ST62K boots with incorrect fsb

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ozwald

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Sep 21, 2004
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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

I have recently had an ST62K built for me by a firm in Plymouth, Devon
UK. (But tha's another story.) I have a 3.0 GHz Prescott and I find
that from time to time when starting up, the bios incorrectly sets the
multiplier & FSB to 15 x 166 MHz instead of 15 x 200 MHz, giving me a
2.49 GHz cpu clock. The RAM is always correctly recognised as 400 MHz
dual channel.

The error occurs when I explicitly set the multiplier & fsb to 15 x 200
and also if I set it to "auto".

I have flashed the bios to what I believe is the latest revision
(suffix 'X'). (It had 'P' when I got it.)

I have seen this error mentioned before; has anybody any idea if it is
fixable, or will I just have to live with it?

Also, what are good cpu temps? I am getting 54-56 on idle, and about 62
on load. If I set the fan to 'ultra-low' in the bios, it hardly ever
ramps up)
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 28 Dec 2004 09:46:55 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com waffled on about
something:

>I have recently had an ST62K built for me by a firm in Plymouth, Devon
>UK. (But tha's another story.) I have a 3.0 GHz Prescott and I find
>that from time to time when starting up, the bios incorrectly sets the
>multiplier & FSB to 15 x 166 MHz instead of 15 x 200 MHz, giving me a
>2.49 GHz cpu clock. The RAM is always correctly recognised as 400 MHz
>dual channel.
>
>The error occurs when I explicitly set the multiplier & fsb to 15 x 200
>and also if I set it to "auto".
>
>I have flashed the bios to what I believe is the latest revision
>(suffix 'X'). (It had 'P' when I got it.)
>
>I have seen this error mentioned before; has anybody any idea if it is
>fixable, or will I just have to live with it?
>
>Also, what are good cpu temps? I am getting 54-56 on idle, and about 62
>on load. If I set the fan to 'ultra-low' in the bios, it hardly ever
>ramps up)

I have a P4-2.8 (533FSB), sometimes it gets booted with 166Mhz clock
instead of 133Mhz, amazingly enough it actually gets into windows and
will work for a while before going a bit wobbly! (21x166=3.48Ghz!).

Reported it to shuttle a few months ago, no reply, not even an
automatic one... So no change there! I eventually wrote a little
program (me being a programmer) that checked the speed and just
rebooted the machine if it was wrong.

Anyway, just found a new BIOS,

FT62S00Z
1. Fixed sometimes detect Fsb(front side bus) irregularly at boot up.

http://global.shuttle.com/Download/Download_File.asp?Item=ST62K

I'm gonna try it when I get home (well after I've found why the
machine is now reporting NTLDR failure!)

D0d6y.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Here are your answers :

1. CPU fsb problem : sorry, you have a defective motherboard... Search
sudhian forums for st62k
(http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=71495&highlight_key=y&keyword1=st62k)

2. Temperatures : you could lower this by at least 5°C. Reboot, enter
the bios setup, advanced chipset config, and set the CPU voltage to
1.175V (instead of Auto). Then save and exit. Once logged into windows,
download prime95 and launch a 2hrs torture test. If ever you
exprerience a "fatal error", get back to the bios and increase CPU
voltage by one step. Don't worry: undervolting will not harm your CPU
in any way. Anyway, a 3.0GHz P4 Prescott should be perfectly stable at
1.175V (and even stable at 1.100V if you run it @2.5GHz). And DON'T
FORGET to disable the spectrum spreading (default 0.5%). You'll see
your shuttle dramatically cool down!!!
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 24 Jan 2005 02:35:56 -0800, "Freddo_2005" <fred_allaire2@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>Here are your answers :
>
>1. CPU fsb problem : sorry, you have a defective motherboard... Search
>sudhian forums for st62k
>(http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.aspx?catid=43&threadid=71495&highlight_key=y&keyword1=st62k)
>
>2. Temperatures : you could lower this by at least 5°C. Reboot, enter
>the bios setup, advanced chipset config, and set the CPU voltage to
>1.175V (instead of Auto). Then save and exit. Once logged into windows,
>download prime95 and launch a 2hrs torture test. If ever you
>exprerience a "fatal error", get back to the bios and increase CPU
>voltage by one step. Don't worry: undervolting will not harm your CPU
>in any way. Anyway, a 3.0GHz P4 Prescott should be perfectly stable at
>1.175V (and even stable at 1.100V if you run it @2.5GHz). And DON'T
>FORGET to disable the spectrum spreading (default 0.5%). You'll see
>your shuttle dramatically cool down!!!

Well I don't know about the OP, but the FT62S00Z bios update sorted my
2.8Ghz p4... It hasn't booted with the wrong FSB since I flashed it.

D0d6y.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Here I am, the OP. I am not convinced the mobo is faulty. BIOS updates
exist to correct mobo/cpu incompatibilities. I would not rush to call a
mobo 'faulty' if it displayed a problem such as this. Hell, my old Abit
and the Jetway before that were known to do things like this. I posted
this same question on the Hexus.net SFF forum, and an ST62K user told
me that the 00Z bios did not cure his case. (It did not cure mine
either.)

BUT!!! What did cure his, and also after I read it, mine, was a very
bizarre thing. He wrote that switching the cpu fan connector from FAN1
header to FAN3 stopped the wrong fsb problem completely. I don't know
what made him try it. He said he did not know why it worked.

So far I have had about 16 boots all correct.

I had to change the settings in Speedfan of course.

I have undervolted down to 1.200 and I am getting idle temp 39 C and
100% cpu stabilises at 54 C after about 20 minutes slow climb, so I'm
pleased considering it's a Prescott in a Shuttle case.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Dodgy wrote:
> On 28 Jan 2005 12:29:32 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com wrote:
>
> >an ST62K user told
> >me that the 00Z bios did not cure his case. (It did not cure mine
> >either.)
> >
> >BUT!!! What did cure his, and also after I read it, mine, was a very
> >bizarre thing. He wrote that switching the cpu fan connector from
FAN1
> >header to FAN3 stopped the wrong fsb problem completely. I don't
know
> >what made him try it. He said he did not know why it worked.
> >
> >So far I have had about 16 boots all correct.
> >
>
> Okay, you get the prize for weird!
>
> Glad you got it sorted, pity about shuttle's support, it really will
> effect my choice of compact PC next time.
>
> D0d6y.

D0d6y, I spoke too soon! The next day the Zen was back to booting at
2.49 GHz. I am wondering if the reason for the seeming cure was not so
much the change of fan header, but the fact that the pc was moved, case
was opened, the motherboard was maybe flexed slightly. So I am going to
see if the RAM modules are seated properly.

Still
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 28 Jan 2005 12:29:32 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com wrote:

>Here I am, the OP. I am not convinced the mobo is faulty. BIOS updates
>exist to correct mobo/cpu incompatibilities. I would not rush to call a
>mobo 'faulty' if it displayed a problem such as this. Hell, my old Abit
>and the Jetway before that were known to do things like this. I posted
>this same question on the Hexus.net SFF forum, and an ST62K user told
>me that the 00Z bios did not cure his case. (It did not cure mine
>either.)
>
>BUT!!! What did cure his, and also after I read it, mine, was a very
>bizarre thing. He wrote that switching the cpu fan connector from FAN1
>header to FAN3 stopped the wrong fsb problem completely. I don't know
>what made him try it. He said he did not know why it worked.
>
>So far I have had about 16 boots all correct.
>
>I had to change the settings in Speedfan of course.
>
>I have undervolted down to 1.200 and I am getting idle temp 39 C and
>100% cpu stabilises at 54 C after about 20 minutes slow climb, so I'm
>pleased considering it's a Prescott in a Shuttle case.

Okay, you get the prize for weird!

Glad you got it sorted, pity about shuttle's support, it really will
effect my choice of compact PC next time.

D0d6y.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 29 Jan 2005 01:59:03 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com wrote:

>
>Dodgy wrote:
>> On 28 Jan 2005 12:29:32 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com wrote:
>>
>> >an ST62K user told
>> >me that the 00Z bios did not cure his case. (It did not cure mine
>> >either.)
>> >
>> >BUT!!! What did cure his, and also after I read it, mine, was a very
>> >bizarre thing. He wrote that switching the cpu fan connector from
>FAN1
>> >header to FAN3 stopped the wrong fsb problem completely. I don't
>know
>> >what made him try it. He said he did not know why it worked.
>> >
>> >So far I have had about 16 boots all correct.
>> >
>>
>> Okay, you get the prize for weird!
>>
>> Glad you got it sorted, pity about shuttle's support, it really will
>> effect my choice of compact PC next time.
>>
>> D0d6y.
>
>D0d6y, I spoke too soon! The next day the Zen was back to booting at
>2.49 GHz. I am wondering if the reason for the seeming cure was not so
>much the change of fan header, but the fact that the pc was moved, case
>was opened, the motherboard was maybe flexed slightly. So I am going to
>see if the RAM modules are seated properly.
>
>Still

If movement is the cause, and everything is seated, it's starting to
sound like a dodgy motherboard again, maybe a hairline crack on a
track, or a dry joint.

D0d6y.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

> If movement is the cause, and everything is seated, it's sta­rting
to sound
> like a dodgy motherboard again, maybe a hairline crack­ on a
> track, or a dry joint.

> D0d6y.

It looks like just changing the fan header is enough to cause a change
temporarily.
I found that changing the fan header back again from FAN3 to FAN1
brought a number of correct boots but the next day (today) it is back
to 15 x 166.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 30 Jan 2005 02:44:29 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com wrote:

>> If movement is the cause, and everything is seated, it's sta­rting
>to sound
>> like a dodgy motherboard again, maybe a hairline crack­ on a
>> track, or a dry joint.
>
>> D0d6y.
>
>It looks like just changing the fan header is enough to cause a change
>temporarily.
>I found that changing the fan header back again from FAN3 to FAN1
>brought a number of correct boots but the next day (today) it is back
>to 15 x 166.

Me and my big mouth...

Guess what I just noticed... Yeap, I've got the Z bios, and booted at
166x21 (3.4ghz). I just happened to go into regedit for a nose, and
saw the CPU speed. I don't get to see it very often as my monitor
takes too long to wake up, so the PC is already past the front bios
screen before I get a picture appear. I'm amazed my little 2.8Ghz P4
runs so well at that speed!

Back to the shuttle fault reporting... Oh joy.

D0d6y.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Update... I don't have to change the fan header or clear the CMOS (and
go back to 00:00 Dec 21st 2004!!!); I spent half an hour experimenting,
for example since i seemed to be stuck with a 166 MHz bus speed, I
tried to see how far I could overclock in the BIOS, and it seemed
stable at 10-12 MHz overclock, giving me about 2.8 GHz, but a couple of
boots later I was was surprised to see my 200 MHz fsb back again, with
the overclock it made Windows unstartable. After removing the overclock
it stayed OK all day over about 6 reboots at intervals. Next day
(today) I got the bad fsb at first boot, but after a couple of entries
into the bios, changing things like RAM frequency up and down, I had a
good fsb at boot which seems to have stuck again...

I have twice made wildly optimistic overclock & RAM speed settings in
the BIOS, rendering the system totally unbootable, so that I HAD to
remove power and use the clear CMOS button, then load bios failsafe
defaults, I both times got my 200 MHz fsb back.

One can get awfully subjective about these things - prone to imagine
that one's own efforts are changing the situation when really it's
random or thermal. However I have a feeling (irrational?) that a
straight series of boot cycles alone are not going to throw up a good
fsb, I was trying that before & getting long runs of consistently
erroneous starts.

I wonder if the fix that Shuttle thought they had found for version Z
needs to be made more aggressive or something.

Or the voltages at boot are fluctuating too wildly for a correct
hardware detection to happen every time. I could try taking loads off
the psu like my 2nd hdd & see what happens...

Incidentally I have undervolted down to 1.175 volts, and the rig seems
stable and cool at 3 GHz - 39 C (idle) 54 C ( arduous mpeg4 encoding in
VirtualDub) with Speedfan set for very quiet operation (desired temp
62, min fan 1% max fan 15%)
These temps are about 10 degrees cooler than setting cpu voltage to
Auto in the BIOS.
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 1 Feb 2005 04:07:34 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com waffled on about
something:

>Update... I don't have to change the fan header or clear the CMOS (and
>go back to 00:00 Dec 21st 2004!!!); I spent half an hour experimenting,
>for example since i seemed to be stuck with a 166 MHz bus speed, I
>tried to see how far I could overclock in the BIOS, and it seemed
>stable at 10-12 MHz overclock, giving me about 2.8 GHz, but a couple of
>boots later I was was surprised to see my 200 MHz fsb back again, with
>the overclock it made Windows unstartable. After removing the overclock
>it stayed OK all day over about 6 reboots at intervals. Next day
>(today) I got the bad fsb at first boot, but after a couple of entries
>into the bios, changing things like RAM frequency up and down, I had a
>good fsb at boot which seems to have stuck again...
>
>I have twice made wildly optimistic overclock & RAM speed settings in
>the BIOS, rendering the system totally unbootable, so that I HAD to
>remove power and use the clear CMOS button, then load bios failsafe
>defaults, I both times got my 200 MHz fsb back.
>
>One can get awfully subjective about these things - prone to imagine
>that one's own efforts are changing the situation when really it's
>random or thermal. However I have a feeling (irrational?) that a
>straight series of boot cycles alone are not going to throw up a good
>fsb, I was trying that before & getting long runs of consistently
>erroneous starts.
>
>I wonder if the fix that Shuttle thought they had found for version Z
>needs to be made more aggressive or something.
>
>Or the voltages at boot are fluctuating too wildly for a correct
>hardware detection to happen every time. I could try taking loads off
>the psu like my 2nd hdd & see what happens...
>
>Incidentally I have undervolted down to 1.175 volts, and the rig seems
>stable and cool at 3 GHz - 39 C (idle) 54 C ( arduous mpeg4 encoding in
>VirtualDub) with Speedfan set for very quiet operation (desired temp
>62, min fan 1% max fan 15%)
>These temps are about 10 degrees cooler than setting cpu voltage to
>Auto in the BIOS.

I have yet to find a pattern... The thing that really annoys the hell
out of me, is that even when you set the FSB to 133Mhz *manual* (which
is what my little 2.8 wants), it still sometimes auto pick 166Mhz!

Oh, and is there even a P4 that uses 166Mhz! Grrrrrr!

D0d6y.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Dodgy <Dodgy@earth.planet.universe> wrote in message news:<kj4vv0dnla2ql32ifjrc0betj7spa2ku4a@4ax.com>...
> I have yet to find a pattern... The thing that really annoys the hell
> out of me, is that even when you set the FSB to 133Mhz *manual* (which
> is what my little 2.8 wants), it still sometimes auto pick 166Mhz!
>
> Oh, and is there even a P4 that uses 166Mhz! Grrrrrr!
>
> D0d6y.

I have now found that watching the screen at boot time, and pressing
the reset button (instantly) if the wrong cpu speed appears, seems to
do the trick for me. The reset is very quick, the screen just jumps a
bit that's all.

There must be some kind of race conditions at the very moment of boot
which cause this???
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

On 3 Feb 2005 23:24:21 -0800, ozwald@operamail.com (Kapitan Klink)
waffled on about something:

>Dodgy <Dodgy@earth.planet.universe> wrote in message news:<kj4vv0dnla2ql32ifjrc0betj7spa2ku4a@4ax.com>...
>> I have yet to find a pattern... The thing that really annoys the hell
>> out of me, is that even when you set the FSB to 133Mhz *manual* (which
>> is what my little 2.8 wants), it still sometimes auto pick 166Mhz!
>>
>> Oh, and is there even a P4 that uses 166Mhz! Grrrrrr!
>>
>> D0d6y.
>
>I have now found that watching the screen at boot time, and pressing
>the reset button (instantly) if the wrong cpu speed appears, seems to
>do the trick for me. The reset is very quick, the screen just jumps a
>bit that's all.
>
>There must be some kind of race conditions at the very moment of boot
>which cause this???

Unfortunately my monitor takes too long to wake up, so I miss that
screen... All I can do is press pause at the right moment (at the
wrong moment causes a keyboard error!), or, more often than not, check
the registry once it's in windows and reboot pdq if it's wrong.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\0\~MHz

Very handy

D0d6y.
--
MUSHROOMS ARE THE OPIATE OF THE MOOSES
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

> >I have now found that watching the screen at boot time, and pressing
> >the reset button (instantly) if the wrong cpu speed appears, seems to
> >do the trick for me. The reset is very quick, the screen just jumps a
> >bit that's all.
> >
> >There must be some kind of race conditions at the very moment of boot
> >which cause this???
>
> Unfortunately my monitor takes too long to wake up, so I miss that
> screen... All I can do is press pause at the right moment (at the
> wrong moment causes a keyboard error!), or, more often than not, check
> the registry once it's in windows and reboot pdq if it's wrong.
>
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\System\CentralProcessor\0\~MHz
>
> Very handy
>
> D0d6y.

That quick reset I mentioned must have been a fluke, or I
misremembered it...

I power up my monitor before starting the PC, but I have to then power
up the PC within about 1 - 2 sec or the monitor says "no signal" &
goes into standby & by the time it wakes up again the boot screen is
past (but see the end of this post for my idea which makes the monitor
unnecessary I think.)

At boot the sequence of events is something like this:-
(I have a thumb nail ready on the reset button.)

1. Press power button.
2. Fan runs at 100%.
3. Memory test, EPA logo etc, cpu speed appear, fan quietens as BIOS
takes control of speed.
4. I see wrong cpu speed. (every time)
5. Press reset button.
6. Screen goes blank
7. Steps 2 and 3 again.
8. I see correct cpu speed. (every time)

If your wrong boots are not happening every time you boot, you may
prefer just checking in the registry or there is a good free app
called cpu-z which does what you need (you could put it in your start
up group).

My problem is that just rebooting the computer from Windows doesn't
seem to do the trick: I actually need to press the reset button. (I
don't understand why this is.)

Let's hope a BIOS update comes soon...

With my situation (It always gets the wrong speed after a cold boot)
if I had a monitor which was too slow to let me see the cpu speed in
the BIOS screen, and given that a reset always puts things right, I
would merely listen for the fan speed to quieten and press reset at
that moment. Obviously pressing reset in Windows is to be deplored ;(
 
Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.shuttle (More info?)

Actually, I have refined the technique: I just press the reset button
a couple of times while the BIOS is loading, during the period of high
fan speed, it does not seem to affect the boot time, and I get the
correct fsb every time.
 
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