a strange boot problem

[ccoutts]

Hi Rob,

First off, great site you've got, it was immensely helpful in picking my components and assembling everything.

Here's a list of my components:

Motherboard: ABIT AN9 32X NVIDIA socket AM2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ Dual Core socket AM2 Windsor 2.8 GHz
CPU cooler: Thermaltake Mini Typhoon
RAM: Crucial Ballistix DDR2 PC2-8000 Unbuffered DIMM 1GB*2
Graphics Card: EVGA e-GeForce 8800 GTS 576MHz 320MB 1.7GHz GDDR3
Power Supply: ULTRA X2 550W
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE 16 250GB 7200 16MB SATA-300
DVD Burner: Sony DRU830A 18X
Monitor: Samsung 931C 19inch LCD 1280*1024 2000:1 2ms

OK, so here's what happened:

First book was absolutely 'textbook', no problems, went just like you said on the website. So naturally I started hooking up the DVD burner and hard drive etc. Then, when I tried the second boot, the fans all turned on, but nothing was showing up on the screen. I tried rebooting, but it still wasn't working. I assumed that maybe I had done something wrong when installing the burner and hard drive, so I disconnected them both and tried first booting again, so to speak. Still wasn't working. So I cleared the CMOS using the jumpers. This time it did boot up and I was able to get to the BIOS menu, so I loaded the (supposedly) fail-safe defaults, saved, and restarted...and now it wasn't booting again, monitor was acting like it wasn't connected (as before), and the motherboard LED was displaying the POST code 2b, which apparently means "Invoke Video BIOS". I don't know what that means. I thought maybe I should reseat the video card, and I also tried installing it in the other PCI-E slot, both to no avail.

So that's what I tried at first. Since then I've tried various combinations of things, and here's what I've learned:

1) Clearing the CMOS memory fixes the boot problem every time, BUT...
2) Loading fail safe defaults then saving and exiting and allowing computer to reboot as part of the save and exit procedure of BIOS results in the boot problem, where the POST code is "invoke video BIOS".
3) After the boot problem occurs upon saving and exiting BIOS, if I power off the computer and then power it on again manually, it still doesn't boot, BUT I get a different POST code, which apparently means "Detect memory: auto-detect DRAM size, type and ECC, auto-detect L2 cache (socket 7 or below)".
4) Re-seating the RAM has no effect.
5) If, after clearing CMOS, I go into the BIOS, then exit without changing anything and WITHOUT SAVING, it reboots normally.
6) If I exit BIOS and save settings, EVEN IF I HAVEN'T ACTUALLY CHANGED ANYTHING, I get the boot problem.
7) When booting after clearing the CMOS and before hitting delete it says "CMOS checksum error - Defaults loaded" or something very similar. Does that mean that the fail-safe defaults are already loaded?

Anywho, this is where I'm at right now. I can't see how it could be a problem with the CPU or motherboard grounding, as clearing the CMOS is all that's needed to boot up normally. It just seems that if I save any settings in BIOS it ruins something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance...

Chris

[Rob]

Hi, Chris:

This sounds like a motherboard problem to me, so I would start with that. Maybe the BIOS can't handle such a fast processor. Possibly the battery-backup for the CMOS is bad.

It could be a problem with the RAM or video card (the code you're getting says the last thing that happened is that the video BIOS was invoked, so maybe things went bad there). But I'd start by suspecting the motherboard.

The ABIT forums look like they could be helpful. Here's a link.
http://forum.abit-usa.com/

[ccoutts]

Thanks for the reply Rob.

The thing is, in the meantime, I've tried a few things, including taking everything apart and re-assembling the pc from scratch. That also didn't really work. So actually what I've done is just gone ahead and configured the BIOS as per your instructions. I just now saved and exited the BIOS and it appears to be ok...but I'm pretty wary about it all, as you might expect.

Anyway, I'm going to skip the data lifegaurd diagnostic due to a lack of a floppy drive. What I'm wondering is during the windows XP installation procedure will I be able to install the SATA drivers, which came with the motherboard in both floppy disk and a CDROM formats, without a floppy drive?

[ccoutts]

Oops, I forgot to mention that although the computer seems to be booting now, when it does the memory test, immediately following the beep, it takes FOREVER. Like, at least a minute...I'm pretty sure that's not normal.

[Rob]

If you're not using RAID then you may not need to install additional drivers. I didn't when I did the MSI K9N Platinum build.

Yeah, a minute sounds too long.

[ccoutts]

Hey Rob,

You're right, I didn't need drivers. XP is now successfully installed! Oh and the slow memory check thing? It must have been due to bad BIOS settings, because it was fine after I loaded the fail-safe defaults it was normal.

I do have another question though. When I partitioned the hard drive at the beginning of the installation process, I only made one partition...I guess I just assumed that once I made one partition (C: ) it would automatically assign the remaining space to D:, or something (I only wanted two partitions).

Anyways, so now only 'C:' shows up in 'My Computer'. Is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CDROM again and partition the rest of the drive somehow?

Thanks...