In my main system's mobo : Asus Striker II Formula, I had to DOWNGRADE my bios to make my Kingston DDR2 1066MHz mem sticks run at that speed. Otherwise, using a more contemporary bios versions, I couldn't increase the default 800MHz to 1066MHz without increasing the FSB at the same time (Linked overclocking). Increasing the FSB even within the workable stable range with all the necessary voltage adjustments, produced unexpected auto reboots while playing 3D games. (The unlinked option waz greyed out). After downgrading, I was able to increase the memory's speed to 1066MHz without increasing the FSB (Unlinked).

I downgraded several revisions back, I think from revision 2001 to 1201. I reflashed each revision backward from 2001 till 1201, after which the system is stable at mem speed 1067MHz ( shows as 1067 at P.O.S.T., in bios is 1066.666) and FSB 1333MHz. Current bios revision at asus website is 2201. I'm still using the 1201 revision without any problems.

I'll never know if the Kingston HyperX memory sticks or the intel Q9300 CPU and/or the combination of the nVidia 780i chipset with all these and the bios revision is causing the hiccup. But I managed to run the system smoothly now.

Not sure if this is related to your problem, but reading this thread reminded me of the problem I had as written above.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Just an analogy here... You have a baseball sitting on the floor, a terrified-looking kid with a catcher's mitt standing outside […]
Show full quote

There's something with this CPU that's causing this "bug" but it doesn't affect anything else as stability etc so it can't be bad caps...

Just an analogy here... You have a baseball sitting on the floor, a terrified-looking kid with a catcher's mitt standing outside, and yet you still can't figure out why you have a broken window. Correlation certainly isn't always causation, but it's damn sure the first place you should start looking.

I have personally seen, and repaired, the exact same issue you're experiencing. And I mean identical, where one CPU would seem to work fine, but another wouldn't boot. It's pretty rare to encounter something like that, I've only seen it once out of dozens of boards I've repaired, but it does happen on occasion. (In my case, it was a little more difficult to diagnose, since the caps weren't bulged... they did end up being the problem, though.)

If you want a more technical explanation, what's probably happening is that the 1ghz CPU is more sensitive to voltage than the 933, as it uses a slightly higher VCore to begin with, and, since it's approaching the upper limits of the Coppermine achitecture, requires that much voltage just to work at all.

So, if you've got a lot of ripple in your VCore (and I can absolutely guarantee you do), there still may be enough margin in the 933 chip that it's OK with the fluctuation (i.e., even if it's bouncing back and forth between 1.6V and 1.8V, the 933 probably doesn't mind a bit), but the 1ghz chip isn't going to accept the drops in voltage if it requires a steady 1.7V or 1.75V just to boot. Current draw also has an effect, and the higher power requirement of the 1ghz chip, as small a difference as it may seem, is only going to make the ripple worse by putting more stress on the VRM.

Hard to believe a voltage problem can keep me from entering the BIOS setup but let me boot an OS and even do benchmarks without an issue?
Am I the only one using rational thinking ? 😉
Guys, please read my posts again and you'll see that I was running an OS and benchmarks fine with the 1ghz CPU

I'm a bit confused. (Happens quite a lot.) Amigaz, can you please clarify something? The 1 Ghz CPU works OK for everything (eg Win98 OS, benchies, etc), except entering the BIOS set up area?

retro games 100 wrote:

I'm a bit confused. (Happens quite a lot.) Amigaz, can you please clarify something? The 1 Ghz CPU works OK for everything (eg Win98 OS, benchies, etc), except entering the BIOS set up area?

Yesss 😀
But when I wanted install Windows XP also I wanted to enter the BIOS to set it to boot from CD I couldn't enter the BIOS properly anymore.

Windows 98SE was already installed, benchmarks had been made etc

"capice"? 😉

> Am I the only one using rational thinking ?

Don't worry, the capacitors can only get worse over time.

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

> Am I the only one using rational thinking ?

Don't worry, the capacitors can only get worse over time.

Yep, until they snap, crackle, pop & smoke like they did on a dual PIII mobo I once had 😜 I almosr crapped my pants whe it happened since the side cover was off on that PC so it was like mini fireworks show 😳

]Guys, please read my posts again and you'll see that I was running an OS and benchmarks fine with the 1ghz CPU

Sorry, but you didn't make that point clear anywhere, and I have read through all the posts in this thread several times, specifically looking for it.

At any rate, that still doesn't change anything, I'd still say everyone else but you is thinking rationally. I'll say it again: bad caps cause strange issues. While I can't think of a specific reason they'd cause you only to be unable to access BIOS setup, the fact of the matter is, it's pointless to try and troubleshoot other things when you have a known problem staring you in the face. Like prophase_j said, you're just going to end up wasting a lot of time chasing ghosts.

I understand bad caps can cause weird issues *been there, done that" but I'm still not convinced it's causing my problem.
I use to work as a boat engine mechanic for some year up until three years ago and I'm using the same stubborn mentality I used to troubleshoot engines 😁
I'm going to try another version I have of the 1ghz PIII first before I'll give in to the fact I need to recap the board (if I find it worth the trouble)

Damn I missed the part about the BIOS working with the 933 too. It seems strange that with the 1ghz it worked okay save for one time, and then following day fell on it's face. If I am reading that right, still makes me lean to the caps.

One condition of defective caps is how their electrical properties change based on their duty cycle, have you tried to find any correlation with warm/cold starts? You could try to let it run for a few, even frozen, and then warm start it, success will confirm the cap theory.

Could also try Keropi and Malik's idea, flash to an older BIOS version and see how that works.

One other thing that might be worth a shot, other than another 1ghz CPU, is if you have a 500 or 550mhz Katmai PIII you can try. One of those would put a lot more stress on the power section of the board than a Coppermine chip would, so it'd be more likely that any issues would show themselves consistently. (It's not guaranteed, but it'd be more likely, anyhow.)

prophase_j wrote:

Damn I missed the part about the BIOS working with the 933 too. It seems strange that with the 1ghz it worked okay save for one time, and then following day fell on it's face. If I am reading that right, still makes me lean to the caps.

One condition of defective caps is how their electrical properties change based on their duty cycle, have you tried to find any correlation with warm/cold starts? You could try to let it run for a few, even frozen, and then warm start it, success will confirm the cap theory.

Could also try Keropi and Malik's idea, flash to an older BIOS version and see how that works.

Warm/cold reboots didn't help either.
If the other cpu's won't change anything I'm going to roll back the to an older BIOS version

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

One other thing that might be worth a shot, other than another 1ghz CPU, is if you have a 500 or 550mhz Katmai PIII you can try. One of those would put a lot more stress on the power section of the board than a Coppermine chip would, so it'd be more likely that any issues would show themselves consistently. (It's not guaranteed, but it'd be more likely, anyhow.)

It's a socket 370 board.

amigo, try to replace the bad caps too, regardless if they are to blame or not... bad caps are bad news... you can replace them easily, just pull slowly the old ones so their legs stay soldered on the mobo while they come out of the cap "body"... eventually you will end up having the cap body seperated from the legs and you can use the already soldered down legs to solder your new cap 😀 an ugly but easy way to handle this

keropi wrote:

amigo, try to replace the bad caps too, regardless if they are to blame or not... bad caps are bad news... you can replace them easily, just pull slowly the old ones so their legs stay soldered on the mobo while they come out of the cap "body"... eventually you will end up having the cap body seperated from the legs and you can use the already soldered down legs to solder your new cap 😀 an ugly but easy way to handle this

Yeah...It's best to "grab the bull by it's horns" and do it.

If your sulution works with changing those two caps my terrible soldering skills will suffice I guess....the end result might look like when I changed my first leaking A4000 battery 😁

it should work fine, it was suggested by a couple of good guys in amibay as an easy way to replace the A3640 caps 😀

keropi wrote:

it should work fine, it was suggested by a couple of good guys in amibay as an easy way to replace the A3640 caps 😀

Was that in the old days or have you grabbed an A4000 again? 😉

nah, no it is knowledge I gather while inspecting the amibay forums... 😀
I do not plan to get another amiga in the near future too, I manage well enough without one 😀

keropi wrote:

nah, no it is knowledge I gather while inspecting the amibay forums... 😀
I do not plan to get another amiga in the near future too, I manage well enough without one 😀

Sold the A1200 too? 😳

Fell into the emu-whore swamp? 😉

nothing amiga in the keropi domain nowdays 🤣
and I mean nothing, not even emus 😜 I just got bored with them...

ventually you will end up having the cap body seperated from the legs and you can use the already soldered down legs to solder your new cap

Do NOT do that on a modern motherboard. While that may be acceptable for old Amiga parts, the newer VRM designs are extremely sensitive to ESR, and hacking things together like that is going to raise the ESR considerably, perhaps to the point where you're worse off than when you had the bad caps. That's also why you can't use just any random capacitor... like I said before, Nichicon HN/HM are one of the best commonly available choices.

Besides, I'd say doing it the right way is easier anyhow. Just heat one leg from underneath with the soldering iron, simultaneously pressing the cap sideways away from that leg. Then heat the other leg, press the cap the other direction, and repeat a couple times until the cap is out. Then when the cap is out, use a stainless steel sewing needle or straight pin to clean out the solder left in the holes... just push it from above, and heat the solder from below, then when the pin goes through, pull off the heat, let it cool for a second, and take the pin out... voila, clean holes.

Oh, and lest you forget, make sure to note the polarity of the capacitor before removing it.