Asus A7M266 glitch?

Has anyone ever seen a motherboard glitch/lockup and cause the CPU fan to stop? The system has a XP1600+ Cpu retail and has been pretty solid running about 52C under load, but the other nite it locked up and I pushed the power button and I heard a fan (not sure what fan) come on and when it rebooted it prompted me to goto bios due to temp problem and it showed CPU at 212degs F!!! So I shut it down and 15minutes later rebooted it and it's been normal temps since. I removed the HSF and cleaned the surfaces and put fresh coat (thin) of Artic silver II and my temps are still 125degs F idle and 132degs Max load. Thinking about getting a better HSF combo and running the Fan off the Power Supply rather than the mobo connector. I have 2 intake fans and 2 exhaust fans plus the CPU fan. Case temps run 80degs F.

sounds like u have a board glitch there.


suggestion: split the lead going to m/board (or buy an adaptor) run red-black direct to a PSU connector but keep the blue connected - for motherboard monitoring etc,

i was paranoid about a "orb" i bought , but when i stripped it down to clean , the actual fan used less currant than a standard "cheapy" fan ,,,so i reconnected it.


PS the asus "probe" setup aint right accurate ,,,on the a7a because of the sensors position it reads about +10c ,,,,,,on mine

cheers freddy.

sorry!!!! when i went back to read my post i started laughing to myself:

Quote:. I have 2 intake fans and 2 exhaust fans plus the CPU fan. Case temps run 80degs F.


i was just thinking you might have sucked a bird into the engine.


sorry.................

freddy

[quote]Originally posted by VCTech:
<strong>Has anyone ever seen a motherboard glitch/lockup and cause the CPU fan to stop? ....running the Fan off the Power Supply rather than the mobo connector. I have 2 intake fans and 2 exhaust fans plus the CPU fan. Case temps run 80degs F.</strong><hr></blockquote>


Yes, often & this is best. All off(not connected to) the mb if you can.

Yeah, sometimes temperature controlled Fan can be evil... :rolleyes:
Have seen once similar effect on one an old Slot1 motherboard. Motherboard's BIOS was somehow damaged by well-known Win95.CIH virus, and CPU cooler stop spinning (it was controlled by BIOS, I guess). After reflashing back the BIOS chip problem was solved.

There can one issue,though - new motherboards have built-in BIOS control of Fan spinning. Motherboard will not start at all,if there is no fan connected to CPUFAN connector.
So,in that case You can connect to that CPUFAN connector another FAN with speed sensor (shassis FAN, for example),and CPUFAN connect directly to the power supply.But don't forget to set CPU overheating alarm in BIOS settings.

yes Ruslan ,,,,but the way i understand it (at least on my ASUS board) ....red-black =power , blue = RPM indicator.

note i say indicator not controller.

would still suggest if using "high power" fan (although i have yet to come across one) then connect red/black to power molex and blue to m/board.

if the blue is connected then yes "all" boards will fire up.


cheers freddy

[quote]Originally posted by freddy:
<strong>yes Ruslan ,,,,but the way i understand it (at least on my ASUS board) ....red-black =power , blue = RPM indicator.

note i say indicator not controller.

</strong><hr></blockquote>

You're right, but what I meant saying "temperature controlled FAN"... You see, some of motherboards (far not all) have special medium power transistor switches soldered into motherboad, what turns ON and OFF the CPUFAN (and another fans).That process is controlled by special BIOS setting. For example,if current CPU's temperature more than 40degree(C) - fan is ON, below - OFF.
Nothing to say, sometimes it can be dangerous for CPU,if something went wrong with switch or settings were set incorrectly. :(

ruslan , i wasn,t sure if that WAS what you meant , when u answered earlier,no problems,

although i have seen software progs , to slow fan etc , i have never seen a m/board that did this.


can u name off hand any CURRANT (ie duron/athlon-celeron/p4) boards that have this type of setup?


please only tell us usa/europe ones ,,,,,,,i would like to look at/checkout those boards..

thanks freddy

It wasn't new motherboards... Motherboard in my fisrt reply was ASKA (SilverStar) LX slot1 motherboard (it's just another name of cheap PCPartner motherboards).
In second post ... I do not remember that manufacturer exactly...Asus or Gigabyte...most likely it was Gigabyte,but I'm not sure...one of those motherboards was socket7, another one - slot1...it was year or even more ago... <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[quote]Originally posted by Ruslan:
<strong>......But don't forget to set CPU overheating alarm in BIOS settings.</strong><hr></blockquote>

?? more problems than it worth sometimes.... :rolleyes: ??? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Well as far as setting alarms in BIOS, maybe i'm missing it but I only see where I can enable monitoring or Disable, I have an Abit board that allows alarms but not seeing it in the Asus A7M266 Bios 1005. BTW...system has been running over a week 24/7 with no problems, kids has been playin the hell outta it too. Just waiting for my wife to quit spending all my money so I can invest in diff HSF combo :D and PCI cooling system because those Geforce2 MX400 64Meg video cards put off some serious heat!

if u have a ASUS board then there will be a utility on the cd called ASUS PROBE ,,,,if u havnt got it u can get it from here <a href="http://www.asus.com.tw/download/mbdriver/mbdriver-index.htm" target="_blank">http://www.asus.com.tw/download/mbdriver/mbdriver-index.htm</a> ,,,,bottom of page,


dont get worried when your temps look high ,,,,it depends where the "probe" on the m/board is sat.


freddy

[quote]Originally posted by VCTech:
<strong>Well as far as setting alarms in BIOS, maybe i'm missing it but I only see where I can enable monitoring or Disable..system has been running over a week 24/7 with no problems</strong><hr></blockquote>

Glad to hear. I was refering where you can set a temp many bioses now have this but often they will cause an alarm when there shouldn't be, on off is plenty. If you must set an alarm temp needless to say pick the highest value if you are getting errors.

Well sometime last night it did it again, wife woke up smelling something and told me she pushed the reset button and nothing happened and then when she pushed the power button she said he heard a fan come on, so she shut it down at 2am last nite, i fired it up this morning and it booted to 1050Mhz, I changed in bios to 1400Mhz and all seems fine but, I'm buying a HUGE HSF today, one that requires external power rather than from motherboard and a friendly call to Asus just to get their oppinion because it's not the processors fault although if it continues it will be replaced with a P4. (Not tryin to cause AMD vs Intel but... :D )

Just found interesting article regarding CPU FAN controlling. <a href="http://www.almico.com/sfhardware.php" target="_blank">www.almico.com/sfhardware.php</a>
May be that's what You were asking me, Freddy... ;)

Called Asus, his 30sec answer was that i must have a bad power supply and if that's not it, then send the board back. Hmmmmm maybe I can sell my NEW power supply on ebay when I prove that wrong. I would expect the system to fail under load not while idle if it was a power supply. I wonder how much their techs make?

[quote]Originally posted by VCTech:
<strong>i fired it up this morning and it booted to 1050Mhz, I changed in bios to 1400Mhz and all seems fine but, I'm buying a HUGE HSF today, one that requires external power ......</strong><hr></blockquote>

Something is spiking bios and flushing something or you have iffy mememory(10.5 *100 on reset not 10.5 *133 like it should be, auto detect playing up?), windows shouldn't write to bios but it definately does. The via inf patch contained in the 4-in-1 is often the culprit because it re-writes the ms specification table which ACPI bios uses to boot, but without knowing what other stuff you have pluged on the bus I can't say much more.

What kind of hcf modem needs an external psu...? or do you just mean an external modem or I think you mean a Heat Sink & Fan(in which case re-read the thread)..... :confused:

Please post all your cards & mem specs

Heatsink and fan, maybe i said that wrong sorry. I'm running Windows XP and was told I didn't need to install the Via4in1 so I haven't, everytime the system fails a post etc...it defaults to the lower bus speed and 1050Mhz but identifies the processor as XP1600+.

Ok I put on a new Heatsink and fan that has Copper core Base and the temps have reduced about 2-3degs F only but I took the Red and Black wires out of the 3pin plug that goes to Motherboard and attached them to the +12/Ground of the Power Supply and ran some benches to warm it up and so far so good. Guess my next post will be if the system locks but I'm fairly confident it won't. I just think it's a glitch in this board I have. We will see.

I have seen this exact issue with a bad stick of DDR.

If you have DDR, I recommend running a thorough test on it.

Thanks RUSLAN ,,i am using a board that is listed ASUS A7A (by the way -good board with version 1009 bios) will check on this ,and if sucsessful will report back (it says 10% - 15% drop in fan speed)


freddy

[quote]Originally posted by VCTech:
<strong>Heatsink and fan, maybe i said that wrong sorry. I'm running Windows XP and was told I didn't need to install the Via4in1 so I haven't.... </strong><hr></blockquote>

:D Yup HSF is more traditionally used to denote an internal serial modem card......

Well I dunno who told you that but "The 4in1 drivers are the same for all VIA chipsets and all Microsoft operating systems (Win 95, 98, 98SE, 2000, ME & XP). (*Last updated 21 December 2001)" is what it says on the driver link from viatech.com.

Believe me (& VIA) you want the 4-in-1, you get an improved bus mastering driver a new gart driver (for your video), and most importantly you get a new .inf which identifies the chipset (& its features) to windows. You also get a patch file for 95 (the bit you don't need) that corrects some bios issues with the MS specification table for bios which can cause boot problems.

You can download the individusl bits seperately if you prefer....

Ok changed the Power supply out, put a UPS in front of that and ran SiSandra Pro tests on it 10 times in a row and everything passed this last weekend...last night about 8pm it did it again, popped the side panel off and the Northbridge fan was not turning (good thing I hardwired the cpu fan :D ) ...push the power button and that fan came on but no go....powered down and back on and she's good as new again. OHH and I put another stick (just one this time) of Crucial256 2100 in when I changed the PS out..unless I keep getting bad sticks then I'll rule that out. Got 3 sticks of ram now...too bad only 2 slots on mobo :D ....guess I either live with it ...replace it...or something, got Geforce3 coming wednesday so I can at least rule that out!