 8k9a2+ lottery. Good for you!

Have you had any issues with the mobo asides from not detecting your CPU untill you upgraded BIOS?

I had to increase VDim to 2,6 V before my Crucial RAM stick worked properly.

During my 3 days struggle to get this mobo going it once detected my CPU so far that it set the FSB automaticaly to 166.

When I got it working however I had to manualy set the FSB to 166 in BIOS.

I think the FSB set to 166 in the Bios is actually getting doubled to 333 when
the system boots. I think I should be able to set it to this, I agree with your
statement. I'm gonna swap power supplies, put the jumper back to 100MHz
on the motherboard and try 166MHzx12, setting the Vdimm to 2.6 and Vcore
to 1.8V. Any experience setting Voltages ?

Dr D

[admin]

I don't blame you for wanting to figure this out. I'm stubborn like that too!

Remember, there are two versions of this board from EPOX, the 8K9A2, and the 8K9A2+. I think you have the 8K9A2. The 8K9A2+ has a newer BIOS that supports the Barton see this link

If you increase your voltage, you're going to increase heating too. Also, you really shouldn't need to increase your voltage to boot at default settings, but you're not going to hurt anything by bumping the voltage a little (<.3V).

I'm a little confused by the FSB jumper on the MB. These BIOS are referred to as jumperless. Usually, you either have the choice to use a MB jumper to set FSB in the BIOS. Some boards have both, but then a jumper is changed to enable this "jumperless" setting. I didn't see any mention of this in the manual.

It sounds like your on the right track. AMDMB.com is a great site. You could also check the forums at Tom's Hardware, and [H]ardOCP.com.

I had a similar problem once trying to get an Athlon1700+ Thoroughbred to work in a SOYO Dragon SY-K7V MB. It turns out this board didn't support the Thoroughbred. Strange.

[DrD]

Ahh I didn't realize the difference - maybe I do have the 8K9A2, and
not the 8K9A2+ !! I didn't realize they were different. I'm a test
engineer and trouble-shooter at heart. So in a way I don't mind some
problems, but in this case I'd love to just solve it and go on.

(Reading a post from AMDMB...)
Well, maybe the jumper should be set to 133... does it mean 266
is as high as I can go ? Doesn't the Barton support 333 ? I'm getting
a bit confused here.

Dr D

karel3
Junior Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Medford, OR
Posts: 1
Setting CPU Host Clock Jumper on Epox EP-8K9A2+

I am in the process of building a computer using a Epox 8K9A2+ MB. It will have a AMD Athlon XP2600+ CPU and 512MB PC2700 memory.
In setting up the MB, there is Jumper setting that says
CPU Host Clock Select
1-2: 100MHz (Default)
2-3: 133MHz

I couldn't find anything on this in the user manual that came with the MB. Therefore
My questions are:
which one of the Clock selects do I go with, the default or the 133MHz?
Just what is the CPU Host Clock?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
karel3

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=========================================

  06-27-2003 08:13 PM         
 
golfer49
Mega Member
Registered: Jan 2003
Location: Peru, Illinois
Posts: 1407

Go with 133 setting, your cpu is either a 266 or 333 FSB processor, thiss setting sets the FSB to 266 in your case.

__________________
Golf is a good walk spoiled! ( Mark Twain )

EPoX 8RGA+ -- XP2700 w/Volcano 7
2 x WD400JD--Gainward Ti4200 8x AGP
Twinmos PC3200 w/ Winbond chips 2 x 256
Lite-On CD-RW / 465 watt power supply
Win XP Pro--SP1--nVidia 2.0

[DrD]

Also, tonight I'll be popping in a new ATI Radeon 9500Pro , so this will clear
up the question about video.


Did ya see my write up on SWG in the Gaming section ? I hope its what you
were thinking. It's the least I can do for all your help.

Dr D

[admin]

Yes, 133 FSB jumper = 266 Mhz

100 FSB jumper would be for an older Athlon or Duron Processor (= 200 Mhz)

Your BIOS also provides FSB adjustment. 166FSB = 333 Mhz (200 FSB = 400 Mhz).

Where I'm confused is how the MB decides whether the jumper or BIOS is responsible for setting the FSB? You should be able to determine what Mhz you're running on the boot screen.

The Barton's default FSB speed is 333Mhz. Also, your memory is rated PC2700 which equals 333 Mhz (PC3200 is rated for 400 Mhz).

Leave it to marketing to make everthing so confusing. They pile numbers on numbers to make products look faster on paper.

Just remember you're setting the front side bus speed in BIOS, or on the MB. Since your using DDR (Double-Data) RAM, the FSB speed is doubled to acheive the Mhz rating.

[DrD]

I had a bit of a scare just now. I thought I had made such an important
discovery, but I may have pushed things too far...

Ok, so I did 3 things. 1) I pulled out the power supply in my system, and lo
and behold, a 235W A-Open power supply! So that immediately
became the suspect hardware to be changed. I pulled a 300W supply from
another PC that I have in my home network. 2) At the same time I swapped
an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro (high performance) vid card for the ATI 9000 that was
in there before. And lastly 3) I made sure my MB jumper was set to 133Mhz,
and not to 100Mhz. The result looked great - at first.

Jumping into Bios I went straight for the target - I set the FSB to 166 and the
multiplier to 11X, giving me a 1.8Gig clock. And it came up! So I decided to
jump up to a fairly high muliplier. 166X15 for a 2.5Gig clock, no luck here. The
bootup screen gave me an error message. The CPU clock ratio resulted in a
failure, and it forced me back to Bios GUI. So I tried 166X14(2.3GHz) and then
166X13(2.16GHz). The results were:166X 15 =2.5GHz Bios Failed - forces change
166X 14 =2.3GHz Succeeds, but my Win2k crashes to a
Blue Fatal Exception screen every time
166X 13 =2.16GHz Succeeds and Win2k loads ok but there is
noticible off and on freezing at the desktop
At this point, I'm very happy that I'm up and running over the 2GHz mark, and
I decide to try out a graphics intensive game. Here's where the scare came. The
game locked shortly after going in. No CTRL-ALT-DLT available so go to a hard
reset. No hard reset. Notice the hard drive LED is on, not moving. Power button
is useless also. Uh oh. Pull the power cable. Re-insert the power cable. No signal
to the monitor. Yipes. Repeat, no signal. Reset the CMOS with jumper, apply
power, no signal to the monitor. (Beads of sweat forming) Wait few
min, keep trying, finally a signal to the monitor. (Thanks the lord his new ATI
Graphics card is not fried). Bios comes up showing a CPU temp of 1 degree and
reports several errors. I think they were: Display switch is not set properly! and
CMOS battery failed! Maybe one other can't remember. Then back into Bios
and set the FSB and multiplier to 166X 11 for 1.8GHz. Win2k loads ok and more
or less back to normal , but you know, even while writing this long post
I'm still seeing the occasional delayed response between keystrokes and the
display of characters on the screen. I'm gonna go into Star Wars and AC2 since
they're the real tests of the system performance. I'll see if things are still the
same using the new supply and video card. But I'm a little nervous to play with
high clock settings for the moment. I'm also now wondering if I may need to
reinstall my Win2k after putting all this new hardware in. I hate to do it since I
have it all the way I like it, but I've had several people say I should. So maybe
tomorrow at lunch I'll just do it and get it over with to eliminate that variable.
What do you think? Can Win2k remember old hardware and thus, need to be
re-tuned to the new faster CPU and motherboard/memory ?

Settling down a bit now...

Dr D

[admin]

Welcome to the wonderful world of overclocking!

What you describe is very typical when trying to find your maximum overclock speed. You really should go a lot slower though, a couple Mhz at a time. Once you've found the lockup point, back off a few and start testing for stability by running benchmarks like 3DMark 2001 or Prime95

When a system locks up like you describe it's often the memory that's responsible, you could try backing off the memory timings to see if you can go higher. When the CPU reaches maximum overclock it usually causes random reboots. When the CPU overheats, it will also cause lockups.

I'm also now wondering if I may need to reinstall my Win2k after putting all this new hardware in.

Yes, you HAVE to reinstall the OS anytime you change a system motherboard. This was made much easier in WindowsXP with the addition of a repair feature on the boot CD. Unfortunately, there's no such option with Windows 2000. Your best option is to back up your important data, reformat and reinstall your OS and programs, sorry.