Guys - I also went with the Fry's special, though with the AthlonXP 2400+
with the K7VTA3, ver 6.0c. ($69). Everything is running fine - seems
stable and fast and I didn't even need to reinstall WinXP - it just booted
and figured out there was a new MB, faster processor, different audio,
onboard LAN and onboard USB2.0.

However, I have one problem. When the system POSTs, it reports the
processor as an Athlon XP 1800+ , NOT an Athlon XP2400+. I checked the
writing on the chip itself, and it says 2400+.

Any explanation ? Is the motherboard not recognizing it properly, or did I
get wrong a bad chip ? If I use a test like Prime95 (or even look at it
in WinXP Device Manager), it also reports it as an 1800+, not the 2400+.
If the system just reports it as an 1800+, is that the speed it is actually
running (rather than say a cosmetic bug of just reporting wrong.)

I looked to see if a BIOS update was available, but the BIOS it came with is
dated 9/22/03 and the only one on the ECS usa web site is ver 1, dated july
2003.
I don't see anything in CMOS setting that looks like I need to change to
make it recognize properly.

Thanks for anyhelp.

OK, you might kick yourself if you didn't check this, but did you
change the jumper for FSB on the mobo from 100 to 133??

If you didn't, that's your problem. Nice thing about this board over
the K7S5A is that the K7S5A would occasionally like to mysteriously
"soft-set" itself back to 100/100 (cpu/memory) speeds. Now, with the
K7VTA3 your FSB is jumpered so **YOU** decide what speed it runs at.
Heck, you might even want to see if you can get your CPU to run at
166. If you do, it'll probably register up near 3000!!! Good luck!

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 04:43:36 GMT, "Tom Betters"
<soccer1959 (AT) comcast (DOT) net> wrote:

Sounds to me like the FSB is set to 100.

"red" <redgtxdi (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote

Thanks guys - yes that was the problem. I'm still a relative newbie with
hardware, so thought I could just take all defaults. Once I jumpered for
FSB 133, it detects it as 2400+, and all is well. (btw red, I did try
to see what it would do set at 166. It didn't POST.)

Thanks for the quick accurate responses red & todd.