First I will tell you the specs of comp im having probs with so you can better help diagnose

main board: an35n ultra
bios: nforce 2
processor: athlon xp 3000+
gfx: power color radion 9600xt 256mb
psu: 350 antec
ram: Patriot 3x256 ddr 400mhz


I every time i would change the multiplyer in bios nothing would happen. SO I tried setting the fsb to 200 instead of 166. Wouldent boot so i reset bios and from trial and error i settled on 177mhz. Had it running at that for a week and a half. Then i was reading the nforce2 oc guide in the amd oc section. I had my voltage always at 1.5v. Then after reading his guide i moved it to 1.7 or 1.75 (I dont remember). I was playing UT and i have MBM (mother board monitor) alarm set for 52 deg celcious. It went off while playing game so i shut down. I also had bios set to shut down at 60.

Then i walked away and had some lunch. came back turn it on no post code, no display, nothing. everything is getting power thats it. So the nforce2 bios resets by unpluging the plug for 30 seconds then plugging it back in holding insert as you hit power button. That didnt work. Then in the manual there is a jumper you can move. That didnt work. Then a old trick i used to do was unplug the batery for a hour then plug it back in. No luck. So what do you think is up.

I know its not a good way to have your first post a ? but i havnt had any luck anywhere else so.

Well anyway since this is my first post ill also use it to introduce myself.

My name is jake johnson. Im 17 in HS. A senior.

2 days a week im a CNA at a hospital. 2 days a week i am assistant to security there.

I have been programing since age 4. They thought i was retarded in kindergarden because i couldent learn 1+1. Then my dad told them some of the stuff i do. Well it all changed then.

I am taking 3 college classes. I am big into computer security. New into computer hardware and gaming. Ive always just done code. I didnt get into modding until i was about 16. I am also a writer. I do a lot of poetry, also good with women. ANd for the life of me i hope my processor or main board aint burnt out. I only get paid at end of month and i am dead broke.

If theres any ideas please let me know. And I dont have a compatible computer to test the motherboard or processor. Nor do any of my friends. There all either prefab or intel lovers.

Quote: bios: nforce 2

thats chipset not BIOS
sorry i dont want to be an a55.
welcome to pr

i suggest as far as the overclocking, to up the FSB a little at a time.

by default the bios only allowed you to do fsb at predefined integers. The next step up from my 166 was 200. Then i had to switch over to expert and i tried at 1-3 increments. Until i found where i liked.

And yes you are right about the chipset. That was a goof on my part. I am so sorry. But im leaning towards somens broke. But both my hardware snesor and bios snesor only read 52 (my hardware) and 52 (bios) and mbm reads it straight from bios. My case temp acording to my sensor was 48 and mbm said 46. And my last processor was 2800 and it reached well above 52 on several occasions. So any diea's?

I would say something's probably been hurt really badly, but don't take my word for it yet. Wait until somebody a little more knowledgeable first. In the meantime though, you should try your parts out in other machines.

Also, if you have your voltage running at 1.5V, by all means keep it there. The lower the voltage the better, but upping it gives it that little push to up your FSB more. Good luck and welcome

I imagine the multiplier problem is because your CPU is locked, when rig is running again try lowering the multi and raising the FSB... I have the same mobo but with an unlocked XP 2000+
Do you have an aftermarket heatsink for your CPU or are you using the stock one?
The rest of your gear is equivrlant to or better than mine so I doubt those are problems unless one or more components is going/has gone bad.
Do all your LEDs and fans come on?

Hmmm...this is a tough one!

It's going to be hard to isolate the problem without some other hardware to test yours with.

There are 3 things that come to mind.

The Motherboard, CPU, Memory, or possibly part the Power Supply went bad.

You have the Bios jumper in the wrong position.

Your Bios chip was corrupted and needs to be reflashed.

My suggestions

Check your Manual to see if the CMOS (And other jumpers) are in the correct postion

You can try holding the Insert key while booting up, this sometimes will restore the Bios.

You can test the power supply with a multimeter (Insert a probe into the main power connector from the backside while it is plugged into the motherboard. Check the 12v, 5v and 3.3 rails.
(Or there is a method for testing while disconnected by jumpering across certain pins..you will have to find that with a search)

I would remove everything but the bare minimum to run (Vid card, CPU and one stick of memory)

It is going to be tough to isolate the problem without other hardware to test with, I don't have any suggestions other than buying components. You can resell them if they are not needed.

BTW..Are you gettting any beep codes?

my led's havnt worked since day 1.

sd fsr sd multiplyer the cpu isnt locked.

On my lest computer is where this cpu came from. ( took the procesoor and put a 2800 in it and gate it to my sister then used the 3000 in my new.

When i change the multiplyer it changes in bios will will read as that. but when you go to windows xp pro it isnt. I tried cpu id. and both benchmarking programs say its still at 13. Go figure.

And i have no warenty. No cash. SO if somen did die im screwed till the last of the month.

yes its a after market heat seink. Its of the volcano series. It keeps it about 2 degrese cooler then the stock one. Ive had both on it . Tested stock tested after market. aftermarket was 2 lower so i kept it on there.

well for 3 month i had the 2800 at 1.95v so i figured it should be able to. THen i went on net. And found a lot of other people who had theres at about where i wanted it. So i seen no plroblems. I was playing UT for 3hrs non stop with it there. But my room was hotter then usual and so instead of blowing 73 degree F on it i was blowing 79 degree which is probably why it got that high. Its not UT 2003 or 2004 its just the original. I have never had it get above 49 with it. Now on sims 2 on other hand. I wont even go there.

Quote: Hmmm...this is a tough one! It's going to be hard to isolate the problem without some other hardware to test yours with. There are 3 things that come to mind. The Motherboard, CPU, Memory, or possibly part the Power Supply went bad. You have the Bios jumper in the wrong position. Your Bios chip was corrupted and needs to be reflashed. My suggestions Check your Manual to see if the CMOS (And other jumpers) are in the correct postion You can try holding the Insert key while booting up, this sometimes will restore the Bios. You can test the power supply with a multimeter (Insert a probe into the main power connector from the backside while it is plugged into the motherboard. Check the 12v, 5v and 3.3 rails. (Or there is a method for testing while disconnected by jumpering across certain pins..you will have to find that with a search) I would remove everything but the bare minimum to run (Vid card, CPU and one stick of memory) It is going to be tough to isolate the problem without other hardware to test with, I don't have any suggestions other than buying components. You can resell them if they are not needed. BTW..Are you gettting any beep codes?

No i am not getting beep code. Ive already tested psu, already tried the insert thingy. i have it striped to bare bones at moment.

ive gone over the jumper selection 3x. and had a friend do it to thinking maybe i missed something.

I live in rural area. Towne in 40 minutes away.

edit, i also tried a other stick of 3200 corsair ram 128 mb,.

USE THE EDIT BUTTON RATHER THAN MAKING A DOUBLE POST!!!!!!!!!!

Just another FYI for when the rig is back up and running, there is a little program called I believe 8rdavcore (will be able to tell you for sure when I get back to my house) that will allow OCing from within windows, but from my experience only like small changes at a time, and sometimes the changes don't stick.
I generally use the expert setting in the BIOS so that I can change my RAM timings as well since my RAM will run at 2-2-2-5 timings.
I also tend to ramp up my voltages a little at a time rather than going straight from 1.5 to 1.7 or 1.75, maybe something to keep in mind next time.
Maybe try 12 multi and 190 FSB at 1.65 volts, runs fine for me and stable but is slightly higher than my "every day" speed.

Quote: Originally Posted by godfoot Just another FYI for when the rig is back up and running, there is a little program called I believe 8rdavcore (will be able to tell you for sure when I get back to my house) that will allow OCing from within windows, but from my experience only like small changes at a time, and sometimes the changes don't stick. I generally use the expert setting in the BIOS so that I can change my RAM timings as well since my RAM will run at 2-2-2-5 timings. I also tend to ramp up my voltages a little at a time rather than going straight from 1.5 to 1.7 or 1.75, maybe something to keep in mind next time. Maybe try 12 multi and 190 FSB at 1.65 volts, runs fine for me and stable but is slightly higher than my "every day" speed.

i could never get it to boot past 180 fsb so i found 175 worked great and stable

so if you had to guess would you say main board or processor. I can come up with $ for a main board possibly in about a week, but not a processor. So if you had to guess, which one.

It could actually be either of them, or both.
If you have a friend that has a known-good compatible CPU laying around, see if you can borrow it to help narrow it down.

Quote: Originally Posted by godfoot It could actually be either of them, or both. If you have a friend that has a known-good compatible CPU laying around, see if you can borrow it to help narrow it down.

Like I sid earlier every1 i know has prefab intel's or home built intels. The only compatiable one i had now belongs to my sis, down in tampa.

Welcome to PR.

Quote: Originally Posted by stereomod USE THE EDIT BUTTON RATHER THAN MAKING A DOUBLE POST!!!!!!!!!!

the two posts he made were substantial enough to constitute a second post, 1 was a detailed description, and 2 was a rather lengthy quote, and i dont mean to bust you balls stereo, but your post was the most redundant here...no offense...but he didnt deserve that kind of attitude from you...

the problem you are having sounds identical to when i had a bad BIOS flash on my NF7-S, everything would power up, but absolutely no hope of booting up (no beeps, no monitor activity, resetting or removing or doing anything to fix the BIOS helped at all)...

EDIT: matter of fact, im almost positive that is what happened, since an overclock can corrupt a bios...

it literally took me going to ExcaliberPC.com and ordering a replacement BIOS and doing a hot swap (if you need help with that, just ask, i or someone else will gladly assist you)...

welcome to PR, im Fu3lman, and you will probably get mad at me at some point or another

Quote: it literally took me going to ExcaliberPC.com and ordering a replacement BIOS and doing a hot swap (if you need help with that, just ask, i or someone else will gladly assist you)...

If you wouldent mind please explain what you mean by hot swap. Could I get the replacement bios from shuttle and if so, how much would it cost.

Thank you so much for our help. All of you all have been so wonderful.

Quote: Originally Posted by jake_johnson If you wouldent mind please explain what you mean by hot swap. Could I get the replacement bios from shuttle and if so, how much would it cost. Thank you so much for our help. All of you all have been so wonderful.

hot swapping is the process of repairing a corrupt BIOS by means of booting your system from a known good (compatable) BIOS, then once it has finished booting into the OS, pulling the good BIOS out, putting the old BIOS in, and using a windows utility to erase and reflash the old bios so it will work again...

yes, you want to be extremely careful not to allow the terminals to short out while pulling the BIOS out (pull it straight out, not at an angle at all).

and yes, you will pull the good BIOS out WHILE THE COMPUTER IS ON AND ONLY WHILE IN WINDOWS!!!

steps to this process:

1: pull bad bios out

2: put new bios in

3: boot from new bios until you are looking at windows desktop

4: carefully remove the good bios

5: put old (bad) bios in while computer is still on

6: use a flashing utility to overwrite the corrupt bios

this can also be done in DOS, however, i have not had to do that so i cant speculate on its difficulty

i am not sure where you can get a bios replacement, but these guys claim to be able to flash it for you..

http://bioschips.nlan.org/

and you are welcome

Quote: Originally Posted by Fu3lman hot swapping is the process of repairing a corrupt BIOS by means of booting your system from a known good (compatable) BIOS, then once it has finished booting into the OS, pulling the good BIOS out, putting the old BIOS in, and using a windows utility to erase and reflash the old bios so it will work again... yes, you want to be extremely careful not to allow the terminals to short out while pulling the BIOS out (pull it straight out, not at an angle at all). and yes, you will pull the good BIOS out WHILE THE COMPUTER IS ON AND ONLY WHILE IN WINDOWS!!! steps to this process: 1: pull bad bios out 2: put new bios in 3: boot from new bios until you are looking at windows desktop 4: carefully remove the good bios 5: put old (bad) bios in while computer is still on 6: use a flashing utility to overwrite the corrupt bios this can also be done in DOS, however, i have not had to do that so i cant speculate on its difficulty i am not sure where you can get a bios replacement, but these guys claim to be able to flash it for you.. http://bioschips.nlan.org/ and you are welcome

Thank you for the tutorial it is a lot of help. Im saving it as a *.txt for future reference as i do all guides, articles ext. i like.

However i talked to them on the phone yesterday and they agreed to replace it if i pay shipping there do to me having bought so much from them and yelling and screeming at them for 3 days straight. They gave me a rma number im sending it out tomorrow (wednesday) they said it may take up to a week to processes, I know thats long but hey, gota do what you gota do. Its not to much on ups ground. Takes a bit but hey, its gona have to do. Right now only access i got is school comps. They got a thousand and one filters. WHY!!!

And thank you all so much. And i must say i realy enjoy these forums so far. I just may become a permanent resident. Ill try and be as helpful as I can.

its no problem, i actually sympathize with you as i know full well how it feels to render your system compleely useless (almost to the point of crying over it)...

stick around, sounds like we could use more members like you