K7S5A Ver. 1 MOTHERBOARD

[apondonet]

For some reason a 1.3GHZ AMD Athlon processor does not work when installed in my K7S5A motherboard, even after I upgraded the BIOS. The odd thing is that a 1.8GHZ Athlon processor works just fine! Has anyone encountered a similar problem?

By the way, I came across a very useful BIOS upgrade utility:
Download a K7S5A flash-cd from: http://studwww.rug.ac.be/~jdebock/K7S5A-Flash-CD.exe
extract the ISO and burn it to CD. Reboot your systems with the cd(bootable). It automatically detects your motherboard (revision) and walks you through the bios update. Both Official(ECS) and unofficial (with over clocking features) updates are available. You may also want to visit the motherboard manufacturer's site at www.ecs.com.tw - Elitegroup Computer Systems Co., Ltd.

Note: The following site is also worth visiting: http://www.ocworkbench.com/index.stm . Great computer hardware reviews & news

[wallie_x]

Weren't some of the T-Birds 200Mhz FSB? If you got the CPU/Memory FSB ratio set to 133/133 and the CPU is a 200Mhz FSB T-Bird of course it won't work.
Also, until the BIOS recognizes the CPU correctly it will not set it to the proper I/O voltage, as the older T-Birds sucked more juice than the newer Athlon XP's.

[apondonet]

Wallie:

Is there any possibility of making this work. According to the motherboard manual the K7S5A Ver. 1 should be able to support" Athlon - 650MHz ~ 1.4 Ghz, FSB: 200Mhz, 266Mhz

There are no FSB jumpers on the board. There are some CPU settings that can be changed in the BIOS. Which one should I use?

The processor is OK, because it works on my other system.

James

[wallie_x]

The CPU/Memory FSB ratio and divider are controlled exclusively by the BIOS.

Clear the CMOS settings out of the BIOS via it's jumper on the mobo and it will reset it to the default 100/100 FSB ratio. The system should then be able to boot. However, any AMI BIOS on that mobo will not identify the CPU correctly unless the FSB is set at the proper speed. For example you could have an Athlon XP w/266Mhz FSB, but if the BIOS is set to 100/100Mhz FSB it will only show the CPU on the BIOS boot up screen as an Athlon, not an Athlon XP. The BIOS does not have an auto detect sophisticated enough for that.
in the BIOS it is the:
"CPU PnP Set Up Page" is where you need to go to set the FSB Mhz divider ratio. If you don't know a lot about how to tweak a BIOS get some help, cause you could screw up your system good if this is new to you.
Good Luck wallie_x