New dual-core setup won't even POST

[rincewind]

I finally got round to building an Athlon X2 system, the asterisks denote the new (and therefore untested) components:

Enermax EG-465 PSU
*X2 3800+
*DFI Lanparty NF4 SLi-DR
1Gb Crucial Ballistix PC-4000
2 x 160Gb Western Digital WD1600JB PATA
1 x 120Gb Maxtor Plus9 PATA
*AOpen 7800GTX
*Swiftech APEX W/C Kit - not installed yet
*Samsung SpinPoint 200Gb SATA - not installed yet

Got all the equipment and set it up expecting the usual boring Windows installation. Instead, I got a 'No signal' on the monitor. All the fans were spinning, and the motherboard was lit up - I'd had a few worries putting the GTX into the top PCI-E slot (thanks to the dumb NB fan positioning) so I took that out and then re-inserted it. Made sure the PEG power adapter was firmly attached to the card and the molex connectors from the PSU. Nothing. Tried replacing again, but still nothing. One last time for good measure was also a wasted effort. Next port of call was the CPU, but after re-seating it 3 times it still wasn't booting.

So I thought maybe I'd missed a connection somewhere.

I've plugged my 20-pin ATX connector into the correct pins on the board header (ie the top 4 pins are unused) as the board did not come with any kind of converter (though it came with an abundance of other crap I didn't need ). The 4-pin 12v is also attached, as are the molex and floppy-type connectors (wtf are they all for anyway?). I've also checked the SLi jumpers and ensured I'm running in single vga configuration. The CMOS and 'Safe Boot' jumpers are also in the proper positions.

Is it a problem with my 20-pin ATX connector? I checked on the web and it seems like it should be fine for a stock system.

I have no other compatible mobos,cpus or gfx cards, hence I'm rather stuck with regards to identifying the problem. Any pointers/ideas welcomed.

Thanks
Rincewind

 

[penguin]

Don't you need a 24 pin power supply for a 24 pin motherboard? I really have no idea about this, but it would make sense :\

 

[defakto]

They put those extra 4 pins there for extra power draw for high requirement items...like certain vid cards and dual core processors. Get a true 24 pin power supply, not an adapter and I'd bet your problem will be solved.

 

[rincewind]

I was thinking about getting a Silverstone unit, but decided I didn't really need 600W or v2.0 compliance so pocketed the 110 GBP it would have cost me instead!!

Does anyone disagree with the 24-pin power supply theory? It's gone 4:00pm here in the UK so if I'm ordering a new unit I need to do it asap.

 

[rincewind]

Well the techies at the place I purchased it suggest I will need to flash the BIOS in order to support the X2. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what revision would you recommend? In case it's not in the manual, what keys do you need to press during power-up to flash from floppy (I will have no visuals to guide me )

This could explain why the CPU isn't detected, but I assumed it would just pick up the 2000MHz Athlon 64 core(s) instead of correctly identifying an X2-3800+.

Guess I'm gonna get it going just before my GF comes over for the weekend, meaning I'll have to wait until next week to enjoy it. And Quake4 arrived this morning as well

 

[defakto]

I was thinking about getting a Silverstone unit, but decided I didn't really need 600W or v2.0 compliance so pocketed the 110 GBP it would have cost me instead!!

Does anyone disagree with the 24-pin power supply theory? It's gone 4:00pm here in the UK so if I'm ordering a new unit I need to do it asap.

You can get a 550watt eps 12v power supply for less than $99 american online. I run one in my dual system without issues. When it comes to power you don't want to screw around with your system. A good power supply is one of, if not the most important part of your system. I bad one, one that doesn't match the system can cause lots of problems as well as damage components. Look for high efficiency models too. Just because it says it's capable of 600W doesn't mean that's what it will draw, it will never draw more than you use. The higher efficiency will mean lower electricity bills too, despite it being a "bigger" power supply.

 

[John Gault]

It would most likely beep and give you a message if your bios does not support the cpu. I am afraid that your problem prob is deeper that a bios flash. If you cant get it to post or you have no video signal you cant flash the bios. Here is what I would do.

-I am assuming you have checked the normal dumb mistakes, plugs/connectors, cpu seated, fan plugged in ect.
-Make sure that you have a speaker hooked up the correct way to the mb.
-if no beeps turn off power and remove the ram.
-if it beeps then ram is bad.
-try a different power supply (does not need native 24 pin but most manufactures recomend it and its a good investment)
-If your still gettting nothing then its the cpu or mb.

If you dont have other cpu's or mb to test with then your only left with the RMA option. If you bought it from a local store you may want to check the return policy. I know at Fry's you have 15 days to retun components. This would aviod the whole RMA process.

 

[kirbyrj]

Well the techies at the place I purchased it suggest I will need to flash the BIOS in order to support the X2. Does anyone know if this is true, and if so what revision would you recommend? In case it's not in the manual, what keys do you need to press during power-up to flash from floppy (I will have no visuals to guide me )

This could explain why the CPU isn't detected, but I assumed it would just pick up the 2000MHz Athlon 64 core(s) instead of correctly identifying an X2-3800+.

Guess I'm gonna get it going just before my GF comes over for the weekend, meaning I'll have to wait until next week to enjoy it. And Quake4 arrived this morning as well

I had the same problem with my X2 and DFI board. It needed a bios flash. Sometimes it would post, sometimes it wouldn't with the X2. It wasn't very stable when it did post. I had to move the memory around to different slots to get it to work, and I kind of tempted fate with a bios flash under those circumstances. Once I flashed to 6/23 bios, it worked great.

 

[rincewind]

Eureka - turns out the RAM wasn't working in slots 1 & 3. I moved the dimms to slots 2 & 4 and it booted. And I now have a shiny new Enermax Liberty 620w to throw in

Need to set up a 120mm fan to add blow cool air over the northbridge area, as the chipset is running at 46 degrees idle with the 7800GTX obstructing it
That isn't going to leave much room for overclocking (the whole reason I bought this infernal mobo).

Because XP refused to install correctly to any of the unused partitions on my IDE drives, I've had to use my new SATA as the boot device. Anyone know if drive corruption is still an issue with the NForce4 SATA controller at high HTT speeds (I've flashed to the latest BIOS) ? Thought I'd ask before doing any overclocking!

 

[doox00]

Eureka - turns out the RAM wasn't working in slots 1 & 3. I moved the dimms to slots 2 & 4 and it booted. And I now have a shiny new Enermax Liberty 620w to throw in

Need to set up a 120mm fan to add blow cool air over the northbridge area, as the chipset is running at 46 degrees idle with the 7800GTX obstructing it
That isn't going to leave much room for overclocking (the whole reason I bought this infernal mobo).

Because XP refused to install correctly to any of the unused partitions on my IDE drives, I've had to use my new SATA as the boot device. Anyone know if drive corruption is still an issue with the NForce4 SATA controller at high HTT speeds (I've flashed to the latest BIOS) ? Thought I'd ask before doing any overclocking!

I also have a ut ultra-d and my northbridge is at 47c all the time. wish there were an aftermarker cooler that would fit and lower that some. My case has 4 80mm in it already, 2 intake 2 exhaust in the back. plus ps fan. so I do not think its a poor circulation thing.

 

[JediK]

And I now have a shiny new Enermax Liberty 620w to throw in

Let us know how that goes. I just ordered an Enermax Liberty 500w.

 

[seniorpaul]

you WILL need to flash your bios in order for your X2 to be recognized. I've been using the 623-3 bios and it works great.

As for your Northbridge, i read that the Evercool VC-RE vga cooler will fit on the board under a 7800GTX. I just got one in the mail yesterday, and am going to be seeing if it fits this weekend. Supposadly, it'll keep your chipset cooler AND its significantly less noisy. It was only like $12 shipped, so i figured i'd give it a go. I'm going to be taking some digi pics this weekend of my watercooled P180 rig and posting them on this forum (as a couple of people have requested them), so i'll get some pics if the Evercool fits as well.

 

[rincewind]

Let us know how that goes. I just ordered an Enermax Liberty 500w.

Definitely gets the thumbs up. Even quieter than the old EG-465 - near silent operation, although it's not that heavily loaded at the moment. With the old PSU the X2 was stuck at 260x9. I thought I had a 'duff' chip, but now I'm running 280x9 @ 1.5v no problems (well, 1.48v as the board undervolts). Hopefully I'll get to 270x10 eventually, but I don't fancy going over 1.5v until I get the Swiftech water cooler fitted. Anyone now the max safe voltage for these chips?

On another note, I think I've got lucky with my 7800GTX. Managed 5 loops of 3DMark05 at 540/1400 without any artifacts (scores ~9300, but it says my version is out of date and therefore I can't publish until I get it patched). Played Doom3 ROE for over an hour without issues as well, so I'm calling it stable. Memory will do 1450 if I only have the core set to 490, but it's slower in that configuration.The MCW-55 waterblock is on order

 

[rincewind]

you WILL need to flash your bios in order for your X2 to be recognized. I've been using the 623-3 bios and it works great.

As for your Northbridge, i read that the Evercool VC-RE vga cooler will fit on the board under a 7800GTX. I just got one in the mail yesterday, and am going to be seeing if it fits this weekend. Supposadly, it'll keep your chipset cooler AND its significantly less noisy. It was only like $12 shipped, so i figured i'd give it a go. I'm going to be taking some digi pics this weekend of my watercooled P180 rig and posting them on this forum (as a couple of people have requested them), so i'll get some pics if the Evercool fits as well.

Yeah I flashed the BIOS (latest official one, can't remember the actual revision number) and now CPU-Z identifies it as an X2-3800 instead of just 'Hammer family processor'. I'd be interested to see how it goes with that cooler - I'd planned on watercooling the N/B but there's no way of fitting a block in the space available.

You swine, you have the P180 - I had to keep my old case, because neither that or the CM Stacker will fit in the space where my puta goes

Well, no more tinkering for me until monday - I could grab an hour after work before the missus' train gets in, but I'll probably end up supping a quick pint or two as usual

 

[rrhomes]

Should be a main post that incorrect ram installation is the problem 80% of the time. Last year as a total noob - I built my first PC. MSI nForce 3 ultra 939, 2x 512 - OCZ 2-2-2-5 T1, Raptor HD, PNY 6800GT, AMD 64 3500+ , XP-Home. I had studied hard read everything on the internet and in mags about building your own rig. I checked, Checked, Doubble checked and tripple checked my work. It was my first pc in 7 years. There it was the power switch. I prayed my machine was not going to explode and ruin the $1800 I'd paid for the parts - Click- it starts to power up no explosion wait wait beep beep whaaaaaa........... I eventualy found that I could not have both ram sticks in as dual channel from the original installation post. After being dumb founded for about 45 minutes and tripple checking my connections I pull out one stick and hit the power button and Whallaa... it started to post. After I got XP installed I just put the other stick in and it self configured. Now that I think about it it was the MSI LED dianostic card that came with my MB that tip me in the right direction. I went to my MB manual and that LED was associated with a memmory problem. I knew I had them in the right channels, it just needed to boot up on 1 stick first. Horrified my poor noob heart for 45 minutes then made me feel like king of the world when I solved it

 

[doox00]

you WILL need to flash your bios in order for your X2 to be recognized. I've been using the 623-3 bios and it works great.

As for your Northbridge, i read that the Evercool VC-RE vga cooler will fit on the board under a 7800GTX. I just got one in the mail yesterday, and am going to be seeing if it fits this weekend. Supposadly, it'll keep your chipset cooler AND its significantly less noisy. It was only like $12 shipped, so i figured i'd give it a go. I'm going to be taking some digi pics this weekend of my watercooled P180 rig and posting them on this forum (as a couple of people have requested them), so i'll get some pics if the Evercool fits as well.

Let me know please how that turns out as I would be interested in picking one up if it does a good job cooling.

thanks

 

[rincewind]

Okay, having used this for a couple of days it *IS NOT* stable. Went back to stock speeds but that doesn't seem to be the problem. Sometimes it doesn't POST, other times I get weird errors logging into Windows and twice I got a BSOD during bootup - page fault in nonpaged area. Tried a single stick of RAM and that doesn't help. So I reinstalled XP and put SP2 on - this went wrong twice and eventually had to get a copied version of a full SP2 install which also meant I had to use a dodgy key. I've manually changed it back so I can use Windows Update.

Is there a disk controller problem? I only ask because I had to install Windows on the Samsung Spinpoint as I got file copy errors when trying to use my old IDE drives (either via an ATA cable or using a SATA adapter). I'm worried about losing my data and have unplugged all the IDE drives now.

Rargh, I bought what I thought was a going to be a great and nicely overclockable setup - it isn't even stable running stock

 

[doox00]

You did or did not get a true 24 pin power supply, these boards require it. If you are not running one make sure you get one and then see if there are problems.

 

[JediK]

You did or did not get a true 24 pin power supply, these boards require it. If you are not running one make sure you get one and then see if there are problems.

as his posts says.. he got a Enermax Liberty 620w.. thats more than enough for any system... it does include a 24pin..

 

[doox00]

ahh, missed that one the first dfi I got was doa too, well not doa.. but the usb ports where. rma'd it to newegg and the replacement has been rock solid

 

[rincewind]

My fault for using F@H and 3DMark2001 to stress the system

Prime95 ran the small FFT tests for a couple of hours (when I stopped it), but errored within 1 minute on the large FFT and blend tests even at 200x10. Ran Memtest86 for the first time ever (I don't own a working FDD and only noticed the option in the BIOS yesterday) which confirmed that the memory is borked. And I can't find the receipt (although I did find a receipt for a S3 Trio graphics card - yikes, how old must that be!)

Thinking back, P95 failed the same tests on the old AthlonXP system - however, *that* never had any issues and ran 24/7 so I guess it's more of a problem when using an on-die memory controller?

Can anyone recommend a good 2Gb kit that's available in the UK?

 

[roninblade]

Eureka - turns out the RAM wasn't working in slots 1 & 3. I moved the dimms to slots 2 & 4 and it booted. And I now have a shiny new Enermax Liberty 620w to throw in

Need to set up a 120mm fan to add blow cool air over the northbridge area, as the chipset is running at 46 degrees idle with the 7800GTX obstructing it
That isn't going to leave much room for overclocking (the whole reason I bought this infernal mobo).

Because XP refused to install correctly to any of the unused partitions on my IDE drives, I've had to use my new SATA as the boot device. Anyone know if drive corruption is still an issue with the NForce4 SATA controller at high HTT speeds (I've flashed to the latest BIOS) ? Thought I'd ask before doing any overclocking!

i had the same problem with my ballistix and my A8N-Sli Dlx, does it mean that either slot 1 or 3 is broke?

 

[rincewind]

i had the same problem with my ballistix and my A8N-Sli Dlx, does it mean that either slot 1 or 3 is broke?

Have you run Memtest?

As you have to use 2T command rate with 4 banks installed, It may be that two of the slots are only intended for the second pair of modules and therefore won't work at 1T. Just a guess - these A64 platforms are complex compared to anything I've built or owned before.