Strange behavior on first POST

[robucf4]

Components are in my signature...

So last night I finally finish putting everything together, I fire it up and OMG it's alive... in any case it prompts me for a boot disc, and while I am looking for my Win XP CD, the system starts to turn itself on and off. Strangest thing I have ever seen. Seemed like a short or something so I turned it off and checked all connections. I then started it up again and was able to install XP without any issues along with a quick memtest on my next boot. I am wondering if this is something I should be concerned with. After that initial weirdness, it seemed to work fine. I will have more time to test today.

Something else I noticed was the CPU fan would run for 1 sec then stop, 1 sec then stop, after the PC was on for a while the fan ran on low speed consistently... so freakin weird.

 

[darksidedragon]

I'm sure you've already done this, but just check the fan connector on the CPU fan and make sure it's seated correctly.

 

[coronaz]

This mobo protects itself by powering itself off if it doesn't like clock speeds, e.g. FSB, memory.. This may happen on first time boots.. might be a good idea to look at your clock speeds in BIOS.. and while you're there check if Fan speed is on auto, probably is.. therefore fan won't immediately come on, until cpu heats up a bit.. probably after a min or so..

 

[robucf4]

This mobo protects itself by powering itself off if it doesn't like clock speeds, e.g. FSB, memory.. This may happen on first time boots.. might be a good idea to look at your clock speeds in BIOS.. and while you're there check if Fan speed is on auto, probably is.. therefore fan won't immediately come on, until cpu heats up a bit.. probably after a min or so..

Hmm on first boot I did go in and change the RAM timings to 4-4-4-12 but now that I think back I did not up the voltage to 2.1 as per the RAM specs. I think the default is 1.8? Thanks for the heads up on the board it freaked me out when it starting turning itself on and off, thought it was an electrical problem. Besides the RAM everything else was at stock, so I hope it was the RAM that caused the strange behavior. Last night when I installed Windows I did not up the voltage on the RAM (as mentioned, I forgot to) but everything seemed fine, I guess the first boot it did not like something.

 

[coronaz]

Hey just be thankful that it booted back up :lol:

When I've experimented with overclocking I've had some really scary moments where I thought I'd killed it! Just would not want to switch back on! but always does eventually... last resort clear the BIOS.

If you set the system voltages to auto you should be ok.. my mem is supposed to run at 2.2v but the mobo runs it ok on auto at 2.1v.

 

[robucf4]

Hey just be thankful that it booted back up :lol:

When I've experimented with overclocking I've had some really scary moments where I thought I'd killed it! Just would not want to switch back on! but always does eventually... last resort clear the BIOS.

If you set the system voltages to auto you should be ok.. my mem is supposed to run at 2.2v but the mobo runs it ok on auto at 2.1v.

Don't say that I have really bad luck, last build for my wife, the PSU and RAM were bad, had to RMA both at my expense and of course wait 2 weeks for the replacements.

It's been many moons since I got back into building a PC, its cool nowadays components protect themselves from newbs :lol:

Does auto do a good job? I know on the p5n-e I have, you manually had to set it. Once I get home, I will run orthos and some other stuff to make sure all is well, then OC to 3.2

One of the reasons I bought this mobo is because so many people own it, and have owned it for a while. So getting help from folks like you will be great.

 

[dietzjack]

Auto=Not so good performance. Its the compatibility setting. If you are replacing RAM modules, its a good idea to set the memory to auto, replace the modules, and then set the timing to the new memory specs.
For things like "HDD0" auto is fine - it means in this case to detect at boot whether or not there is a device connected in that slot. If you set it to "Disable" it won't check that slot.

 

[robucf4]

I am having ram related issues, Memtest failed after 2 hours with 1 error in pass 5... Orthos fails with the infamous rounding error in like 10 secs. The RAM I have (see sig) says it runs at 2.1V, I currently have it set to auto which I am not sure what it is set to. The bios is odd, it has 0.1, 0.2, etc as ram voltage options. Is the default 1.8? and I need to choose 0.3 for 2.1? I am hoping it's a voltage thing, I have read that the C4's are picky. If it is the ram this will be the 2nd bad set in my 2nd build =/

Anyhow any help appreciated.


EDIT: I used their easy tune software, it showed the RAM voltage as 1.8 so I added 0.3 to bring it to the 2.1 that it should be. Orthos running 15 mins with no errors<knock on wood>.

 

[coronaz]

Yeh if the BIOS doesn't detect that you need 2.1v for your RAM then manually set it like you've done i.e. 1.8v + 0.3v..

Glad to hear its all working..