Is my Athlon Faulty????

[redbaron]

Yesterday I replaced my Duron 800 with an Athlon 1200 and things have not gone well.
Basically when I Boot up I get as far as the Windows welcome screen and then I get a Black screen with an Hour Glass in the middle and that?s as far as it goes. If I put the Duron 800 back in it boots OK.
The funny thing is that if I Boot into Safe Mode with the Athlon everything works OK, which led me to believe it may be a Driver problem, so I re-installed all my Drivers and Updated the V5 driver. Still no change, Boots OK with the Duron but not with the Athlon. I have loaded Safe Defaults on the EPOX and still get the same result.
Would I be right in thinking that the Athlon is not faulty because of the fact that it works OK in Safe Mode?
Any help would be much appreciated

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AMD Duron 800MHz @ 900MHz
EPOX 8KTA3 Motherboard
256MB PC133 SDRAM
VooDoo5 5500 AGP
Seagate 17GB HDD
SONY CRX-140E CDR/CDRW

 

[Boonesmi]

is your heatsink/fan capable of cooling the 1.2ghz?

 

[redbaron]

Yes, Sandra shows the CPU running at 32 degrees Celcius, which is about the same as the Duron. I have run the Burn-In module in Sandra (60 cycles)while in Safe Mode and the hottest the Athlon got was 38 gegrees.

 

[erfan35]

Have you tried another processor? You might be right in the processor bieng faulty, I have had a few bad T-birds at work. Have you updated your motherboards BIOS? Try those and see what happens, but i think that your initial hypothesis is correct.

 

[WildeBeast]

what does the BIOS report as the voltage for the chip? Also, what MHZ does the proccesor itself indicate on the chip?

 

[redbaron]

I'm at work at the moment so I can't check what Voltage the BIOS has set, but I can confirm that the CPU had '1200' printed on the Heat Sink. I have Flashed the BIOS recently with the latest Update. I don't really want to go through the hassle of exchanging the CPU unless I really have to, so I guess my main question is "If the CPU works OK in Safe Mode does that mean it's OK and the problem lies elsewhere"?. Also could 'Lack of Power' from the PSU cause the Chip to work OK in Safe Mode but 'not OK' in Normal Mode.

 

[redbaron]

Before I give up and send this Chip back I'd appreciate any opinions on whether a CPU can be faulty , yet still operate OK in Safe Mode. Thanks

 

[uibd]

well, this might sound stupid... but what i would do is the following, in a case of a situation i just can't figure out.

Boot into safe mode. Open up the registry. Delete the HKey_Local_Machine/Enum folder

Try and boot the machine. Basically this removes all driver references.

If this doesn't work.

I would just take everything out of the machine except the MB, CPU, RAM, HD.. and see what happens. This is just the quickest way to narrow things down. Or at least it is for me.

 

[redbaron]

Thanks for the suggestion, I deleted most things while I was in Safe Mode, but when I re-booted I got the same result. I had to put the Duron back in to re-load the Drivers for everything. I'm starting to suspect the PSU. Can a Chip be faulty and still operate OK in Safe Mode, or should I just send this Chip back to the dealer?

 

[Mem]

I had T-bird go faulty and the first sign was random reboots,followed by freezes and BSOD,then I could not even install a OS,even on a bootdisk it was unstable.

I would check all your Bios setting are correct for the 1.2ghz then do what "uibd" said about minimum install of hardware followed by clean install of OS,if you still get problems then PSU or processor would be my first guess.

Btw what PSU do you have?

 

[buffhr]

d8di you try clearing the cmos cause maybe the mobo isnt giving the chip enough volts

 

[IdahoB]

It is VERY unlikely that the chip is faulty - due to the nature of modern microprocessors, failures tend to be on the catastrophic side - it either works or it doesn't.

The fact you can boot up into safe mode fine means that the chip almost must be fine - what you should do is boot up logging every step and see where the system falls over - this may help you pin down exactly what is going wrong.

 

[raven82]

it's probly a problem with the motherboard.

 

[mwalters]

AMD recommends at least a 300watt power supply for the Athlon 1.2....what ya runnin?

 

[redbaron]

Interestingly if I let the Motherboard load Defaults the CPU shows as a 900mhz Athlon! I'm sure the Chip is 1.2GHZ because the numbers '1200' are printed on the Heat Sink. Would the Motherboard load the CPU Underclocked because there are problems with the Power Supply?
Also would Safe Mode still work OK if the Motherboard is faulty? The Temps are OK (28-34 Celcius)and I have the latest BIOS Upgrade for the Motherboard. I'm starting to think that all my problems definitely may lie with the Power Supply, it's 300W but not a well known brand.

 

[muddocktor]

Sounds like you have your board on a 100 fsb setting(9*100=900, 9*133=1200)with a 133 chip. That shouldn't give you the problems that you are having though. It could very well be your psu not putting out enough power. I know that I couldn't get my board stable until I got a 400 watt psu. How many case fans are you running? If you decide to get a new psu, I highly recommend an Enermax psu, at least the 431. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

[redbaron]

I think that you're right, because it runs in Safe Mode OK I am sure that the problem lies with the PSU and not the Motherboard or CPU, so I'll upgrade to 400W and let you know the result.
Thanks to everyone for their advice

 

[xcourse]

One additional thought: you mentioned that 1200 is printed on the HS, but what is imprinted directly on the cpu die?

 

[redbaron]

A1200AMS3C
AXIA0122EPAW
96160460783

This is all the information on the Chip.

 

[redbaron]

.

 

[redbaron]

I installed the new PS this morning, and unfortunately it made no difference. I then underclocked the chip in .5 increments until it would operate in normal mode, this occurred at 6.5x133 @1.78volts (869mhz)where the Chip operates faultlessly in all applications in Normal Mode.
If I bump the Chip up to 7x133 it again refuses to operate in Normal Mode.
So at this stage I am stuck with a T-Bird 1.2GHZ operating at 869MHZ!! Any ideas???

 

[Elledan]

Sounds like this TBird is ready for an RMA

 

[Mem]

Are you sure it`s a 1200mhz 266FSB Chip? try running it at 12x100mhz fsb.

And did you try clearing the CMOS?

 

[IdahoB]

If the chip code ends in a C then it's a 266MHz FSB chip. Send it back.

 

[kp1126]

I had the same exact problem when I upgraded from a k63 to a p3 750. I was running WinME at 1280x1024. Would boot into a black screen w/ hourglass in the middle. I was able to get into WinME in safe mode. It also worked when I changed resolution to 800x600. So I tried it with Win2K and everthing works perfect. In my case, I believe it was the drivers for my cheapo Savage video card. If you are running at 1280x1024, try changing to 800x600 w/ 16 colors. If you are running winME, try Win2K or maybe win98.