Do you get any power lights at all on the tower when you press the power button?
I just went to check if I was getting power lights, and the damn thing started up! Seriously, I’ve been messing with this thing for an hour now unsuccessfully, making sure all cables were tight, etc. It’s like when you bring a car to the mechanic and it suddenly stops making the noise it’s been making all week. I’m not sure how you did that from so far away, Fear Itself, but nice work! 
I will try all the other suggestions for cleaning this thing up later on, and hopefully it’ll be singing. I’ll let you know how it turns out…
Well, looks like I rejoiced too soon. I just went to reboot it to get back to the BIOS screen and make sure everything is reset, and it’s gone back to not loading again. Yes, I’m getting the power light on the tower. Something in there is making a little working noise. Nothing at all on the screen. Sigh.
Hmmm, intermittent errors are the worst kind to diagnose. It usually means a bad connection somewhere, and since you just replaced the processor, I would start there. Remove the processor and reseat it again, making sure all pins are socketted firmly.
That certainly makes sense. I’m walking out the door, so I’ll try it later on this afternoon…
Shouldn’t he clear his cmos first, as he’s installed a new processor and wouldn’t that clear up any futzing he did to his bios setting?
Couldn’t hurt, but since he can get into BIOS setup at all, I don’t think it is anything he did there before. Even if he did something wrong, he should still be able to access the BIOS setup. With the intermittent error, it sounds like a hardware problem.
If your CPU/FSB settings are out of whack you can easily get intermittent problems with booting (even getting into BIOS) that will be solved by resetting the CMOS(defaults to a safe CPU setting).
Clearing CMOS is accomplished using a jumper on the motherboard. You set it, and then hit the power switch. It will usually appear that nothing is happening. Then, cut the power and return the jumper to its off setting. Restore power and boot.
If you still have the manual for your motherboard, it will explain this process. Else, just look for a jumper labeled “CCMOS” on the board and follow my instructions above.
I’m sorry but DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DO THIS UNLESS YOUR MOTHERBOARD MANUAL EXPLICITLY COMMANDS IT! Most motherboards I’ve seen require you to set the jumper, and then set it back to normal WITHOUT POWERING IT ON. Powering the system on with the jumper set can render many boards completely unuseable and leave you with an expensive paperweight.
The next time you’re able to boot, go immediately into your BIOS screen and look for an option labelled “Restore Default Settings” or similar. This will ensure your system runs safely (if not optimally). Then you can troubleshoot the CPU speed issue without wondering about hardware stability.
Once you do get the machine running again, and you’re ready to see if you can get the maximum speed from your CPU, download Crystal CPUID. It allows you to change your front side bus (FSB) speed and processor multiplier without rebooting. It also is very adept at automatically detecting the “stock” speed of a chip and making sure your machine will run it.
For example, I have an Athlon Mobile 2400+ (1.8GHz) running in an older motherboard. To get 1.8GHz, I need to have a FSB of 133MHz, and a multiplier of 13.5 (133 x 13.5 = 1800). However, my motherboard BIOS only supports multipliers up to 12.5, meaning I was stuck at 1.67GHz. Crystal CPUID was able to set my multiplier to 13.5.
It’s also possible that your motherboard does not support the faster front side bus required by the Sempron chip. Check this chart against the serial number on your CPU to make sure that you do in fact have a Sempron 2800+; also check the old CPU, probably against this chart, and figure out what core it’s built on.
You can also determine what motherboard you have - or at least which chipset - by Googling all of the important-looking strings of text printed on the motherboard, and/or all of the serial numbers on the big northbridge and southbridge chips. If you can tell us what motherboard you have, we’ll be even better equipped to troubleshoot with you.
Well, following Fear Itself’s advice, I took it apart and made certain the processor is in firmly. While the computer was open, I also checked the other connections, to make sure everything was well-seated. Everything seemed to be good. Still, no go. Won’t boot at all.
Jurph, thanks for the links. I’m not getting anything out of the first chart; I don’t see any numbers on my CPU that seem to match up with anything on the chart. The second chart, however, shows me that my old processor was built on the Model 8 Thoroughbred, Model 2400+, Operating Freq. of 2000MHz, Clock Mult. 15x, 1.65V Nominal Voltage, 266MHz FSB Freq, 256 L2 Cache, and 130nm Process.
And your final suggestion shows me that this is my motherboard.
Hm. Either it’s not a Sempron, or you’re not finding the right numbers. You can resolve that by Googling any relevant character strings that appear on the CPU. It’s possible you got an Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton core) sold as a Sempron.
While you’re there, Google the serial numbers on your RAM sticks. I expect that you will find that they’re PC-2100 RAM (also called DDR 266). They may turn out to be PC-2700, which would be lucky, but we’ll cross that bridge when you know which speed RAM you have. I’ve never run RAM at a different speed than my FSB, so I don’t know if it can/should be done. We can examine that possibility later.
Well that’s good news, then. I’ve checked out your motherboard manual, and if you want to reset your CMOS (and BIOS settings with it) look for a three-pin jumper right next to the CMOS battery – it’s about the size and color of a nickel. The jumper should be over pins 1+2 right now (pin 1 will be labelled, but if it’s not, your manual says it should be the one nearest the back of the case). Power down your system and then move the jumper to pins 2+3 for 15 seconds or so. Move it back to pins 1+2. Make sure it’s on pins 1+2. Now you can safely power up your system, and you’ll probably be able to get into the BIOS menu.
By the way, I’m with Kinthalis regarding your CPU upgrade – I don’t think you’ll see a big gain in speed, even with a Sempron 2800+. The biggest benefit to moving up to a chip that uses a FSB of 333MHz is the ability to use faster RAM (PC2700 mentioned above). If you don’t already have 1GB of RAM in there, make it your next priority on your upgrade list – two 512MB sticks of PC2700 will make everything better. If you’re going to make the jump to a bigger CPU, look for one with 512KB of L2 cache while you’re at it.
…but all of this advice and nit-picking can wait until you have a running system again! Let us know how it works out.
Thanks for all the specific info, Jurph! I probably won’t get a chance to do any of it until Thursday night, at the earliest, but I’ll report here how it goes…
Sorry to hear that you’re having such trouble.
I would suggest installing your old CPU first. That should force BIOS to reset to the specs of your old CPU, automatically loading BIOS. This should work whether you’re having a BIOS software or a hardware problem. Then you can reinstall your new CPU afterwards. Yeah, I know, it’s a pain, but you’re in trouble. As an alternative, if you only screwed up BIOS, you can download the latest BIOS version from the manufacturer of your motherboard’s website, put in on a floppy and flash your BIOS.
Okay, so. Old CPU back in, booted up, got into BIOS screen, everything reset, working fine now. Yay. Thanks for the suggestion, Alien.
Jurph, googling the numbers on the new CPU shows me that this is her. I’m not sure what I was smoking when I checked against the chart you linked to; while the exact number isn’t on there, it’s similar enough that I should have noticed (by the way, I paid over $20 less than what’s listed as the price on that page; not sure if I got a good deal or if the price on the link page is way too high).
My RAM is in fact PC-2700.
Gonna put the new CPU in again later tonight, then reset the CMOS, as you suggest. Any other suggestions before I do so, throw 'em my way!
I don’t know what the return policy is on the CPU. I’ll reinstall it and (assuming I can get it to work at all), I’ll give it a few days, and if it doesn’t show a noticeable improvement to the computer, I’ll see if I can return it for something better.
Meanwhile, I’ll also try all the other suggestions, including running all the utilities and defragging the drive.
Thanks once again for everyone walking me through this!
Good news!
Even better news! Hopefully you’ll notice an incremental boost in speed now that your FSB and RAM clocks are both up at 333MHz.
Now that it’s working, I wouldn’t reset the CMOS unless you can’t get it to boot with the new CPU. If it boots fine, proceed straight to the CPUID tool’s “real time clock” function (in the File> menu) and see what speed you’re running at. You may also get a hint at the speed setting if you watch the boot screens carefully. If the multiplier’s not right, there’s a function in the Tools> menu called “AMD K6/K7 multiplier setting”. You should be running at 333x12.
Have fun!
Second that.
I would like to add that I looked up the BIOS info on the motherboad at ECS’ website. It may be that on this motherboard (741GX-M ) the Sempron CPU is not supported by the original BIOS . This page seems to imply (under “Update Description”) that support for AMD K7 Sempron model 10 2200+/2800+ CPU was added in release 1.0f (which I take as release 6).
I don’t know what to make of it, as I can’t seem to find the change history for earlier versions (only BIOS versions 1.0e and 1.0f are listed).
By the way Anamorphic, the speed of your new CPU is 2000 mhz, this is the value you should find in BIOS under “CPU Speed”, or in the program Jurph mentioned before (CPUID).
Okay, I think I’m almost there, thanks to all the great help here.
The new processor is back in. Booted to the BIOS, and changed the CPU Frequency to 166. I don’t see anything in there about CPU Speed, unless I’m just missing it. But I think I’ve gone through all the options there.
Anyway, booted up successfully after that. Now I’m in CrystalCPUID. The Real Time Clock is showing it’s running at 1995.00MHz. This seems to be correct, yes? But then it says 166.25x12.00. According to Jurph, that should be 333x12. The AMD K6/K7/K8 Multiplier is greyed out and unavailable. I tried to consult the documentation that came with the program, but it’s pretty sparse and didn’t help me out at all.
Also strange is, under “CPU Name” (and in the title bar of the Real Time Clock), it correctly lists it as an AMD Sempron, but under “Name String”, it still says “AMD Athlon XP 2400+”. Could this be because, as Alien suggests may be the case, it’s not supported by the motherboard?