AMD Troubleshooting guide! UpToDate version in VIA forum.

Question

[size=11](Revision 4-9-2003)[/SIZE]  
Hi there,
Follow everything on the list, even if it doesn't look like it would solve your problem, most problems are created somewhere else!
To give some examples:
CPU won't run FSB133....mostly powersupply or CPU-cooler.
Videocard won't load drivers....mostly powersupply.
Sound won't work.....mostly metal-standoff's.
Windows won't install, file read error.....mostly CPU-cooler, Bad-ram or powersupply.
That is why you need to go over the entire list and check all!
Before you start doing anything, remove the power and make sure that you have touched the metal case of your system. If you don't you could damage your system due to static discharge!  
Thanks to Arioch and Dragon60 for comments on this.
There are several reasons why this happens.....to name the most commen:
CPU speeds  
You have a Duron, that CPU is 100FSB!
You have a Athlon(XP) and it's showing the wrong speed, set the CPU-FSB to 133....
Or 166 when it's a FSB333 CPU....or 200 when it's a FSB400 CPU....
Some boards have a jumper to set it, other do it in the BIOS.
Check your manual for this.
Speeds must be:
Duron = 100MHz (=200DDR)
Athlon B type = 100MHz (=200DDR)
Athlon C type = 133MHz (=266DDR)
Athlon XP - C type = 133MHz (=266DDR)
Athlon XP - D type = 166MHz (=333DDR)
Athlon XP - E type = 200MHz (=400DDR)
Use this link to see if your motherboard actually supports your CPU.
The TBred CPU's (0.13) start from XP-1700 and up, but not all boards support this CPU and they either show on the D-LED all red or don't start at all!!
The K7T266pro2 is an exception, it can be made to support the TBred CPU's, on this link you find all the info on how to make it work.
Many reports have told us that FSB333 CPU's work on KT3-Ultra boards work just fine, but it's unsupported by MSI, we don't know why....
As for mulipliers with AMD CPU's, just set them Automatic, as they are hardcoded on the CPU themselves and will allway's be correctly, even if if you think the BIOS doesn't know it.
How to recognise the CPU:
If you look on the dice, there are letters after the speed.
The last letter will tell you the FSB of the CPU.
B=100MHz (=200DDR)
C=133MHz (=266DDR)
D=166MHz (=333DDR)
E=200MHz (=400DDR)
To recognise a CPU quickly, checkout this link.
Thanks Mellops.
The MHz setting must match your setting in the BIOS for FSB value, as it translates to the correct FSB setting for the CPU.
The best way to identify a processor is by using the OPN (Ordering Part Number) which can be found on the processor (E.g. AXDA 2700 D K V 3 D).
Detailed information on the code can be found in this AMD document. (Thanks Hans)
CPU Cooling  
CPU cooler not made for your CPU, check if it can handle your CPU....
CPU cooler mounted wrong!, take it off and check it as it will fit 2 way's, but only 1 is the right one, examine very carefull!
The cooler has a lower part that needs to go over the bump (higher part) of the socket, if it's not over there it won't cool the entire dice and WILL give you trouble.
Also check if it's making contact with the entire dice of the CPU...
Make sure you regrease it again, the same grease/paste can't be used twice!
YOU MAY NEVER USE A THERMALPAD OR GREASE AGAIN! APPLY NEW EVERY TIME YOU TAKE THE COOLER OFF!!  
Example of a good mounted cooler:
Example of wrongly mounted cooler: [maesus: Rukee found the pix]
Used too much silver-grease! It will shorten the bridges on the CPU, clean it and use white-paste.
(Silver-paste is not recommended in any case!)
The latest AMD XP CPU's (XP-2200 and above) require a copperbased heatsink because the dice is smaller and generates far more heat per square cm then the "old" CPU's do.
How to check the cooler before taking it off.
There is a simple way to check the cooler without taking it off.
You do this by first checking your idle temp with PCAlert, it should be below 50-55C.
Then you download a client from http://www.distributed.net, let this client run for about 10 minutes while monitoring the temps, after about 1 minute or so it should stabilize and your temp should have gone up about 10-15C (max).
If it still goes up or the system crashes, there is a big chance you mounted the CPU-cooler wrong.
When you can't run this check, try with FSB100, if the system does run the check then, it could be well that the cooler is mounted wrong or your powersupply doesn't have enough power.
***** YOU CAN'T CHECK THE CPU COOLER ON TEMPS OR FAN RUNNING, IT MUST BE TAKEN OFF THE CPU!!! *****  
Cleaning the CPU and Cooler - thanks to Dragon60 for his addition.
An additional comments about this is what you clean the CPU with in this situation. The best thing to use is isopropyl alcohol. If this is not available then metholated spirits would do.
Make sure you allow the CPU to dry properly before you put it back in. This also means DO NOT try and clean it whilst it is still in the socket as some of the cleaning fluid, grease and dirt may get underneath and short some pins.
Last but not least. DO NOT use acetone to clean anything inside your PC. (or outside for that matter) It MAY not do any damage BUT it may disolve some parts.
Thanks Dragon60.  
If you don't understand what we are talking about on this cooler matter, then read this link: AMD CPU & Cooling guide  
Powersupplies  
Powersupply too little, most commen cheap 300W CPU's can't handle an XP-1700 or above, try a better one to be sure.
Make sure your powersupply has about 185W combined on the 3.3+5V and that the 3.3V has 20A or above.
That should be enough for most systems.
On the latest boards the 12V has become very important too, expecialy with TBred CPU's.
Make sure yours can give 16A or more on the 12V line too.
I have found that a lot of cheap 350W will fail with modern boards and TBred CPU's.
Allway's make sure you have a decend PSU, it never fails to spent a bit more on that part!
Borrow a bigger one from a friend if you are not sure....
More info about powersupplies: Click here.
And the second you must read: Click here.
Powersupplies with these type of numbers on them or higher should be fine:
3.3V - 28A or better
5V - 30A or better
12V - 16A or better
Watch out!! Cheap PSU's like Q-Tec come nowhere near these figures!!
Do NOT trust the 300W or 400W rating on them!!!
Q-Tec is about the worst of them all!!  
Metalclips  
Stand-off's left between the board and the case, take the board out and check for too many of those metal-clips, they can shorten circuits and cause al sorts of problems (most of the time audio problems)
RAM
Ram problems, don't try to run with PC100 (SDram boards) when you have a 133FSB CPU, get PC133 ram of decend quality.
In any case, don't use cheap quality ram (Crucial seems decend, but give's a lot of problems, I consider these cheap quality too :P ), replace the ram with another brand to see if it fixes it....
DDR ram speeds:
Duron/Athlon-B =100FSB=PC-1600=DDR200
Athlon-C/XP upto 2600 =133FSB=PC-2100=DDR266
Athlon XP D-type and above =166FSB=PC-2700=DDR333
Athlon XP E-type and above =200FSB=PC-3200=DDR400
Higher DDR speeds are only a must if you try to overclock, they have no speed gain if run at the correct speed. You may use faster ram on a slower system, the speeds given are what is needed minimum.
Perform RAM test tools, ie http://www.memtest86.com if you suspect RAM is faulty, such as BSOD or data corruption. [added by Maesus]
Try your system allway's with 1 stick of ram, adding more sticks can give all the trouble too.
Some sticks just won't work in pair and a lot fail when you put 3 or more in the system.
When you want to use 3 sticks, make very sure you use the MSI tested ones, they are your best chance that they work without problems.
If still nothing, try to seat the ram in another slot, sometimes they work better in another slot.
Thanks boost
Or rise the Ram voltage a little, be carefull doing this!
Sometimes this works when you have a lot of ram in there.
BIOS  
BIOS settings not right, clear the CMos and start with the default settings, if it works, try setting ONLY the FSB to 133 if needed, nothing more.....
And go further from there......
Clearing CMos
When you clear the CMos, make sure that all power is cut from the system.
This is done by takeing the wall-plug out or use the switch on the powersupply to turn it off.
On most boards, as far as I know all MSI boards, you must set the JBat1 to position 2-3 (clear position) for about 10 seconds, then set it back to 1-2 (keep data position)
After this your CMos should be cleared and you can turn the system back on.
In some rare cases it's needed to take the battery out too for a minute or so.
It can happen that the system will prompt you to set the BIOS again, go into the BIOS and set everything you need, then save the settings.
Thanks fguevara.
Harddisks  
Harddisk is giving problems, most of the time with WD drive's, they are jumpered somewhat strange compared to others:
No jumper = Stand-Alone no other drive attached to the cable.
Jumper master = if you have a slave drive attached
Jumper slave = when it's slave to another drive
Harddisk is doing weird things:
Make sure you have connected the blue connector to the board, and don't let the other end of the cable unused, make sure there is a device connected to it.
The middle connector can be left into the air without problems if not needed.
IBM harddisks seem to fail a lot, try Drive-Fitness-Test on it, see if it has problems.
Click here for DFT
Other brand drives can have problems too, make sure they are ok, as harddisk failure can cause all sorts of problems.
Allway's be sure your harddisk is in tip-top shape, if not, replace it and try another to verify.
For more information read this: Click here.
To know what harddisks your motherboard support, use this link.
To enable harddisk over 137GB in Win2000 edit this registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters]
"EnableBigLba"=dword:00000001
The KT4 raid boards only support 1 harddisk on IDE3, the rest must be SATA drive's!!
Harddisk/power led not functioning - thanks to Tweetyoost
If your HD led or power led not work try to switch(wrong + or - side) the connectors on the motherboard.
leds will work only when + or - is correct
Thanks Tweetyoost.  
Floppy drive's  
If your floppy drive doesn't work or the led stay's on all the time.
Make sure the floppy is set correctly in the BIOS, as the BIOS doesn't autodetect a floppy drive.
Check the cable, make sure the twist in the cable is at the floppy-drive side.
If the light stay's on, flip the connector at the floppy-drive arround.
Sometimes it happens that even after all this, they still don't work, try with another drive from another brand.
Not able to enter the BIOS or lockup  
When you try to enter the BIOS it won't go in there or
lockup, but your system is running fine.
This symtom can happen when your CPU-Cooler is giving spikes on the coolerwire.
Try with another brand of cooler to test if it solves it.
Keyboard and optical mouse lights stay on after power off[/U]
Some motherboards have a jumper called JKBV1, this jumper is located (mostly) near the keyboard connector, put it in the other position.
If your board doesn't have the jumper, try to find the following BIOS settings and turn them off:
resume on KBC
resume on PS/2
resume by alarm
USB ports not working[/U]
Check in the BIOS if the ports are enabled.
USB2.0 ports are supported in Win2000+SP3 and XP+SP1, just let the OS reinstall the ports and they should work.
Thanks Stygge
Replacing parts and the system won't boot after
It's never a good idea to replace stuff like CPU and ram without taking the board out of the case.
But if you still like to do so, please support the board, because if you don't you might bent the board a little and cause other components to make bad contact.
Allways support the board when you replace stuff, no matter what!
Also make sure your system can take the replacement, it could happen for example that your powersupply can't handle your changed videocard from GF2MX to GF4Ti4600.
Test all the parts in another system
Make sure that the new part is in good working order in the first place (in particular: videocard, CPU, memory): try it in another system, or have it demonstrated by the one you bought it from if possible.
Testing might also give you a clue on what is actually wrong in your own system.
Thanks HansH.
Checking the powersupply
Don't do this if you don't know what you are doing!
Disconnect the powersupply.
Orientate the 20pin Powerconnector with the clip up.
Locate pin 4 and pin 8 top row, mostly green and black wire.
Use a wire to short them (or better a 12V test lamp).
Now connect the power and the fan inside the powersupply should start spinning.
If it doesn't your powersupply maybe dead.
Thanks HansH.
KT4 users  
Please read the Un-Official KT4 guide if you have CRC errors or strange crashes.
These can be BIOS problems.
In any case !!!Only flash if the system is stable!!!
Set default-settings and FSB100 to make it stable first!!!
Motherboards making a Siren-sound
If your board is making the sound of a firetruck, BEEP-BOOP-BEEP-BOOP...
Check the folowing:
1. CPU too hot
2. chassis intrusion was enabled in the BIOS
3. PSU is below min/max allowable value
Stutter in audio
Remove your antivirus software.
We have heard a few cases where the stuttering was created by badly behaving antivirus software.
Disable cpu halt command if it's in the BIOS (Thanks Pascal16)
Windows  
Windows2000/XP won't run stable, try to disable APIC and install again....
Not all drivers/devices like the APIC.
Windows2000/XP won't install USB2.0, install the latest servicepak (SP3 Win2000 or SP1 WinXP).
Let Windows rediscover the USB ports, they should work now.
If you have driver or other problems and don't know what to do anymore but Windows does function without crashing, read this: Click here.
Audio [added by Maesus, 20/2/2003]
Can't stream AC3 via SPDIF to external DD decoder? try this ac3filter [info provided by Manfred ]
I think I have about covered all most commen problems....
Check those first before you ask us, as it's not fun to type the same over and over again.... :(
Another good link for trouble shooting is here: Link
If you have more issues that can solve problems, please write your thing below......
I will insert your comments in this guide, with credits, offcourse 8)
!!I will delete any attempt for discussion or problem report below this message.....!!
Please report back, in another thread, if your problem was solved and how you did it, this will help others a great deal.
It's only ment to help people as a guide to where the problem can be, start a new thread if this guide didn't solve your problem and you need more help!
This thread is only for the experts to guide you into a solution :]

Answer 1

Nope, what for?
If you know what you are doing and you discharge yourself there is no need for such.
BTW, those bands are not that safe, if you use them wrongly you can electrocute yourself pretty easily