Socket A (462) and Athlon XP 2200+ incompatibility?

[-Wes-]

I have an old machine I am trying to bring back to life. Originally, it was a Jetway V266B motherboard mated to an AMD Athlon 1800+ (AX1800DMT3C), using DDR memory. About a year ago, the chip went south - turn on power and absolutely no activity from the machine other than the power supply, fans, and drives turning on. I axed it as I figured it was not worth hunting down the problem (CPU or motherboard?) as it was already quite old (though still peppy and reliable). A few months ago, I received an AthlonXP 2200+ (AXDA2200DUV3C) CPU and slapped it in. The machine sprang to life almost perfectly, but randomly resets. Upon startup (after a reset or two), it is indicating an average CPU temperature of 78F, so it would not seem to be a heat issue. When Windows XP is fully loaded, I get a very brief B.S.O.D. as it resets, but cannot tell what it says. Sometimes it does not even get to the OS load before it resets and other times it waits 45 minutes after start up. Absolutely random. Any ideas? Are the chip and motherboard incompatible? Their specs seem to mesh, but obviously something is not quite right...

Here are the "features" of the motherboard:

Support Socket-A for AMD Athlon /Duron TM uni-proccessor at 266MHz Front Side Bus with double data rate
VIA Apollo KT266A(VT8366A) System controller and VT8233A High Bandwidth Vlink Client South Bridge
Support ATA 133
Extend AGP Slot Support 4X AGP
Support 168-pin SDRAM DIMM and 184-pin DDR DIMM (Can't Use DIMM And DDR SDRAM memory Together)
PC'99 Ready & PC'99 Colorful I/O Ports Design
Support USB Controller & PS/2 Mouse , Standard IR (infrared) Function
Provide extra " three-wire" fans connectors
JumperLess
Frequency Magic Setting
PC Health Monitoring On Post Screen
Magic Install
CPU Ratio Adjustability.
3-Phase Vcore Voltage to increase system stability
BIOS Write Protect function to avoid Virus crash data
BIOS Auto Detect CPU voltage
Y2K Compliant
ACPI Supporting For OS Directed Power Management

1. Modem Ring remote wake up
2. RTC alarm wake up
3. Wake on LAN For OS
4. Support software suspend & power off
5. Support Power Button Ride (Instant off or Delay 4 second power off)


I appreciate any feedback.

-Wes-

[picur10]

Did you check the capacitors?
Read this e.g.

[-Wes-]

Intriguing. Thank you, picur10, I will take a look and report back.

[picur10]

[-Wes-]

Again, thank you!

The power supply is fine, so I expect that the capacitors are the problem.



Note that all nine of the 6.3V T20C capacitors (mid-sized) on the board are bulged; one of which (closest to the camera's perspective) had a fair buildup of tan crud on the top of it, though it is partially smudged off now from handling. Two of the four 16V T28D capacitors are bulged as well.

Interesting, and also ironic, that these problem capacitors are located adjacent to the processor socket yet I did not even think twice about them as I was not looking for the problem there!

I will see if I can find replacement units and, if reasonably priced, will set about replacing them and report back.

[Marcin]

I see around nine power capacitors to replace from picture. That will be around 7-10 USD. I must admit In this case good looking Power Capacitor not means it is working correctly - have correct capacity. To check that you need digital meter. I suspect you can get on ebay.com working board like this very cheap max 15 USD. It is worth to repair that and risk that other things are damaged ?

[-Wes-]

Good point, but a working board might be on its way to the same problem. I will explore the options at this point. I am not in need of this machine by any means, but I like to have two operational machines at home and would very much like to replace the P4 1400 I am using to type this (as it is horridly slow in comparison). As such, the least expensive and simplest option is my goal right now.