AMD 2500XP only working at 1.10GHZ

[Josh04]

The problem i am having seems to be very akward. I load the regular bios so the 2500XP runs normal but when it comes time to load windows it does not work. It somewhat frezzes. I can load windows when the speed is reduced to 100 mhz FSb instead of 166mhz. So winodws will only load at 1100 mhz and the settings are on auto. I updated bios and all drivers and seem to be getting no where. PLease help

I have Amd 2500 Barton
Msi K7n2 Delta L
1 Gig Kingston Value Ram PC 2700
60gig Western Digital
MSI Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200 128mb
Philips CDRW
DVD
400 watt PSU

Nothing too impressive but i just cant seem to get the cpu to run at the regular speed

[Tin]

if you have 512mb x 2 config, try removing one stick at a time to see if you have a bad one. do this when you try to boot at 166. it sounds to me like you may have a bad stick of ram. another thing you can try is running them in single channel. the 2 DIMM slots closest to one another will enable single channel.

[BARNEY]

First, when you say you set it in the bios, be very sure you are setting 'correctly. XP2500 should be 166x11. You dont load "fail safe" in the bios, you load "optimized defaults", and usually an XP2500 with an nforce2 will be automatically detected correctly on "auto" settings. if not, then go into "advanced chipset" section of your bios and manually set the FSB @ 166, and the mutiplier @ 11. That should do it. If not, then you may need to clear SMOS and move a jumper on the motherboard. If all else fails reattach the CPU/HSF again and try again.

[Josh04]

Hey Tin Carney Thank You for the advice it worked it was one bad ram chip. Hey barney thank you for replying

[kram 2.0]

Also, welcome to PCMech forums
Thank you for posting your results. Also, unrelated to the general question, but what brand PSU do you have? Though the RAM chip might have been a manufacturer defect (as it probably is), it could also be a falty PSU cause as has happened to many people here.

Hope that helps,
kram

[Josh04]

i have a cheap 400 watt mustang psu
do you think that could be a problem too

[glc]

Cheap power supplies are always potential problems. You might want to look at your hardware monitor and see how close your voltages are to spec.

[Josh04]

i really dont understand the ratings so i will buy a new psu
what is a good psu but not to expensive

[glc]

You don't need to understand the ratings - just go into the bios or use the hardware monitoring program that came with your motherboard and post the voltage readings.

[Josh04]

My ratings are +3.3v 3.29
+5v 5.13
+12v 11.97-12.04
-12v -11.95
-5v -5.14
mine are on the right

[Brown Hornet]

some good power supplies are sparkle,antec,enermax and with your set-up a 350w psu will do go here and look around

http://www.newegg.com/index.asp?DEPA=1

[glc]

Those readings are fine, I don't think that power supply is causing problems. You replaced a bad ram chip, and things are fine, don't worry about it.

Mustang is Raidmax - they aren't that bad.

[Josh04]

yea i got the ram chip to work i just switched them it seemed to work thankyou all for the responses