So heres the story...
I installed Xandros Linux on my computer just for something to do, then deleted it again after I realised it wasn't very exciting. I re-formatted the partition containing Linux and my computer wouldn't boot up properly, instead it printed a whole bunch of 1's and 0's.
But I fixed that, and the first time I booted it told me that my CPU had changed from ~2GHz to 1.25Ghz. I realised that I must have done this myself when I reset the BIOS to the default settings trying to fix my first problem. So, stupidly, I put the FSB up to 200MHZ from 100MHZ thinking it would fix it. BIG MISTAKE!
Now my computer won't boot at all! I fear I may have killed the CPU or motherboard or something...does anybody know?
Some boards will automatically reset the FSB on reboot if you have increased it too much that it hangs. Others will simply not boot until you reset the bios like you did.
To get your CPU running up at full speed again, set the FSB to 133Mhz if its an AMD Athlon XP 2000-2400, or 166Mhz if its a Barton Core Athlon XP 2500 or higher.
A 200Mhz bus setting is only used by the Athlon XP 3200+
No problem Kane, though I really think you uninstalled the wrong OS :)
BTW this FSB changing is how to overclock a machine. While your machine is unlikely to work with a 200mHz FSB, you can probably crank it up somewhat still. In an AWARD bios you need to press "ctrl F1" as soon as you get into the bios to reveal the nasty "advanced settings". If you boost up the FSB, you will probably need to boost the voltage to the CPU, as well as decrease the ram speed (which runs at a percentage of the FSB).
I got my athlon-xp (barton) 2500 running on a 200mHz FSB, which turned it into a 3200. I'm using the default cooling too, and I had to increase the voltage to the cpu by 7%.
If you go increasing CPU voltages IMHO it is unsafe to go above 10%. Also AMD say it is safe to run athlons @ 80 degrees, and some can be run @ over 90 (though IMHO 65 degrees is a much safer limit).
thanks again, but I have nothing against Windows personally...[:0]
in fact I am considering a dual boot with Windows 95 so I can run old PIC16F84 programming software..
and as for overclocking, im not really into that, becasue once I get tinkering, I won't stop and I'll end up hurting something...or someone...[:p]
Linux is not for uninstalling (unless you are upgrading to a new distro) :)
Seriously though, it is very unlikely you have killed your machine. What you need to do is reset the bios to defaults again. This may seem impossible when you can't get into the bios, but there are ways, but they equire opening the case:
1)Read the manual for your motherboard, if you find something that talks about a "cmos reset" jumper use it.
2)Find the battery on the motherboard and take it out. It looks like a big watch battery. Then unplug the computer (if it isn't already), and leave it for about a minute. Put the battery back in and boot up.