Help with New A7N8X Installation

[gkennedy34]

Howdy, all. I just bought an Asus A7N8X motherboard, an AMD 2100+ retail processor, and a stick of 256MB of Corsair DDR400 ram to upgrade my computer. I've hit a snag and am looking for any advice or help you can give. I should preface by saying that I've built probably six or so computers over the years, so I'm somewhat familiar with the process.

Installation notes:

1. Removed old motherboard and 300W power supply from case.
2. Installed new motherboard (w/CPU & fan) and new 430W (Antec TruePower) power supply into case.
3. Installed my Chaintech GeForce4 4200 AGP video card.
4. Connected all drives using old master/slave cabling onto motherboard.
5. Connected remaining Asus motherboard I/O (USB, gameport, firewire, etc.).
6. Connected all case switches and LEDs to motherboard.
7. Connected all power cables to fans, drives, and motherboard.

After I finished the physical installation of hardware, I attached the monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. When I hit the power button for the first time, I heard a single POST "BEEP" and saw the Asus graphics. Then I hit [delete] to enter the CMOS. I changed the date, saw that my memory was detected correctly, and also saw that both my hard drives and my DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives were detected with the proper master/slave relationships. I changed the processor Mhz to 133 and finally changed my boot up sequence to: Floppy, CD-Rom (I didn't want to boot from my hard drive as I had Windows 98 on there and wanted to start fresh with Windows XP). I hit F10 to save and exit, confirmed that I wanted to save and exit and then, after a few seconds, the monitor went in standby mode and nothing happened (I was expecting a reboot to occur).

I waited for a few minutes and finally powered down the system. Powering up the system the second time was much different. There was no beep telling me that it POSTed and I got no video at all. Since then I have done several things such as reset the CMOS manually (removing battery and temporarily moving the reset jumper), checking connections, etc. Nothing has helped and I get no video and no beeping.

My plan is to try the CPU/memory in a friend's mobo, but also to strip down the computer to where I've only got a floppy or one harddrive connected. I'll also look to see if I'm shorting the board out as suggested in the Motherboard FAQ. Anyone have any other advice or insight?

Thanks in advance.

gk


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by gkennedy34 on 01/30/03 02:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[JonB]

I could be wrong, but it sounds like you're not booting off anything. Is the hard drive included in your boot sequence at all? If you want to start fresh w/ XP, you need to boot in DOS and format the drive, and then partition it.

"Consiousness of the past alone
can make us understand the present" - Herbert Luethy

 

[gkennedy34]

Hit power button, fans hum, hard drives go through their power on sequence, and no beep - no video.

It's not booting. However, it's not even getting to the point to where it could boot. I can't change any CMOS settings at all right now even if I wanted to tell it to boot off of the hard drive.

Help!

 

[jlanka]

well, are you sure you cleared CMOS properly? You have to unplug the power supply while you're doing it. The battery trick will only work if you leave it out for a while. It definitely sounds like something went wrong with the FSB -> 133 setting.

Doesn't sound like a case grounding issue because it worked once OK.

When building, I don't like to attach everything right away. I'll leave off IDE cables, etc. until it looks stable at the setting I change in the BIOS.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[gkennedy34]

I'm pretty sure the case was unplugged (I'm pretty psycho about unplugging things when I work on them). I'll pull the battery and do the jumper again for an hour or so just to be thorough.

There is a CPU FSB jumper. It's on the default setting of 333/266. I could switch it to FSB 200 only.

One other bit of info is that when I pulled my RAM and booted, I did get the voice message that RAM was not detected...so at least something is working on the mobo.

Thanks for the replies, guys. Keep 'em coming.

gk

 

[RCPilot]

Take out the graphic card & hit it. Then when it complains, shut down & clear the CMOS. Then stick in the vid card & have another go. I had the same thing happen when I fired one of those boards on a phone book. The vid card wiggled in the slot as it wasn't supported by anything but the slot. It did the same thing as you've got. It worked fine when I did it the way I just said. A7N8X is a funny board to play with, I mean set up.


I'm still learning & having fun doing it!! Trouble comes with the things you forget or overlook along the way that make it not so fun!!

 

[jakeandmoe]

Hey,

I just got a a7n8x too and had similar problems where the bios would not POST. The solution may surprise you but replacing the battery seems to fix it. If you have a Maxell CR2032 battery that came with the MB it does not have enough voltage to enable the BIOS. If you find a battery that has more than 3.2 Volts this should help (and it's cheap!).

Here's another thread you can look at: http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4633

 

[JonB]

<A HREF="http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4633" target="_new">http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4633</A>


"Consiousness of the past alone
can make us understand the present" - Herbert Luethy

 

[jakeandmoe]

sorry, forgot the link command. :redface:

 

[gkennedy34]

Thanks for the tip about the battery. Unfortunately, I bought one at Radio Shack (Sony brand) and it didn't change anything. I did measure the voltage of what I had in there originally, another battery I had in my old motherboard, and the Sony one and the voltages were 3.2, 3.2, and 3.3 respectively.

I just got back from my friend's house where we tested my CPU and memory in his system. They both checked out fine. Looks like I've got a motherboard that's the problem. There are only so many jumpers on this thing, so I'm quickly running out of options.

If anyone else has any ideas, please give them to me before I end up sending this board back and waiting for a replacement.

Thanks.

gk