ECS N2U400-A/Award-Phoenix BIOS vs Duron

N

naro59

Geek Trainee
I've recently bought an ECS N2U400-A (s462) motherboard (my old one broke down and I didn't want to make a bigger investment). I have a Duron 1600MHz CPU and I took it with me to the store, it was tried out and worked. After a few days of using it, without having done anything (at least nothing I'd remember), when I started the computer it was recognized as Athlon XP. Ever since then I can't make it appear as Duron when I start up. Shouldn't this be automatic? I have Award-Phoenix BIOS but no settings can be done about this there, only about the FSB. The problem is that my Duron CPU should work at 133Mhz FSB; when it's recognized as Athlon XP it's gonna be 1600MHz on 100MHz FSB and that's slower and probably affects the performance of the memory too.
There is an article at http://www.zone365.com/content/ecs-n2u400-a/3 about the BIOS and my mobo, check it out.
How is it possible that once it's recognized and then it isn't? How could I make it work again?
At the address above, there are also benchmark results for N2U400-A, that were made using Duron 1,4Ghz, so Duron is supposed to work in this motherboard, there's no doubt about that, that's what the manual says too.
 
The 1.4,1.6, and 1.8GHz Durons use a modified Athlon XP core with a smaller L2 cache. I haven't really paid attention to the BIOS releases from that board, but I do remember my Duron being recognized as an Athlon. It will not affect performance, so don't worry about it.

I don't need to look at that article since I wrote it anyway, but you might want to check ECS website to see if there's a newer BIOS that correctly identifies the 1.4-1.8GHz Durons as such.
 
It actually affects performace because in the BIOS I can only change the FSB, and while for a Duron the 1600MHz is counted as 133*12, for an Athlon XP it is FSB*16, which clearly shows that I get 1600MHz on a lower (100MHz)FSB and if I set it to 133 at which it should run, then recognized as an Athlon Xp I get 2200 on which of course the computer will hang, and naturally this also affects the FSB I can set for the memory. Also I'd like to repeat that it was recognized once for a Duron (for a few days). Is it possible that if I haven't ereased or flashed the BIOS, and we assume that my new mobo is working correctly (meaning that everything is in the same state as when it was working), it could happen that once it takes my CPU for a Duron and then for an Athlon? And this is a one way street as it seems. To my knowledge I cheked all the BIOS settings and there isn't any that would make any difference in the present situation; keeping in mind what you've written about L2 cache, I looked if I could make some changes about it's size but no luck with that either.
 
Hmmm...switching from recongnizing it as a Duron to an Athlon...yeah, that's a bit wierd. There was a way to enable extra disable cache on the 1.4-1.6GHz Durons, but that didn't always work as some of the disabled cache was bad, and thus why those chips were binned as Durons.

I'd try to flash the BIOS to the latest one or reflash (with a fresh BIOS download) of the current one. On the bottom left-hand corner, you should see a string to tell you want BIOS version and/or date you currently have.
 
Thanks for the advice, I thought of flashing the BIOS myself but I’ve never done it before and I was a little cautious about it. It turns out that the latest update for download is the same that I had originally so I (re)flashed my BIOS but it didn’t make a difference. I also tried to take the CPU out and put it in again (you never know with computers). I’ve written to ECS tech support a few days ago too but they don’t seem to be to eager to answer. I was reluctant before (it’s a pain in the ass as it is) but I guess I’ll have to take it back to the retailer with the warranty, if he can’t make it work either he’ll have to give me another one or my money back. I don’t think the CPU could be wrong. It’s like you see a car beside the road that someone left there because it won’t start up but you can still see what kind it is. Maybe this is a bad analogy, but my CPU actually even works, so why shouldn’t the mobo/BIOS recognize it for what it is unless there’s something wrong with them.

Another solution would be to buy a Sempron maybe; I partly bought a Socket A mobo after my old one broke down because I wouldn’t want to spend more money for now, but it had some advanced features like 400MHz FSB and dual memory handling. Question: dual memory only works at 400MHz as I understand and the RAM only works at 400MHz if your CPU does too (except for overlocking), now the only Socket 462 CPU I saw that runs at 400 is a top notch Sempron 3200+ (Barton core), is this right? All the smaller ones they have on stock run at 333 or 266. But if this is true the whole mobo isn’t worth a penny. This CPU is so “expansive” (relatively) that for the money I’ll have to spend on it (my current mobe counted in) I could’ve bought an Intel mobo with a Celeron 2,66MHz CPU (400MHz) and the reason why I have AMD instead of Intel is exactly for budget purposes. If I had wanted to change all mobo/CPU/RAM at once I would have definetly bought Intel. (And when I’ll have more money I’ll definetly buy a Mac or at least an IBM instead of building from scrap.)
 
Hi

I can see you are rather distressed.
I nevr pretend to be a big geek like my profile says and I am sure that some readers will go pfffffffff. :O
However, how about reseting your CMOS and trying again?

Rather than dooming the system to the bin, maybe try and go from 100Mhz up slowly untill you get the right performance?

Just a thought.....

Hold the phone - This I really do not understand! Can someone please help me understand this? I am serious and not trying to take the mick -

The Duron mentioned here is supposed to be working at 133Mhz FSB.
The mobo's lowest setting is 266MHz isnt it? How can you plant a 133 FSB processor in a 400FSB mobo?
 
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