#163257 - 29/05/2003 12:06
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Why the hell did they need to introduce yet another 12V power connector??? So that when I built my new system, I'd have yet another wire coming from the PS that I would have to tie back somehow. It's quite annoying.
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Matt
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#163258 - 29/05/2003 12:26
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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[->Brett]
Heres an article explaining the issues, it does mention abit boards with the nforce chipset... Hmm. Thanks for the link. That's definitely me, though this is "Revision 2.0" of the Abit NF7-S, and I think a lot of the BIOS-related problems were fixed. That doesn't mean I'm out of the woods, though. I will give the "hold insert key" thing a shot, among other tricks I have planned this evening.
[->Bitt]
Note the date on the article. I knew about these, and I haven't purchased a computer since then, much less built one. You need to find the person that's supposed to keep you up to date on such things and give them a good talking to. I guess I saw this coming but thought it would just affect P4 users. I guess that's what ABit means when they say it's "optional." They're probably just providing it so that people with those connectors don't feel like they forgot to connect something. <those famous last words>But I guess if it's optional, it can't hurt to have extra juice available... </those famous last words>
[->All]
Boy this is fun stuff!
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#163259 - 29/05/2003 12:35
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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old hand
Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
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That's definitely me, though this is "Revision 2.0" of the Abit NF7-S, and I think a lot of the BIOS-related problems were fixed. That doesn't mean I'm out of the woods, though. I will give the "hold insert key" thing a shot, among other tricks I have planned this evening.
One way to know if you have one of the boards that doesn't suffer, from the article I'm gathering is if there is a jumper to reset the FSB, also, the insert key trick might not work on all the boards with this issue... That might just be a shuttle thing, if you have an old athlon processor with 100mhz fsb, you might have to use that to force the board back into 100mhz mode... And from what I'm gathering it might be a pain in the ass to get it back to POSTing properly if in fact this turns out to be your issue.
BTW, I bought my shuttle less then 3 weeks ago, the guy had literly pulled it off the truck, and I had this crap happening 
Edited by lopan (29/05/2003 12:39)
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Brett
60Gb MK2a with Led's
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#163260 - 29/05/2003 12:44
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Hmm. Sounds like I'll try my Duron in there and see if he's happy. The fact that the article mentions that is very reassuring, I thought that 100 FSB processors wouldn't work in newer mobos. I'm gonna give this a shot tonight if the other strategies don't achieve the desired effect.
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#163261 - 29/05/2003 12:51
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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old hand
Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
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I thought that 100 FSB processors wouldn't work in newer mobos.
I didn't think so either til all that happened with my shuttle, but really if you have the option in the bios to set it to 100 FSB why wouldn't it? It's not like the pin config is changing or it's a completely new architecture. I'm just agitated I didn't find that article before I took the machine back... would've saved me 25 bucks
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Brett
60Gb MK2a with Led's
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#163262 - 29/05/2003 13:02
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: wfaulk]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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eliminate RS232
But that would preclude having a serial console, at least without additional hardware.
Maybe. Alternatively, consider changing to TTL level 3-wire serial over an RJ connector, and fix the bios issue at the same time. Nearly (if not) all modern RS232 transceivers and UARTs are capable of supporting this. That might introduce less robustness in the signalling (and hence shorter maximum cable lengths) but for 99+% of applications that probably isn't ever going to be an issue. For local admin of headless servers then a short cable is fine, and for remote admin, current server densities virtually dictate a terminal server per rack anyway.
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Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#163263 - 29/05/2003 17:56
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: genixia]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Well, I have progress to report... Tried the "easy" tests (hold down insert, mobo outside case, etc) with no joy. Swapped in the Duron 800 from my other box and it POSTed, I had display, a single beep, etc. So it would appear my Athlon XP 1700 is dead. Which I don't get, because CPU temps never went high, I never changed the voltage, etc. No cracked die or sign of any "damage" to the CPU... But given the fact that the mobo/RAM are okay for at least POSTing, the CPU would seem to be the culprit. Which really bites.
So I guess I've got to send it back to NewEgg, and pay their damn 15% restocking fee, not to mention they subtract for "current market value" of the CPU. I'm now debating whether to return it to them for a replacement or just return it for a refund and look elsewhere for another Athlon CPU.
I just wish I had some idea of what went wrong with this thing. When I looked in the "health monitor" the CPU temperature never went over 52 or 53 degrees. Don't they do burn-in tests of these things before they ship?
Oh well. Time to put everything back together and pack up the frickin' CPU. Thanks for all the tips, guys. Glad I didn't send my motherboard back!
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#163264 - 29/05/2003 18:26
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Weird. I've had a CPU just die on me as well though.
I was building 4 identical systems and the parts were all bought from the same supplier and at the same time. One of them just wouldn't stay up for more than an hour or two before it would reboot by itself. In the end by swapping components between the machines I found out that the CPU was just bad. Sent it back to be replaced and it's been working fine ever since.
- Trevor
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#163265 - 29/05/2003 19:00
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Yeah. I'll see how it goes. Sucks that NewEgg is in California so I won't be seeing a replacement for 2 weeks, if I'm lucky.
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#163266 - 29/05/2003 19:41
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Well, if you were an asshole, you could purchase one at a local retailer and then return the defective one to them.
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Bitt Faulk
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#163267 - 29/05/2003 19:50
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Well, if you were an [censored], you could purchase one at a local retailer and then return the defective one to them. They charge a 15% restocking fee to cover such situations. Besides, I'm sure they'd notice the serial# or manufacture date were different, or something like that. And 1700XP+'s are becoming scarce, as AMD pushes newer, faster chips into the market.
Oh, and I'm not an [censored]. At least not in that particular way. 
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#163268 - 30/05/2003 01:32
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/05/2001
Posts: 2616
Loc: Bruges, Belgium
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Well, whenever I wanted to check if a CPU was really dead I'd put my finger on it and then turned on the computer. If I could feel the CPU heating up, I was pretty sure it wasn't dead and something else was causing the problem. If I couldn't feel it heating up, I knew it was dead.
This method has always worked for me in the past.
Disclaimer : I've ALWAYS used this method on Intel CPU's, never on AMD's. The result should be the same, except that AMD's get a LOT hotter A LOT quicker.
If you try this method, be careful not to burn yourself.
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Riocar 80gig S/N : 010101580 red
Riocar 80gig (010102106) - backup
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#163269 - 30/05/2003 02:44
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: BartDG]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3995
Loc: Manchester UK
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In reply to:
AMD's get a LOT hotter A LOT quicker.
I can attest to that, I nearly had an athlon shaped burn on the palm of my hand a couple of weeks ago as a result of a failed CPU fan.
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Cheers,
Andy M
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#163270 - 30/05/2003 03:40
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: BartDG]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
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Not sure how good of an idea it is to do this to Athlon's! Some of the older ones had no thermal control hardware built in.
The Athlon would actually start to smoke after a few seconds without a heatsink. And once you've let the magic smoke out then won't work anymore.
- Trevor
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#163271 - 30/05/2003 03:50
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tman]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/05/2001
Posts: 2616
Loc: Bruges, Belgium
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True. I would suggest not running the CPU longer than 1-2 seconds without a heasink. (then just pull the power-plug)
That should be more than suffient to diagnose whether it heats up or not.
I do agree however that this method is better suited for Intel CPU's than AMD.
_________________________
Riocar 80gig S/N : 010101580 red
Riocar 80gig (010102106) - backup
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#163272 - 30/05/2003 07:23
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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old hand
Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
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my Athlon XP 1700 is dead
Did you try putting it back in after you tried the old duron? It might be fine.... If the fsb thing was the issue. Mine was...
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Brett
60Gb MK2a with Led's
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#163273 - 30/05/2003 07:29
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: BartDG]
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old hand
Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
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I would suggest not running the CPU longer than 1-2 seconds without a heasink.
I wouldn't even suggest that... I burned an older athlon (can't remember the speed, but it was 2 years ago) before the mother board had a chance to beep. Even when testing keep the heatsink on even if you have to hold it there by hand.
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Brett
60Gb MK2a with Led's
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#163274 - 30/05/2003 07:52
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Did you try putting it back in after you tried the old duron? It might be fine.... If the fsb thing was the issue. Mine was... Yeah, tried that, no dice. Right now I'm running with my Duron in the new motherboard, and I'm sending the AthlonXP back to Newegg. I might swap the Athlon in one more time before I send 'er out just in case, but it definitely seems to be the CPU that's to blame.
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#163275 - 30/05/2003 08:27
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Oh, another goofy thing that's happening with my system as presently constituted... I've got a CD-RW drive and a CD-ROM drive on my secondary IDE channel, but when they're both connected, the CD-RW drive doesn't work, regardless of what Master/Slave settings are used. I've tried:
CD-RW Master, CD-ROM Slave
CD-ROM Master, CD-RW Slave
Both drives Cable Select (with both combinations of Master/Slave via cable select)
The symptoms are weird. As the BIOS bootup messages scroll by with the listing of the IDE drives, the CD-RW drive shows up with a goofy garbled text string (with lots of high ASCII characters and such) as if some kind of corruption is going on. Without the CD-ROM drive, it shows up properly and works fine.
So, my question is, has anyone ever seen a situation where two drives on an IDE chain don't play nicelky together? It's always the CD-RW drive that gets messed up, the CD-ROM drive works fine in either configuration, but it seems to be screwing up the CD-RW.
I don't think this is related to my new motherboard, since I never tried these two drives together on my old one.. I'm operating under the assumption this is due to one of the drives being flaky, not something related to the motherboard. But I've never seen anything like this, so I figured I'd ask.
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#163276 - 30/05/2003 08:47
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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old hand
Registered: 28/01/2002
Posts: 970
Loc: Manassas VA
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Sorry to hear about the processor, that sucks... as far as the IDE thing goes, are you using one of those newer "aerodynamic" cables? You know the ones that are round to create better air circulation in your case like this? I've had nothing but problems with cables like this, dunno it may just be me. But I always end up using regular flat cables to avoid issues. But yes I've seen flakiness like that..
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Brett
60Gb MK2a with Led's
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#163277 - 30/05/2003 09:12
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Nah, standard flat ATA100 cable. Very weird. I love this motherboard, but kinda miss having 4 IDE chains to play with.
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#163278 - 30/05/2003 09:17
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: lopan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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That's a good point. I had problems with my hard disks in my new system when I put it together, and switching out the fancy round silver cables for the boring grey things that came with the mobo worked like a charm.
Although, I seem to remember having this problem before as well, and it wasn't related to the cables or anything (I think). My solution may have been to simply stop using one of the drives, althought that's not a very graceful one.
has anyone ever seen a situation where two drives on an IDE chain don't play nicelky together? I don't remember seeing a situation where they did I hate the whole system.
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Matt
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#163279 - 30/05/2003 09:21
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Although, I seem to remember having this problem before as well, and it wasn't related to the cables or anything (I think). My solution may have been to simply stop using one of the drives, althought that's not a very graceful one. Yeah. I *really* wanted these two to work in this system, since the CD-ROM drive is 52X and my CD-RW is only 40X. The CD-ROM has much faster audio extraction as well. This is what I get for taking parts from three different computers and thinking I will get a working system in the end.
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#163280 - 30/05/2003 09:28
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Last winter, I attempted to have 3 drives in my PC: a DVDROM, CD-RW, and DVD±RW. The CD-RW was on a SCSI drive so I knew that would work. Unfortunately, the Toshiba DVDROM didn't want to play nice with the newer, bigger, better Sony DRU500, so it pouted and wouldn't play at all. I figured hey, this drive could easily replace the other two (which were both about 3 years old). Hell, every spec was superior to the old drives in every category.
I think the DVD burner is the only one hooked up now
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Matt
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#163281 - 30/05/2003 10:23
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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journeyman
Registered: 02/04/2002
Posts: 56
Loc: Las Vegas
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Obvious but necessary question: Have you tried using a different cable? How long is the IDE cable you're trying to use? I have had devices that were extra-sensitive to this and work fine with shorter runs.
Also, have you looked for firmware updates for the drives in question?
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#163282 - 30/05/2003 11:02
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: davekirk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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How long is the IDE cable you're trying to use? The cable is pretty standard length. The two drives are at the top of my mid-tower case and the cable just barely reaches. All the cables I have are the same length and, yes, I tried swapping in another cable, with the same results. In fact, the exact same sequence of goofy high-ASCII characters when it reports the drive's name and model number.
Also, have you looked for firmware updates for the drives in question? Yeah, but to apply the firmware, I need to be able to boot to DOS, and, interestingly enough, neither of my floppy drives are working. Can you tell it hasn't been my finest hour in my PC building career?  I planned on making a bootable DOS CD-RW, but didn't get to it last night amongst all the other problems.
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#163283 - 30/05/2003 12:20
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3583
Loc: Columbus, OH
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Sounds like there's some bad karma there...When that sort of thing happens to me, I usually just return the board, memory, and CPU...It's not worth the trouble of wrestling with it for the remainder of its life. In my experience, even if you get it working...a flakey board never works quite right.
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~ John
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#163284 - 30/05/2003 12:27
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12318
Loc: Sterling, VA
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But it sounds like he doesn't know exactly what it is. Though I suppose the only clean solution would be to return it all, like you said.
My dad's work machine had bizzare issues. It would load certain things, like network drives, veeeery slowly. Eventually the Dell representative replaced the memory, ghosted to a new hard drive, upgraded to Win2K (from 98SE), and finally replaced the whole mobo. When those problems still wouldn't go away, they said screw it and put it in a low traffic area. Never did solve it. I guess some machines are just duds
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Matt
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#163285 - 30/05/2003 19:03
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 08/02/2002
Posts: 3411
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For kicks try an older 40 wire cable. I had a bizarre problem where I couldn't get a bios to recognise a DVD drive using an 80 wire cable but worked fine with the older cable.
_________________________
Mk2a 60GB Blue. Serial 030102962
sig.mp3: File Format not Valid.
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#163286 - 30/05/2003 19:35
Re: My new motherboard is dead?
[Re: tonyc]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/06/2000
Posts: 1682
Loc: Greenhills, Ohio
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Did you try one drive on the primary as a slave and the other on the secondary? Might work that way even if it is a longshot.
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Laura
MKI #017/90
whatever
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