A7N8X-E deluxe slow POST

[PGH_Bob]

Hey there,

I have just assembled a new system and the POST takes almost 7 minutes to complete. The components I am using are an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe MB, AMD Athlon XP 3200+, Corsiar TwinX PC 3200 LL (2 @ 512 MB), WD 80gig HD 7200 rpm ATA-100, ATI AIW Radeon 9800 PRO, and ARTEC 56X CD-rom. The computer starts without any problems but the POST is running in slow motion. When it gets to the end I have the BIOS set to boot from the CD-rom which has my Windows XP installation disk in it. I thought it froze here but on one of the attempts I let it go and like at least 15 minutes had passed and it started to load the O/S. However eventually the setup program terminates with a message that the installation program was unable to find a valid hard drive. I then procedded to try this hard drive in my old computer and it was recognized and I proceeded to partition and format it. I replaced it in my new system and even swapped IDE cables. No change. The Hard drive and CD-rom are recognized in the BIOS though. I borrowed a 256MB stick of Crucial PC 3200 memory from a friend but this had no effect either. I returned the motherboard for an even exchange next and the new motherboard exhibits the exact same problem. I have even put in an old PCI video card and this did not improve the post speed. This is only the 3rd system I have built and the first time it didn't work for the most part. I hope some one here with a bit more knowledge can suggest what to do next, ASUS support has not been any help. They have had me remove the board out of the case and try to boot up because their tech thought it was grounding out but this did not have any effect either. He feels that if it is not grounding out then the memory must be incompatible and suggests I buy something else or possiblY my power supply is insufficient. The PSU is an Austin 450 watt model Last thing he could think of is that my CPU is bad but I feel he is just guessing?? Thanks

Bob

 

[stupid_tech_geek]

Your power supply should be fine. You might want to check the jumpers on the original hard drive and cd rom. Also, I'd check the position on the ide cable. The master drive should be attached to the end of the cable. If it's not then you might have the answer to your problem. Make sure you put your cd rom on another ide channel as it tends to use a lot of power. I've had this problem before and it can be maddening to isolate the problem. What bios are you running? You might want to reset to default and see if there's a change.

A7n8x dlx 1004 Uber Agressive settings
2500Barton (Bastards locked it) Radeon 9200
WD 60g @7200w 8mg Cache Crucial 2700 2x 256
AMD ME??? Yeah they did me alright.

 

[SoDNighthawk]

In your BIOS set the system to auto assign all hardware devices. Wait I need my book its like all by its self the set-up section in the BIOS for that hold on one sec

<---reading manual...... Ah here it is I just wanted to double check the info.

Make sure you go into the BIOS then into the Advanced TAB then select the PnP/PCI Configuration. Set the RESOURCES CONTROLLED BY option to AUTO(ESCD) this will make sure your system auto assigns IRQ steering to all your hardware devices and it will configure them to best suit the hardware you have with as little IRQ overlap as possible.

Note* After you have your OS installed never go back and reset that option then try to boot to windows you will ruin the OS install I have done it. I used to always choose my own IRQ's but that was a few years back when you almost had to manually configure the IRQ resources but now I let the Motherboard and BIOS choose best settings.

This should enable you to see the hard drive and cd-rom drive in the first screen of your BIOS that shows bootable devices. If you are still having problems spotting the hard drive do an FDISK with a WIN98 floppy and remove any NTFS or DOS partitions then do a low level FORMAT C: and reformat the drive on a new active C: Partition.

Later when you go to install XP choose to overwrite the DOS partition with the XP NTFS file system and it will put a new format on the drive in NTFS file format. Some times with a new drive XP will not see it without an active boot sector so putting an old style active DOS partition and then doing a DOS format enable XP to see the drive and then put a proper NTFS file structure into it.

Oh when you are in there make sure you have Palette Snoop Disabled that is for old type Graphics cards and not required in new computers or new graphics cards. In fact I am still amazed to see manufacturers still include that option in the new BIOS revisions it is not needed any more at all.

I hope this helps hows that for online real time tech support.


Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 Crucial DDR 400 PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Two Maxtor 40Gig 8MB cach 7200rpm
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Oh Crap make sure the jumpers on the back of the actual hard drive are in the right spot!! Make sure its not set to cable select that sucks ass set the damn thing to Master jumper locations and if it says to remove the jumper to enable Master then do that because you proly have a Western Digital drive if it is a Maxtor or possibly a Segate drive you will need to install the Jumper to the Master jumper location.

Most new drives come with the jumper set to cable select and that means it looks for the first boot hardware device that is plugged into the primary IDE connection of the motherboard so if you have 1 ribbon cable and you have both the hard drive and the CD-ROM on the same cable that can cause problems.

If you want real performance never hook a CD-ROM drive up on the same cable as a hard drive. The seek times of a CD-ROM drive are much slower then a the ns of a Hard Drive and the computer will operate the whole P.C off the slowest speed it see's on the primary ribbon cable and that would be the CD-ROM drive.

If you can and have 2 cables put the Master hard Drive on one of them in connector 1 primary IO and the second cable alone with the CD-ROM on the Secondary 2 IO connector.

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 Crucial DDR 400 PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Two Maxtor 40Gig 8MB cach 7200rpm
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[PGH_Bob]

Thanks to all for the help. My system came to life last night and appears to be operating normally and stabily. There was definetely a conflict with my WD hard drive. I had the drive on the primary channel and the CD-Rom set to master on the second IDE channel. I set the BIOS to manual and selected the none option for the slave settings on both
channels. Finally in a bit of experimentation I set the primary master to none and viola the system POST went so fast I could not see it go by. I thought wow a bum drive but it's funny it works in my old computer but why not on the new one. I have a floppy with a proprietary WD diagnostic software and boot this up in the floppy and it sees my hard drive even though it is disabled in the BIOS! I ran all the diagnostic programs and it says my drive is in great shape, couldn't be better. Finally I start thinking that maybe if I try the WIN XP installation CD it will see the hard drive too. Sure enough the setup program sees the hard drive and asks if this is where I want to install the OS. I check yes and after 1 minor setback, I have to adjust BIOS back to auto detect for primary master, becase when it reboots in middle if installation of OS it started booting from CD-Rom, but after this installation goes smooth and even with BIOS back to autodetect POST is so fast. Not sure what the problem really was and hope there is no flaw that will pop up down the road but I am pretty euphoric at this moment. Thanks everyone!