Athlon64/9800 Pro build problem

[dorkus_malorkus]

I am having a problem getting my new build to boot. I have built 4 or 5 computers in the past but having trouble with this one. It will actually boot with my old TI 4200 card. Specs:

Athlon 64 3200+
1 gig OCZ PC3200
ASRock K8S8X
DVDRW
WD SE 80gb IDE drive
floppy
Raidmax 420W power supply
Thermaltake heatsink

I have tried unhooking everything besides the gfx card and cpu and that did not work. I initially thought I had a bad motherboard based on some strange beep codes I was getting. I am not sure if it's a bad card as I have never been able to use it or if it might be a bios thing (I'm new to ATI cards). I have not had a chance to go into the bios and look around. Anyone have experience with this board/bios and/or this card? I originally got this video card for my old computer but could not use it with the board as it was incompatible with the AGP 3.0 spec (abit kx7333) and I rma'ed it to replace it with out success. I have now built a new comp and still don't know if it's a "good" card or not.

 

[scottchen]

ASSRock i just don't like the sound of that. Get rid of that mobo, because it honestly SUCKS!! Stay away from those SiS sh*ts, get a decent Asus/MSI/Gigabyte/Chaintech NForce3 250 of VIA K8T800 mobo.

Okay enough of that, try 1 stick of ram first, in all different dim slots, then check CPU installation, make sure you didn't bend any pins. And don't forget the auxillary 12V power if the mobo requires it. If you've checked everything, and still doesn't work, then RMA time.

<A HREF="http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/myrig.php?do=view&id=17301" target="_new">My PC</A>

 

[Crashman]

LOL, first of all, let me just do you a favor and tell you you're wrong.

You see, the card should have worked fine with your ksux7..er, kx7333, as the 9800 Pro is compatable with AGP1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. All 3. Doesn't require AGP8x. Doesn't even require AGP4x, it can run (although slower) at 2x. Doesn't require 0.8v either, can run with 0.8v, 1.5v, and 3.3v signals.

It DOES require you have an adequate power supply, and that you connect a 4-pin power connection from the power supply directly to the 4-pin header on the card.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[dorkus_malorkus]

As far as the 9800/Abit thing, I know the 9800 pro is backward compatible with the AGP 2.0 mb's. I made sure of that when I bought it, but there have been numerous posts on Abit's forums of people with situations similar to the one I had. Many of them rma'ed the card multiple times. It may be an abit thing, I don't know. I sure didn't want to believe it, I'll tell you that much. I rma'ed it just in case and the same result with my replacement. All this being said, I have seen people running the kx7333/9800pro combo (in their sigs and such). I was going to get a second computer anyway so I went ahead and got the parts.

If it was the power supply, wouldn't you think 420W would have been enough to power just the processor, video card (on it own chain) and some case fans. My previous ps that I tried with this card is an Antec 430W.

The AMD64 computer is working just fine right now with my TI4200 in there. scottchen, what's wrong with ASRock and SiS? I really had a hard time finding a board that seemed like it would be stable not that there was anything all that special about SiS, but I had read some posts by people that had good luck with it and the price was right. I went ahead and rma'ed the radeon for the second time as it would not even post and the TI would, just to be certain.

 

[Crashman]

420W doesn't mean anything to me without a good name to back up that rating. Did you connect the 4-pin power header from the power supply to the video card?

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[dorkus_malorkus]

Yeah, I connected it on it's own chain just to make sure.

 

[scottchen]

You know you could've gotten a GAK8T800(i'm not sure about the exact name) It's very cheap and much more reliable, and performs better than the SIS mobo by Asrock/ECS.

<A HREF="http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/myrig.php?do=view&id=17301" target="_new">My PC</A>

 

[dorkus_malorkus]

Have you had an SiS board and didn't like it? Just curious why you dislike them. I really didn't pick it for the price but I have 30 days to return it for a refund so I may end up doing that (of course minus 15% restock and shipping). We'll see. I was going to go with a K8T800 board or the nforce 3 250 but just didn't and got tired of trying to decide. The only asrock review I could find was on ocworkbench.com and it seemed like the perfomance was fairly comparable to the other boards but I don't know how reputable that site is.

 

[scottchen]

If there's a restocking fee don't bother, i hate ASROCK/ECS because they don't allow fine-tuning, and SiS chipset generally don't overclock well. Asrock/ECS offers like no warranty, Gigabyte on the other hand has 3 years. The larger brands have more frequent bios updates, the larger name chipsets also has more driver udpates. The updates generally increase performance, and fixes bugs.

<A HREF="http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/myrig.php?do=view&id=17301" target="_new">My PC</A>

 

[dorkus_malorkus]

Yeah, the bios update thing occured to me after I received the board. I previously was considering the MSI "K8T Neo-FIS2R" or the ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" but for some reason I decided to scrap the whole VIA thing and can't remember why. So many decisions when you are picking parts for an entire computer. As far as overclocking goes, I am not real big on that because I love to put them together and tinker with them but I don't have the kind of time to do that for very long. The restocking fee doesn't really bother me. If I decide I don't like the board it will be worth the total of $20 in addition to the price difference it will cost to get a nicer one. And now that I think about it that second dimm slot did not really seat to well and actually lock in place. This computer is my "unstable branch" to kind of experiment a bit on. I have my old one with all my our documents and things like that for stability's sake. Sorry for heading OT on this thread. Any more thoughts on the video card issue?

 

[dorkus_malorkus]

I received my second replacement in for my radeon and it booted no problem. I also ordered the ASUS K8V SE Deluxe and the card booted in both the ASRock and the new board. Everything is working fine except when I boot (using the new board), after post and the asus logo screen appears the computer does a little reboot and then boots into windows. It's kind of like everything shuts off for a split second and then finishes booting. I have looked around in the bios some and not been able to fix it. It seems like I had read about someone having a similar problem awhile back but now I don't know what it was related to. It may be a power supply thing so I am going to change around the connections on the power supply lines and see if it helps. Any suggestions are appreciated.