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I have an old AMD Duron 900 Mhz, 768mb ram, shuttle mobo, and ive noticed that whenever I play a modern game like doom3, or a not so modern one like RTCW, the computer screen's green light turns from green to yellow, as it is was being rebooted, and the computer shuts itself down. I was thinking maybe its a problem with the CPU or the ram. Im looking for new processors, but theyre relatively expensive, since its a socket A mobo. Does anyone have any ideas as to why the pc restarts? And whats the best socket A processor I get buy?
Can't recommend a CPU without knowing the make/model of your board - it may not be a worthwhile investment anyway. Regardless, the CPU isn't causing your problem anyway, unless it's overheating. Check the cooling fan & heatsink for dust. Your power supply may also be failing. What video card do you have?
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thanks for the reply. The mobo is a shuttle mk40vs0a. I think its a socket a. The power supply is brand new, so its not the problem. I have an ati radeon 9550 256 mb card, which i plan to upgrade to a x700 256mb
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"The power supply is brand new, so its not the problem"
If it's a cheap piece of crap, it may very well be the problem! What brand is it, how many watts, & how many amps on the +12v rail? One thing about PSUs is you get what you pay for. If you didn't spend $40 at the very least, I'd be willing to bet the PSU is to blame.
The R9550 isn't a bad card provided it uses 128-bit memory...I have one myself. It's actually an underclocked R9600 & can easily be cranked up to 9600 speed (or higher) by using ATiTOOL. You can safely increase the GPU clock from 250MHz to 325MHz (9600)...possibly even 400MHz (9600 Pro).
The X700 is a better card, but I'd experiment with overclocking before investing too much in an older system. The Duron should be able to run at about 1.0GHz by increasing the FSB from 100MHz to 112MHz. I don't advise trying it any higher than that. You may have to increase the CPU voltage a little if the system becomes unstable.
Your RAM should also run at the same speed (112MHz), regardless of whatever the default speed of your RAM is. Best performance on the socket A is when both the CPU & RAM run at the same bus speed (CPU:DRAM ratio of 1:1), so even if you keep your Duron at 100MHz (200FSB), your RAM should run at 100MHz (DDR200) to match.
Here's a link to ATiTOOL:
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/
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Yeah, thats my mobo. I have to check the specs of the PSU. Ill check and write back. How do i overclock that duron, and is there a risk of blowing it up? How do i make sure both the ram and the cpu are running at same bus speed?
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Hey, are you in the US? Your board supports 333FSB CPUs, so you could do WAY better than the old Duron...you'd need PC2700 RAM though.
Here's a Sempron 2600+ for $69:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SDA2600DUT3D-N&cat=CPU
I had a quick look at your manual & it doesn't appear that you can adjust the CPU voltage. You can overclock though, but without the voltage option, your results will be limited. Here's a couple of BIOS settings to try for your current setup:
Under Advanced Setup:
- Graphic Win Size = 128MB
- SDRAM Timing by SPD = Enabled
- Spread Spectrum = DisabledUnder CPU PnP Setup:
- CPU Over-Clocking Func. = Enabled
- CPU Over-Clocking Frequency. = 110MHz
- DRAM Frequency = CPU+0That will put your CPU speed at 990MHz with both the CPU & RAM running at 110MHz (220FSB)
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If $69 is too much, or if you only have PC2100 RAM, here's a 1.8GHz Duron Applebred for $48:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819104160
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Yes, I am in the US. I have PC2700 ram, im planning on buying more ram. Thanks for the settings, Ill try them in a moment. I read that the mobo can support up to 3ghz, so I dont want another duron, Id like the fastest sempron I can get, for an affordable price.
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http://global.shuttle.com/Support/SupportList.asp?Item=MK40V/N
From the above URL, the fastest CPU supported by that board will be an AMD Athlon XP (Barton) 3000+ or an AMD Sempron 2800+. Ofcourse, this means you are going to be spending at least $75.00 on this upgrade.
Considering, this is a stop-gap upgrade, you should look at the infamous 754 deal from Fry's and probably pull the trigger on that one instead. IMHO you could not have made any wiser decision than that.
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Sabertooth & I have both be trumpeting that deal at Outpost for a while now. I've come close to pulling the trigger on it myself, but I already have 3 PCs & a laptop, plus enough parts to build 4 more decent socket A systems...not to mention all the slot A, slot 1, & socket 7 stuff I have stockpiled!
For $80, you won't find a better deal & that combo will easily overclock to 2.25GHz. I've read that some people are substituting the ESC BIOS with a BIOSTAR BIOS that allows CPU frequency settings up to 300MHz & then overclocking as high as 2.7GHz. You'd need PC3200 to make the most outta this setup though.
This thread has been going for a while now...it's up to 50+ pages. Zap & furballi are experts when it comes to overclocking and/or troubleshooting the Outpost combo:
http://tinyurl.com/qrjgz
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Is that offer from Outpost a complete mobo with a CPU? I dont know if i can replace the mobo of my computer, thatd be like getting a new computer. Do they sell standalone processors? Also, Ive tried to remove the Duron CPU from the computer for when I buy the new one, but Ive noticed that it has some latch or hook that has the processor clutched to the mobo, and I cant unlock it. Does anyone know what Im talking a bout?
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Yes, for $80 you'd be getting an ECS Socket 754 nForce3 250 board & AMD Sempron 3100+ (which is based on the Athlon64). This combo will outperform any CPU you buy for your KM400 board. And considering that a decent socket A CPU will cost you approx the same price anyway, making the jump to the S754 combo would be the better choice.
OutPost no longer sells socket A CPUs.
You have to release the locking lever on the side of the CPU socket to be able to remove the CPU. The lever can be either metal or plastic:
http://compreviews.about.com/od/tutorials/ss/DIYCPU.htm
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Computers to an enthusiast is like money, I don't believe you can ever have too much of it.....hahaha
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Yeah, its a great deal, but I havent changed a mobo in a computer before. Its pretty daunting, I mean, I am afraid I mess the computer up. For begginers, Id like to replace the CPU first. And find out why the **** the computer shuts down only when playing recent games, and a few not so recent ones, and why several applications give me that dreaded, "ram address xxxxxxxx could not be read"
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"Computers to an enthusiast is like money, I don't believe you can ever have too much of it.....hahaha"
You could just asked that 20 year old guy in England that played world of warcraft for 60 hours striaght. Oops nevermind he's dead. Yeah apprently this guy didn't know when to say when on hius pc.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ OC 2.7ghz
2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200
Nvidia 7800GT
SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0
Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI
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Hi,
I had the same trouble for a long time. Bought a new 600W powersupply.
New nVIDIA 7600GT videocard. Still on most games it (my computer) would just shut off for no reason...or so I thought.Went into my Bios and saw that the memory was set for a latentcy of 2.5
So I changed it to 2. and now no more shut downs. Hope this helps.My Specs....
CPU Type...AMD Athlon 64, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3200+Motherboard Name....MSI K8N Neo4 Series (MS-7125)
(4 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 1 PCI-E x4, 1 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR DIMM, Audio, Gigabit LAN)System Memory.....1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
Video Adapter...NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT (256 MB)
David
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 CPU compatibility questio...
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socket 7 motherboard
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