Processor Upgrade

I bought a xp 2600+ processor and am having trouble getting it up to speed. I have an ECS K7S5A mb, and flashed the bios to thier recommended version. It took some time, and the flash went well, but it still wouldn't recognize the processor as a 2600. The choices are set by the bios, not jumpers. It says it is a 1900 running at 1.59ghz. I have 512mb of 266 DDR memory, and it won't run at 266 mhz anymore. It wants to run at 200 like the processor. Everything was fine with my Duron 1.3Ghz. What did I miss? ECS K7S5A, AMD 2600+, 512 mb 2100 ddr, ATI 9200 video, Creative 512 sound.

 

first of all, what version of the 2600+ did you buy? there are currently 3 different versions.

1.) 2600+ Thouroughbred B 266mhz FSB 256kb L2 cache 2.13GHz
2.) 2600+ Thouroughbred B 333mhz FSB 256kb L2 cache 2.08GHz
3.) 2600+ Barton 333mhz FSB 512kb L2 cache 1.90GHz

your board only supports the first one, so I'm assuming thats what you have, or else you'd have to "underclock" the CPU... which wouldnt be great.

assuming you DO have the 1st one, go to your BIOS and open the CPU PnP Setup page. Be sure your Processor Brand is set to AMD K7 and the Type is Athlon. set the speed to 2100 mhz (i am not sure what intervals are provided or if there is a user input, looking at the manual in pdf form )

Set the CPU frequency to 133mhz and the multiplier (ratio as its called in the BIOS) to 16. Although that sounds a bit odd, so if that wont work, see if you can raise the frequency to 266 and set the ratio to 8. also set the DRAM frequency to the same frequencey as the CPU, since you have pc2100 RAM, it should be 133 (or 266 accordingly).

if you've already tried all of this, let us know so we can try to figure out what the problem is.

 

The mainboard detects the processor and fills in the brand,type and voltage.You are left to choose between combinations of bus speeds for cpu and memory. the choices are 100/100 mhz,100/133 mhz (this is what I use for the Duron 1.3) and 133/133. There are other choices in the advanced cmos. One is auto detect dimm/pci clock, the other is clk gen spread spectrum. Could either if these be throwing it off?

 

EDIT : Oh dear, feeling dumb now

http://www.3dvelocity.com/reviews/athlonxp2600/amd.htm

Those are the settings you would need to put into the CPU PnP page. If there is an "Auto" function, try setting that and rebooting and see if it recognises the CPU. Ive found with some boards that after a flash/cmos clear, it will lose the CPU ID and run it at the wrong speed untill you go into BIOS and look at the setting being automatic (not actually change anything, just look at it), reboots and it identifies the chip. Weird eh? But happened on no less than 3 different mobo manufactures that ive used.

Edit : one of which was an ECS board, so i think this might be the problem. Just set it to auto and see what happens.

 

haha not sure why you feel dumb, you must have edited in time blast! haha

anyway Bobstar, try the auto settings that Goldfish mentioned. If that still doesnt work, your settings should be 133/133. in the advanced BIOS features, you can turn off auto detect dimm/pci clock and turn off the spread spectrum. I dont believe those would be interfering with the processor speed... but it cant hurt to test it out.

the page for CPU support for that motherboard on the ECS site doesnt load, so i cant tell you or sure it will even recognize the chip... but let us know how it goes.

 

Id be interested to see Bobstars reply to the earlier question posed on what version of 2600 he has

If its the correct one then setting as 133/133 will solve the problems, generally once the bios is flashed it is put back to safe defaults more often than not that means 100fsb

 

I have just about worn out all of my options on his one. I have tried every combination of bios settings I can use, but still no luck. Gonna wear out the reset jumper pretty soon. Currently I am trying to talk the wife into letting me try it in her machine. It has a Gigabyte mb and took a 2400+ without a hitch. I'll put the 2400 in mine, and see if that will work. It is marked as a 2600+ 266 bus speed. when I take it out I will get the numbers and check them at AMD.

 

Well, I tried switching the 2600+ to my wife's computer, but no luck there either. In fact, I thought I was in big trouble when the first boot attempt failed with a corrupted system file. I put the 2400 back in hers, got it going, and the Duron back in mine. Put my bios settings back to 100/133(cpu/mem) and it is back how it was. I'm thinking of having the 2600+ tested before I return it, but I will see what the store I bought it from says to do. I really want to get a processor with a 266 bus, and would like to go as far as the K7S5A will let me. I'm just unsure if it will run any 266 cpu. The chip id is AXDA2600DKV3C, which is just what the store claims it is. I have the chip under a magnifying glass, and it appears to have a metalic residue (sparkles) on the pin side of the chip. I'm going to clean it and try again before I send it back. Is it possible that it is counterfit? It is green instead of brown. Just one more thing. The little valleys between the L1 bridges are not there on this one. Many of the other bridges have little valleys , but not the L1.

 

Hmm, what shape is the core? It could be that someone tried to do a pin mod on the CPU and either broke it or has made it unusable by shorting a couple of pins. Take it back and get another one, and chances are it wont have been modified. It might have been that someone tried to OC this CPU and gave it back because it "didnt work" and you ended up with the damaged part.

Green PCB is normal for Paliminto coress, bartons are brown and thoroughbreds are purple.

 

I thought so too, but I've had brown and green Thoughroughbred's and Bartons... so its nothing to worry about.

 

Well, I just put the 2600+ back into the box it came in, as it is off to the place it came from. I tried my wife's 2400+ in my mainboard, and wow, it worked. I am asking them to send me another 2600+ if it tests bad, or a 2400+ if it tests good. Thanks for all the help, It will be a couple of weeks till it gets sorted out. Bobstar.

 

Yeah, RMA's are never fun... but hopefully you will only have to spend a few bucks on shipping at most.

A 2400+ will do just great for you. If you have a decent cooling setup, it should EASILY overclock to 2600+ speeds without more than a couple degrees of temperature increase..... if you're into that.

anyway, good luck, hope everything turns out fine.