2500 thinks its a 1700

[Viper8896]

hi i have an amd athlon xp 2500 cpu and recently since i emigrated i went on to bios settings and noticed it said 1700. it would usually say 2500 and have the option of over clocking to 3200 but now it just says 1700. i can also choose user define so i can put in the specs of the 2500(166mhz X11) but if i try the settings of a 3200(200 X11) which is what i used to be able to choose to overclock to it wont work. i cannot understand how a cpu could possible downgrade itself like this and i have tried multiple times reflashing bios and even downgraing bios with still no luck. this is weird plz help.

[tom-tjtech]

I read somewhere that an Athlon CPU will downgrade itself if it is overheating, possibly because you overclocked it!
Try setting BIOS to defaults and start again, monitor the CPU health to see if it is indeed overheating.

Just a suggestion!

[Viper8896]

that might be it then cos the fan/heatsink once fell off the cpu and it got too hot and powered off and kept beeping. why should it downgrade it self then anyway? can u remember where u read that ?

[tom-tjtech]

Sorry can't remember, but there is plenty of stuff on this
in Google.

You could try resetting the Bios jumper on the motherboard, and since
you claim your settings changed after you emigrated
it may be your Bios battery is duff!
Any changes you make to your Bios are lost at power down.
Try also therefore to replace the Bios battery on mbrd
its fairly cheap and easy to get one from your local PC supplier.

[Roxoff]

that might be it then cos the fan/heatsink once fell off the cpu and it got too hot and powered off and kept beeping. why should it downgrade it self then anyway? can u remember where u read that ?

AMD chips are much more sensitive to overheating than Intel ones - I once put a heatsink on the wrong way round and completely fried the athlon processor. Whoops!

The good news is AMD are quite cheap, so you could consider replacing the chip at spome point if it's not behaving itself .

[Viper8896]

i thought having the bigest badest fan i could find would be a good thing but it was too heavy and it fell of when i moved my pc. is there any chance amd could replace it? what would u recomend as a good maker of cpu fans so i dont make the same mistake on my next pc

[cayalee]

i'd be very surprised if amd would replace it seeing as its not their fault it broke, but try ebuyer.com for fans, they're pretty good on price

[fingal]

My AMD chip used to downgrade itself a lot - I didn't think that it might be due to overheating but it would make sense because I installed another case fan this year and it stopped doing it. I have a fan at the front (sucks air in from the front) one at the back (blows air out). Two fans on the PSU ... one on the CPU.

There's a small 'fin' or metal strip underneath my PSU (it's part of the case), and I got some pliers ... bending this downwards, angling it towards the CPU. The second fan on the PSU blows air onto this, and my theory is that it helps to provide a bit more cooling.

Extra cooling is always good together with a good air flow through the case. Those round profile IDE cables might help with air flow as well.

[Viper8896]

when u say your amd used to downgrade a lot and it stoped wih new fan does that mean if i get it cool enough it could one day go back to the 2500 i payed for?

[fingal]

when u say your amd used to downgrade a lot and it stoped wih new fan does that mean if i get it cool enough it could one day go back to the 2500 i payed for?

Yes in theory. You need to pay careful attention to cooling and air flow through your case. Your CPU fan also has to be the right spec to cool your chip ... If you've flashed your BIOS you also need to be sure that you have the right BIOS support available.

My computer was obviously running hot for a while without me realising it, and the extra fan only cost me a few pounds. The increase in stability and performance has been significant.