MB died...should I risk it?

[Kevin Stone]

I believe the MB is A7V600 (Anus?)

Haha, sometimes I want to call them that too, but I think you mean Asus!



Random stuff that probably won't help your booting issue:

It looks like your MB is underclocking your processor, it should normally be running more like 1.83 GHz. That can happen when it fails to boot and resets to "safe mode". You can change it back in BIOS.

Your video card is probably listed twice because it will support two monitors, one listing per port.

You could try here: http://support.asus.com/default.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Not the easiest site to navigate, but better than it used to be...

[Harpo]

Oh yeah....Freudian slip on my part?

As of this morning, it is still working. I feel like putting up a poster on my wall with a "___ days booting up" to be updated daily.

I get nervous about changing anything when this stuff works. Hee hee... Is there a big advantage to changing this "clocking"?

[Kevin Stone]

Glad it's still working, these computers can be so frustrating sometimes...

Is there a big advantage to changing this "clocking"?

Well, you'd be getting the processing power that you paid for, which will be very handy in PT as your track count goes higher and you add plugins. As it stands, you're running at about half power.

I'm not sure exactly what your bios menu is like, but I suppose it's similar to my Asus A7V333. I don't know if you've used the bios menu before, so forgive me if you don't need this explained...

As your computer is starting up, you've probably seen a message like "Press DEL to enter setup". It may be F2 or F12 or something, but whatever it is, press it. The timing can be tricky, so I usually hit it a couple times a second soon after I hit the power button until the menu pops up.

Be careful what you change here! Feel free to look around, it's pretty interesting. If you don't know what it is, don't mess with it. If you change something by accident and don't remember the original setting, just exit without saving and start over. OK...

Move to the Advanced screen. This is where the CPU options are.

CPU Speed: Settings are AUTO and MANUAL. It's probably set to AUTO. It probably lists the CPU speed as 1100 or something. Just select that and change it to the correct setting (You'll probably have three options, choose whatever is in the 1800-1900 range).

That should do it! Save and exit.

If for some reason AUTO isn't and option, MANUAL will give you more control over the CPU settings. You can set the CPU Frequency Multiple to 11 (should be already) and the CPU External Frequency to 166 for the same result. AUTO should work fine though.

Here's a link to the A7V600 manual:

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...72_a7v600b.pdf

Hope that helps! Good luck!

[sunburst79]

I'll kinda put my foot in my mouth here! I looked at your specs and said everyting looked good, I was looking at the 1.09 GHz (Multiplier 11xFSB speed of 100MHz).....

The computer I'm typing this on used to have a AMD Athlon 64 2800 and it ran at 1800 MHz. I should have noticed yours was not running at full speed. DUH!

Good call Kevin! I had previously tried to download the manual from ASUS and I STILL can't get through. I keep getting a 404 error. At any rate if it kept booting from the failsafe default mode then its almost definately battery.

Hopefully your problems are over.

[Kevin Stone]

Well, darn it, I just tried my download link and it won't work for me anymore either. Try starting from the initial download page:

Asus Downloads

Just fill in the three product selection boxes. The A7V600 is a SocketA(462) MB, by the way. The link I provided earlier is the USA download, but I just tried Global and it worked fine.

Yeah, the battery on mine is long dead, but I just leave the power switch on the back turned on and it's fine. I just need to reset stuff after I come home from a trip when I've shut down the PSU everything is plugged into.

[sunburst79]

Oh I know how to find ASUS.....

I think its almost got to be the battery and he should be good to go now.

[Kevin Stone]

Oh I know how to find ASUS.....

That was more for Harpo, if my link wasn't working for him. Glad you pointed out the problem.

[sunburst79]

Actually the whole ASUS website has been really flaky the last 2-3 months.

[Kevin Stone]

More like 2-3 years. I like their motherboards, but the website has caused me much frustration. I just got a new (new to me) Asus MB, but I nearly didn't solely because of their crap support site.

[Harpo]

Update:

Ok guys...thanks to all who helped out on this thing. Special thanks to both Sun and Kevin. I'm tentatively going to say everything is ok.

I thought I would pass along anything that might add to your personal information pool.

Replaced the battery and everything ran great. At that point, I thought I may as well stick that original stick of memory back in to up my total to 1gb. It booted up ok.

But while running a PT session, the PC locked up. I took the original stick out and everything has been fine ever since. Recorded off and on all weekend with no problems.

Seems unlikely that I would have both a battery and memory go out at the same time...but who knows?

I went in today and upped the processor speed per the previous post. (I printed it out to make sure I didn't screw up.) Everything went smooth. The delete key is indeed the key to get to the bios screen. I set it to 1833. Did a little recording just to check everything out. Thumbs up. I was so inspired that I laid down a sweet clean lead part in homage to Al Di Meola. I'm rolling now!

I guess it would still be a good idea to add another memory stick...so I'll be doing that soon.

Thanks guys....the DUC rides to the rescue and proves once again it is the best forum on the 'net. (Ok...that was butt-kissing...)