i think i fried it

can you tell by looking at an athlon if you've fried it?

Welcome to the forums !

I wish it were under better circumstances

You may be able to look around the edges of the core and see black markings. It kind of looks like how blood runs out from under a person when they get shot in a movie. That's what the black marks will look like. Kind of like you shot you CPU and it is bleeding black out of the core. That would be a good indication.

What happened? Give us some more details and maybe we can offer some other ideas.

I have (had) an athlon 1gig/200fsb in an asus a7v mb. before knowing anything about overclocking i turned the clock multiplier up til it would no longer work (about 105 or so). then I read a tutorial at madnesspc.com and did the pencil trick to unlock the L1 bridges. after doing the pencil trick i managed to successfully turn the clock multiplier up to 110 and the computer ran fine (the fsb was at 143 or somethin). so against my better judgement i decided to crank it up to 133 (which automatically made the fsb 133). when i tried to start it, it failed to post. i reset the cmos and it was fine again (back to default settings but was up and runnin) so i started over by turning the cpu to 110 and this time i started from an fsb frequency of 110. it wouldnt post and i tried several times to reset the cmos, unplugged it for hours, erased all my pencil marks, and still no post. any ideas whats goin on?

heavy1 said:

I have (had) an athlon 1gig/200fsb in an asus a7v mb. before knowing anything about overclocking i turned the clock multiplier up til it would no longer work (about 105 or so). then I read a tutorial at madnesspc.com and did the pencil trick to unlock the L1 bridges. after doing the pencil trick i managed to successfully turn the clock multiplier up to 110 and the computer ran fine (the fsb was at 143 or somethin). so against my better judgement i decided to crank it up to 133 (which automatically made the fsb 133). when i tried to start it, it failed to post. i reset the cmos and it was fine again (back to default settings but was up and runnin) so i started over by turning the cpu to 110 and this time i started from an fsb frequency of 110. it wouldnt post and i tried several times to reset the cmos, unplugged it for hours, erased all my pencil marks, and still no post. any ideas whats goin on?

Click to expand...

When you say "clock multiplier", do you just mean the CPU multiplier. It would be a number like 10, 10.5, 11, etc ?

keep in mind im a newbie at this

in the advanced section of my bios setup I see a cpu (clock) multiplier (i thought thats what it was anyway) that has a default setting of 100 which gives me 1000 mhz. i can (could) manually set it anywhere between 95 and 150. Also for the fsb frequency i have a choice of 100 or 133. so if i were to set the cpu at 105, the fsb would either be 105 or 138ish and once i try to set the cpu any higher than 133 i have no choice but to use the lower fsb setting (which at that point is 133 anyway). hope i'm makin sense. if not thanks for your patience.


Heavy

Check this thread http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40661&highlight=a7v .

It has some ideas from a person that had a similar problem.

It seems you have multiplier setting and FSB mixed up. The L1 bridges you connected unlocks the muliplier setting. A 1 gHz CPU runs with a FSB of 100mHz x 10 multiplier. By 'unlocking' the CPU you can use the dipswitches on your mainboard to change this muliplier to 10.5 or 11 which then results in 1.05gHz or 1.1 gHz.
Another way to oc a CPU is to crank up the FSB. Change the FSB to 105mHz and leave the multipliers alone, you get 105mHzx10multiplier which also gives 1.05gHz.
AMD CPU's don't like crancked-up FSB speeds so it's best you leave that at 100 mHz and just mess around with the dipswitches ( 6 in a row on a light-blue block on ASUS A7V board)
To make sure if you fried your CPU ( unless you booted it without a cooling attached to it I don't think you did fry it) here's what you do; reset your CMOS, leave the L1 bridges un-connected like you already did, set the multiplier dipswitches ( the light-blue ones) to their default (factory setting) and boot up. Hit del to get to the BIOS and set your FSB to 100mHz, VCore to Default, save settings and reboot. If it boots ( you may need to hit the reset button several times!!) you're set to go. From here you can start again, connect the L1 bridges and set the dipswitch multipliers to 1.05, then 1.1 and each time you boot monitor your CPU temp with your favourit tool. I use ASUS's monitoring tool. Once you CPU starts going over 50°C you will get instability.
One thing to note; every time you boot yout PC, make sure you ALWAYS have your cooler attached and its fan turning. NEVER boot an Atlhon without its cooling cause that WILL kill your CPU. I can know, I lost one that way

ummm, that reminds me

(call me a dumbass, i know i got it comin) there was a time (after it would not post) that i did fire it up without the heatsink attached. I immediately noticed and shut it down and (like a dumbass again) touched it to see if it got hot (which left this nice little red spot on my finger). but there are no apparent burnspots or anything that looks funky on the processor except the chip in the middle has a blue tint (not sure if that was there before).

so basicly, its probably fried huh?

Heavy

Most likely it is gone. AMDs suffer an almost instant death without a HSF.

Do you have another chip you could try?

You could always pick up a Duron for about $30 to test your theory and to practice overclocking on before you try it on a more expensive chip.

Sorry to see that happen to you

ya - i had a feeling that somethin wasnt right when i burned my finger. that is a good idea about the duron tho - i think i might go that route. next time i know where to go for tech supoort tho (my new favorite forum at overclockers.com)

Thanks alot for the help guys. I'll definately be in touch.

Heavy

Newegg.com

Good place to go for hardware. They have Duron 750s for $30. Very reputable place.

You can also use pricewatch.com to find the lowest dealer price possible.

Good Luck.

Re: keep in mind im a newbie at this

heavy1 said:

in the advanced section of my bios setup I see a cpu (clock) multiplier (i thought thats what it was anyway) that has a default setting of 100 which gives me 1000 mhz. i can (could) manually set it anywhere between 95 and 150. Also for the fsb frequency i have a choice of 100 or 133. so if i were to set the cpu at 105, the fsb would either be 105 or 138ish and once i try to set the cpu any higher than 133 i have no choice but to use the lower fsb setting (which at that point is 133 anyway). hope i'm makin sense. if not thanks for your patience.


Heavy

Click to expand...

The thing you think was multipilere was actually the fsb..... You didnt have to unlock the chip to change it. The thing you tought was fsb was actually the speed of the memory so when you set the memory speed at 133 and fsb all the way up too 133 you actually runned it at 166mhz so if something is burned i would guess the ram. When you oc the fsb you should leave the ram speed at 100mhz then the ram will run at 133mhz if you bump the fsb up too 133 wich you tought was multipilere. Multipilere= 10x,10.5x,11x and so on.

back in action!

grabbed me a duron 700 and im back in action. perhaps i'll be needin some help on this one if anyone wants to participate. how high can a duron 700 go anyway?

Heavy

I have seen Duron 700s in the 1 GHz range but a realistic goal might be in the 900s.

Take some time and read as much as you can about overclocking on the OC.com site. There is LOTS of valuable info there.

A word to the wise, take small steps in OC'ing and watch your temps as you move up the MHz ladder.

Good luck and keep us posted.

I got a 200 mhz Oclock with no problem. I did bump the voltage a couple of notches, but it was very stable, and very easy. Let me know if I cna help out in any other way!

round 2

ok im ready to put the hurt on the duron 700. heres what i think i need to do. let me know if it sounds about right. btw, the motherboard is an asus a7v.

1. close the L1 bridges
2. disable jumper-free mode on the a7v
3. set the cpu external frequency setting to 100 mhz
4. set the bus frequency multiplier to 7

this should give me the same setup i have now but with jumper-free mode disabled, right?

then to begin overclocking i would set the bus multiplier to 7.5 which should give me 750 mhz, right?
or should i change the cpu frequency? or both? hmmm
anyone wanna pitch a suggestion? I'd appreciate it.


Heavy

Here is my suggestion.

Up the FSB while lowering the multiplier to keep the overall speed at or close to stock. So, you might up your FSB to 105 and lower the multiplier to 6.5 giving you 105 x 6.5 = 682.5.

Keep upping the FSB and lower your multiplier until you hit a limit for your FSB. This will most likely be caused by your memory or another component that will not like a high FSB.

The reason for upping the FSB is because this increases the performance of memory and all devices that run on the FSB since the overall speed of the bus is increased. For example, your memory will start off talking to the CPU at 100 Mhz. If you can up that to 110 or 120, that's a good gain.

So, once you hit the limit of your FSB, begin upping your multiplier and WATCH YOUR TEMPS. This will start increasing your CPU speed. If you topped out at say 120 FSB x 6.0 = 720. Then you start to up your multiplier and hit 6.5, then 7.0, etc. But, TEST at these settings using a program such as Prime95 or Folding@Home . Let these programs crank for a while to stress the CPU and cooling to be sure your system is really stable at the speed you are at.

Once your verify stability, bump up the multiplier and run again.

Now, if you up the multiplier and it is not stable, you can always back the FSB down and keep the multiplier the same and try again. Changing the multiplier causes some big jumps in overall speed so dropping the FSB can lower the jump and give you some intermediate options.

I can't stress this enough, TEST EACH STEP ALONG THE WAY AND WATCH YOUR TEMPS.

That should get you going.

Once you see instability in at a certain speed after trying the above options, you can try to up the vCore voltage and see if that helps. Again, WATCH YOUR TEMPS WHEN UPPING THE CORE VOLTAGE.

I know I'm harping on the temps, but it can easily be overlooked when seeking that 'just a bit faster' speed.

Good luck and let us know how you fair.

DB

one more thing

Thanks Dunga Bee,

gonna get on it here in a few. got one more quick question though. on motherboard monitor 5, i see 3 temperatures (sensor 1, 2 and 3). The temperatures read 38*c, 45*c and -32*c. which one is the one i need to watch? (my guess is the 45). and also, -32 is pretty darn chilly. why does my sensor say that?

Heavy

The 38 is most likely your motherboard temp, the 45 is your CPU temp and the -32 is bogus. Your mobo may have only 2 sensors.

What HSF do you have?

You should try to keep your temps below 50 at all times. Many people experience 'weird' things (lockups, etc.) when they get in to the mid 50s or so.

not sure what you mean by hsf?

Heavy