An Athlon-XP CPU Upgrade Will *FIX* K7S5A Version 4 w/Tbird 1.4 GHz Errors?
username
I'm one of those people running an Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 GHz on a
ECS K7S5A version 4. (The sticker on the BIOS chips says 104.) I get
all the errors you are probably familiar with. With DDR installed, the
system would crash several times per day, and, when tested, it would
generate thousands of errors in Memtest86, and would generate an error
in Prime95 after only a minute or two, every time.
I found the system was much more stable running regular SDRAM, but
it still gives me three or four weird crashes every week, and it still
fails the above-mentioned test programs, though to a lesser degree.
(For example, it will run Prime95 for one hour before failing, rather
than just one minute.) With SDRAM installed, the system was basically
tolerable, so I didn't want to keep sinking time and money into it.
Now, six months later, I'm getting a little tired of the
instability. I need somebody to tell me which would be the most
certain way to resolve the situation. As I see it, I could either
replace the Thunderbird CPU with an Athlon-XP. Or I could try a newer
revision of the K7S5A. Or I could put in some other motherboard.
The easiest thing would be to replace the CPU, but I need to be
sure that will fix the problem (because it will cost me $120). Will an
Athlon-XP *cure* the errors I'm getting on this motherboard, and let
me run DDR on it? Does anyone know this for certain, firsthand? Has
anyone personally upgraded to an Athlon-XP on one of these problem
K7S5A motherboards, who can confirm the results I can expect?
Thanks.
user
Stefan Roeder
I changed my Mainboard to K7S6A and all my Problems were gone.
K7S6A
Athlon 1400 C
GeforceMX 400
Terra tec Sixpack 5.1
AVM Fritzcard
Networkcontroller
HTH
Stefan
"username" <us...@host.net> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:ph37aucujqhmnv2vh...@4ax.com...
Shep©
BUMP.
Re: K7S5A and DDR not booting solution
Also I have no problems running an XP1800 on my Revision K7S5A board
with 256 meg of DDR ram cas 2.5
robm
Shep©
<no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>and the XP is 1/2 the price i paid 4 months ago :(
>
>
Tell me about it.I got lucky with a local deal for my XP1800 but I've
hung on to my old MX card for 2 years to try and keep upgrade costs
down.Still plays all my games and new ones pretty well and the XP gave
me well over a 30% boost in win98SE and even more when I beta tested
Windows XP :)
JJones
> I'm one of those people running an
> Athlon Thunderbird 1.4 GHz on a
> ECS K7S5A version 4. (The sticker
> on the BIOS chips says 104.) I get
> all the errors you are probably
> familiar with. With DDR installed,
> the system would crash several times
> per day, and, when tested, it would
> generate thousands of errors in Memtest86,
My Thunderbird 1.4 wouldn't crash.
but my symptoms were much more subtle...
...my attempts to encode .avi video files to MPEG-2 video files
resulted
in system restarts.
That's when I discovered all the posts concerning rev. 4 issues with
Thunderbird 1.4s in connection with specific resistor values ECS chose
to put on that specific version of the K7S5A.
I used MemTest to verify the errors (test 4).
Since I was using high quality Corsair memory (DDR), a high quality
Enermax 431 watt power supply, and a Swiftech heat sink with Arctic
Silver compound, I was able to rule out heat, power, and memory
issues... it had to be the resistors.
So I upgraded to an Athlon XP2000+ and it solved the problem entirely.
Memtest results are now error free and I can encode .avi video to
MPEG-2 for hours and hours with no restarts... all because I simply
switched the processor.
Solid as a rock.
The resistor values on the rev. 4s were apparently intended for XP
Athlons.
Unfortunately, somebody at ECS apparently didn't realize there might
be some
backward compatibility issues with the fastest T-Birds.
I understand the problem has been fixed on the latest K7S5As so that
both T-Birds and XPs work equally well.
Jerry Jones
Shep©
>...my attempts to encode .avi video files to MPEG-2 video files
>resulted
>in system restarts.
and your registry may be clogged especially if you
have,"Clean"re-installed the O/S.
Start here,
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sheppard.p/drivers.htm
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sheppard.p/house.htm
JJones
You are absolutely wrong, Shep, as usual.
The restarts were due to the notorious rev. 4 resistor issues.
They were fixed entirely by an upgrade to the XP2000+ CPU.
What an annoying post that was.
Jerry Jones
Shep©
>You are absolutely wrong, Shep, as usual.
>The restarts were due to the notorious rev. 4 resistor issues.
Ah one post you got right so all my other hundreds and thousands of
satisfied customers mean nothing.Go figure :)
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/sheppard.p/trouble.htm
http://www.theguestbook.com/vgbook/114721.gbook
>They were fixed entirely by an upgrade to the XP2000+ CPU.
Bloody hell.Then let's all upgrade a CPU to fix ALL problems.
>What an annoying post that was.
Yeh but you keep posting them.
>Jerry Jones
Who has issues that he cannot resolve.
Not my problem son.