AMD Athlon 2200+XP problems running at full speed

[dinki]

I'm running an AMD Athlon 2200+XP processor on an ECS motherboard. When I installed XP and gbpvr I had the processor underclocked to a 1500+XP (clock of 100). Today I tried to bump the cpu speed back to full speed (clock of 133). The machine boots into windows and gbpvr as normal. It will playback recorded programs fine, but when I try to watch live tv I get mixed results.

When I first booted, I tried to enter live tv and was informed it couldn't find the stream. I tried again and got it to work but there was no sound. I tried changing the channel and I got a scrambled picture with lots of distorted audio.

I restarted and changed my cpu settings back to 1500+XP and everything is back the way it was. Anyone have any ideas as to why I can't get my tuner(s) to work at the higher clock speed?


I've got 512megs ram, a pvr150MCE and a pvr150 nonMCE.

[gEd]

it is possible that when u change the fsb to 133, the ecs board is also increasing the pci frequency, causing pci instability. higher quality boards lock the pci and agp frequencies down to prevent this from happening.

are you sure that the cpu is 100% stable at 133? Perhaps try runnning a burnin test such as s&m or prime95

[dinki]

I'm not sure as I've only run it for a few minutes. The board does support that chip andothers even faster. I'll try the burn in tests. Thanks for the tips.

[acegolfer]

I'm running mine at AMD1900 (at 137 fsb) on ECS and GB-PVR is rock solid. When you changed to 133, did you also change the RAM to 133? ECS board doesn't like different frequency for CPU and RAM.

[dinki]

Yes. I set both to 133. I was thinking that maybe I had some questionable ram, but I have since changed the cpu back to 100 and left the ram at 133 without incident.

I did load the optimal settings which set me to 100/100. I'm wondering if there is anything in the bios that allows me to control the speed of the pci bus?

I'm running the same board as you except mine is a K7S5APro . I suppose I could do a bios upgrade to see if that fixes things, but I really doubt it and I'm always hesitant to flash the bios.

[gEd]

FYI: Athlons take a performance hit when you run the cpu and mem at different bus speeds.

http://www.lejabeach.com/Pro/k7s5aProBIOS.html

if u have the original bios, there are 2 updates that fix fsb stability problems

i just flashed the bios in my k7n2 using liveupdate3 from the msi site. Just make sure you are running a 100% stable system before you try it.

[dinki]

if u have the original bios, there are 2 updates that fix fsb stability problems

i just flashed the bios in my k7n2 using liveupdate3 from the msi site. Just make sure you are running a 100% stable system before you try it.

Thanks for the help. What do you mean by 100% stable though? Are you saying that I should have both set to the same value; in my case 100?

Also, are you suggesting that I use the HoneyX OC BIOS release? I'm guessing it would be hx0811.zip?

[gEd]

100% stable means you are sure that the hardware runs without any problem at all.
[edit]: so in your case, if the pc is totally reliable at 100/100, go for that)

The honeyx sounds like the one to go for but I know nothing about your board so I can't make any specific recommendations (I just did a quick google).

make sure u get the associated flasher as well and make a backup of your bios to floppy (using the flasher) before proceeding.

(humm: anyone searching for "flasher" who finds this thread is in for a disappointment....)

[acegolfer]

Well, my MB is K7S5A v1 and I flashed mine using HoneyX (don't know the exact version but I believe the latest one since I flashed it less than 6 months ago). Never had a problem with bios flash. Just follow the instruction. It also gives you more control over PCI bus.

[dinki]

As an update, I did flash using the HoneyX bios. I was actually running the same version of the bios only it was from ECS. Even after the update, when I changed to 133/133 I still had problems with the PVR150's audio and video. Fortunately, I was able to drop down to 124/124. This brought me to the level of a 2000XP+ processor from the 1500XP+ setting I had been using. I've been running it for over 1.5 hours so far and no hickups/problems/etc.

Another added bonus of the modified bios is that it added the 'Boot on Power' for when the power fails. The machine now can boot as soon as the power is restored. This has been a burden for several years now. I've always meant to get an UPS for the machine but I just never got around to doing it. I guess it's kind of like replacing your windshield wipers. You never think about changing them unless it's raining. I never think about the UPS unless I'm trying to use the machine and it isn't powered on!

At any rate, thanks to all who offered advice. It's nice to be able to get the extra power from the chip.