not all xp 3200+ have fsb 400, some have fsb 333. its bet to check exact cpu model

reference here
https://web.archive.org/web/20191210123943/ht … e/opn-xp-e.html

Could be aging capacitors. Meaning they can not cope with anything over 100MHz FSB base clock anymore. Any other CPUs to try?

gerwin wrote on 2022-09-29, 14:34:

Could be aging capacitors. Meaning they can not cope with anything over 100MHz FSB base clock anymore. Any other CPUs to try?

Unfortunately no,; the only one I have is an Athlon 64 (don't know wich version). I'm looking into ebay searching for a CPU or another same motherboard (for now i find one for 40 euros).
I have to undertand id it's broken or not.
Suggestions?

gerwin wrote on 2022-09-29, 14:34:

Could be aging capacitors. Meaning they can not cope with anything over 100MHz FSB base clock anymore. Any other CPUs to try?

I heared that 3200+ was not only 400 FSb (it was a surprise for me) and you now confirm this....
I have to say that I'm not really sure to have a 400 FSB Athlon XP. Maybe I have to remove the CPu and read the serial...
It is very strange that no FSB more than 100 goes 🙁
Thanks 4 now.

I seem to recall having an issue like this once where setting the FSB manually wasn't hitting the FSB/PCI divider - I tried loading Optimized Defaults in the CMOS settings and that did the trick.

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-29, 18:45:

I have to say that I'm not really sure to have a 400 FSB Athlon XP. Maybe I have to remove the CPu and read the serial...

Here the different Athlon XP`s :

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ - AXDA3200DKV4E
Bus speed 400 MHz (FSB200)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3200DKV4E.html

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ - AXDA3200DKV4D
Bus speed 333 MHz (FSB166.6)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3200DKV4D.html

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ - AXDA3000DKV4D
Bus speed 333 MHz (FSB166.6)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3000DKV4D.html

I've got an A7N8X-E Deluxe that's doing the same thing. I'm running a 2500+ mobile, and even if I turn the multiplier way down I can't get a post at 200MHz.

My suspicion is that it's the caps. I'm gonna try replacing them soon-ish. If I remember, I'll try to post my results here.

I have both a 2500+ and a 2800+. I didn't get to test the 2800+ too much (I was wrongly suspecting it of being bad, my RAM sticks turned out to be the culprit in that case...) but the 2500+ was pretty unstable at 3200+ speeds (so 200MHz) on my MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR. Not sure if the RAM sticks are crappy or my PSU isn't up to it (it's a Deer so I'm not expecting very much, even if I spent about 3 hours to rebuild it... 30A on the 5 and 3.3v lines with correctly spec'd rectifiers.) but it would constantly crash if I tried to play a game. Heck, even the base 2500+ isn't 100% stable (there's a crash every blue moon), but 3200+ is a no go it seems.

I do recall having 3 more nF2 boards - a EP-8RDA6 Pro, and two A7N8X's. One is a Deluxe, the other is the cheap X variant (which honestly, I don't even know why I am keeping it - oh wait, I do. BIOS chip swapping and hotflashing.)

Asus A7N8X boards were rather notorious due to one specific manufacturing quirk. You can't distinguish early boards with old Nforce 2 chipset and upgraded Nforce 2 400 unless you have access to AIDA, can look directly or have retail box which have nForce2 Ultra 400Gb sticker. Old Nforce 2 north bridges may not work on 200 Mhz FSB without voltage bump or at all.

In that particular case it's most likely combinations of bad caps and/or PSU being too funky with +5V rail, which is a primary rail on ASUS boards.

danieljm wrote on 2022-09-29, 21:23:

I've got an A7N8X-E Deluxe that's doing the same thing. I'm running a 2500+ mobile, and even if I turn the multiplier way down I can't get a post at 200MHz.

My suspicion is that it's the caps. I'm gonna try replacing them soon-ish. If I remember, I'll try to post my results here.

The lowest the multiplier can go on this board is x5.5, even though 5 (or lower) may be options depending on the CPU installed (slower CPUs gives lower multiplier options). I have 2 of these boards and they behave the same. I tried 6 ways to Sunday to get it do better, but x5.5 is all she's got. The ABIT NF7-S v2.0 can do better, though. Also, the memory divider can go roughly 4:3 more or less. Any greater and the board won't boot. And be VERY careful when messing with the related settings. Unlike the ABIT, which provides a warning as it saves the settings and inserts a nice pause, the Asus is not as kind. I had to buy a new BIOS chip to swap in because of settings which didn't take as I failed to "SAVE" before "SAVE & EXIT." Always "SAVE" on the Asus before exiting.

Another thing there may not be an awareness of on older boards is that you can't walk the FSB all the way up, if you have PCI and AGP cards that don't like to be on overclocked buses, because the board will not kick in the right dividers for them.... Example, set it at 100 and try to get to 133... picky cards might bail at 37mhz PCI, which is anything over 110... you have to stick it on 133 for a start, then it initialises with 1/4 divider for PCI and 1/2 for AGP etc. at 166 it will be 1/5 200 1/6 if supported. This is a pain in the arse if you're overclocking and reaching board/card and CPU limits near one of these, you have to let it go real cold, set it high then back it down before it crashes, so you can do 160 with a 1/5 divider or something.

Doesn't A7N8X Deluxe have a jumper that locks FSB to 200MHz when set to 2-3 position (instead of 1-2 for 266/333/400) ?

agent_x007 wrote on 2022-09-30, 13:43:

Doesn't A7N8X Deluxe have a jumper that locks FSB to 200MHz when set to 2-3 position (instead of 1-2 for 266/333/400) ?

Yes, in fact the manual advises to set this jumper when using a Duron CPU.

BitWrangler wrote:

Another thing there may not be an awareness of on older boards is that you can't walk the FSB all the way up, if you have PCI and AGP cards that don't like to be on overclocked buses, because the board will not kick in the right dividers for them....

It doesn't work that way, nForce 2 (and original nForce 220 for that matter) has 3 separate buses:

1. HyperTransport - this bus connects Nforce SPP and MCP, always works at 200 Mhz (800 Mb/s, bidirectional).
2. AGP - can be set manually at any clock speed between 66-100 Mhz, very similar to how you can do it on PCIe motherboards.
3. FSB - traditionally connects CPU and memory.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2022-09-30, 00:27:

Asus A7N8X boards were rather notorious due to one specific manufacturing quirk. You can't distinguish early boards with old Nforce 2 chipset and upgraded Nforce 2 400 unless you have access to AIDA, can look directly or have retail box which have nForce2 Ultra 400Gb sticker. Old Nforce 2 north bridges may not work on 200 Mhz FSB without voltage bump or at all.

In that particular case it's most likely combinations of bad caps and/or PSU being too funky with +5V rail, which is a primary rail on ASUS boards.

So little news:
1) I bought another A7N8X-E Deluxe just to have a "backup"
2) Maybe your english is too difficult for me and I do not understant the sentece but whe you said

or PSU being too funky with +5V rail, which is a primary rail on ASUS boards.

I thought to the jumper that I changed: I put 3 jumpers (keyboard wake up, USB device wake up) to +5vsb simply because I read that this feature required a PSU with at least 2A on the +5vsb, and my have it.
But I do it without a sense.... maybe can it be the problem? 🤣
3) The system shut down immediately... so I thought to the C.O.P (CPU Overheating protection) feature: i cleaned the old thermal paste but I did't replace with a newer simply because I thought that was no mandatory for the stability... I feel really stupid if this can be the problem....

In any case today I was late for work and daughter and this week end I will do some changes (and buy a thermal paste too...)
I have to say that it’s nice to see that this community helps so much!
It’s a pleasure to write and compare with you about this things 😁

Thank you really to all!

agent_x007 wrote on 2022-09-30, 13:43:

Doesn't A7N8X Deluxe have a jumper that locks FSB to 200MHz when set to 2-3 position (instead of 1-2 for 266/333/400) ?

yes it has but I think that I have to use 1-2 pins for 400 FSB no?

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-09-30, 00:56:

Another thing there may not be an awareness of on older boards is that you can't walk the FSB all the way up, if you have PCI and AGP cards that don't like to be on overclocked buses, because the board will not kick in the right dividers for them.... Example, set it at 100 and try to get to 133... picky cards might bail at 37mhz PCI, which is anything over 110... you have to stick it on 133 for a start, then it initialises with 1/4 divider for PCI and 1/2 for AGP etc. at 166 it will be 1/5 200 1/6 if supported. This is a pain in the arse if you're overclocking and reaching board/card and CPU limits near one of these, you have to let it go real cold, set it high then back it down before it crashes, so you can do 160 with a 1/5 divider or something.

I didn’t know I have to be careful about this too. This is the first time I feel I have to worry about the AGP voltage. . . shouldn’t it do the whole “Auto” setting?

melbar wrote on 2022-09-29, 19:10:

Here the different Athlon XP`s : […]
Show full quote

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-29, 18:45:

I have to say that I'm not really sure to have a 400 FSB Athlon XP. Maybe I have to remove the CPu and read the serial...

Here the different Athlon XP`s :

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ - AXDA3200DKV4E
Bus speed 400 MHz (FSB200)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3200DKV4E.html

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ - AXDA3200DKV4D
Bus speed 333 MHz (FSB166.6)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3200DKV4D.html

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ - AXDA3000DKV4D
Bus speed 333 MHz (FSB166.6)
https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/AMD-Athlon% … A3000DKV4D.html

Thank you melbar! I will remove the CPU and have a look at the codes 😁

TrueVegas wrote on 2022-09-30, 19:35:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-09-30, 00:56:

Another thing there may not be an awareness of on older boards is that you can't walk the FSB all the way up, if you have PCI and AGP cards that don't like to be on overclocked buses, because the board will not kick in the right dividers for them.... Example, set it at 100 and try to get to 133... picky cards might bail at 37mhz PCI, which is anything over 110... you have to stick it on 133 for a start, then it initialises with 1/4 divider for PCI and 1/2 for AGP etc. at 166 it will be 1/5 200 1/6 if supported. This is a pain in the arse if you're overclocking and reaching board/card and CPU limits near one of these, you have to let it go real cold, set it high then back it down before it crashes, so you can do 160 with a 1/5 divider or something.

I didn’t know I have to be careful about this too. This is the first time I feel I have to worry about the AGP voltage. . . shouldn’t it do the whole “Auto” setting?

As Serpenty dude points out, this is a later board that lets you set the buses independant so shouldn't be doing this, and yes Auto should set everything to sensible values.

Another thought, may wanna double check the seating of your heatsink, CPUs can mess around like this when they're getting too hot.