Problems with new build

[Lewis1_2_3]

Hi i posted this over at some AMD forums but though the more minds on it the better

so heres my problem

First of all this is my current setup

[CPU] AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (AM2)
[Motherboard] As-Rock AM2NF4G-SATA2
[Power supply] Hipper HPU-4S525 (525W)
[Memory] Corsair Value Select 1GB DDR2 667
[HDD] 300GB Maxtor Diamond Max Sata II
[DVD-R/W] Lite on DVD + - r/w dvd Ram drive (model unknown)
[DVD] Sony DVD rom drive

Firstly
I bought the bits from a computer store near me yesterday, spent all last night backing up and then set out to build this morning. Emptied my case and cleaned out well.

(DVD drives and fans were left in)

Put motherboard in and connected up the power, switch, reset buttons ect & front USB's

Put power supply in and fastened in position,

Put cpu in and Heatsink (after figuring out what the big lever does on the side of the heatsink)

Inserted hard drive rack

Inserted floppy drive rack

Connected things up to power and M/B


Turn on

And nothing happens. I then restart and it comes up.

Did this a few times but ever time it didn’t boot into bios first time. Had to be turned on and then hit the reset button.

Then I get boot failure, obvious I have to reinstall windows xp so, I go through the beginning of the pain full process, hit f6 to install a 3rd party or raid driver. Insert the floppy and setup says there is a file missing.

As I type this I am currently formatting My sata hdd. I managed to get past the problems I encountered before but I am still having trouble booting,

if it is being switched on then 99 times out of 100 ( I haven’t actually tried it that many times although it feels close) it wont boot into bios, and I have to hit restart button for it to work, although this only works around 7 out of 10 times.

just a few slight notes, the back plate - some of the little metal tabs that touch around the Ports (USB, Parralel, PS2 ect) aren’t touching, there fore I don’t think they are earthed. I don’t think this would effect it, ever since I got the case it has always seemed Slightly out of shape. Just thought I’d add that.

So, trouble booting into bios, sometimes boots some times doesn’t, oh and I don’t hear any beeps.

Any help would be very much appreciated
Lewis



- Update when windows Xp finished the first part of the setup, as usual it goes to reboot, so it re boots and it doesn’t. Nothing on the screen.

- Update 2 Got xp installed, but still doesnt boot bios when i turn on



any help from you marvelous guys (and gals) would be really great, i really wanna stick my AMD 64 case badge on, but i am not doing until i have got it working. very stuborn i am

Cheers
Lewis :wink:

[Galoku]

This is probably something not worth mentioning but did you put Heat paste/thermal compound on the cpu?
I had a problem with mine similar to your where I bought new things and thought i did all.. but it wouldnt go further than the bios. :shock: .. eventually i got into it and found out i was frying my CPU :shock:

After thermal compund problemo fixo :roll:

.. but i doubt its that. Maybe it got a static shock? :?:

[mac124]

Bios reset? Thats about the only thing i can think of, it almost sounds like the sort of thing that happens when a system is on the edge of stability through overclcocking. Not saying you have overclcocked it but if a bios setting was changed during motherboard testing then that might do it.

[Lewis1_2_3]

[quote:ba04bf9737=\"Galoku\"]This is probably something not worth mentioning but did you put Heat paste/thermal compound on the cpu?
I had a problem with mine similar to your where I bought new things and thought i did all.. but it wouldnt go further than the bios. :shock: .. eventually i got into it and found out i was frying my CPU :shock:

After thermal compund problemo fixo :roll:

.. but i doubt its that. Maybe it got a static shock? :?:[/quote:ba04bf9737]

Hi well i didnt put thermal compound on, but it was already on the bottom of the supplied AMD heatsink, so there was no need to. Thanks for the Suggestion,

As for static shock, well i touched the radiator, pipe & metal part of the valve every 2 mins so i dont think it was that.

Cheers Anyway.


[quote:ba04bf9737=\"mac124\"]Bios reset? Thats about the only thing i can think of, it almost sounds like the sort of thing that happens when a system is on the edge of stability through overclcocking. Not saying you have overclcocked it but if a bios setting was changed during motherboard testing then that might do it.[/quote:ba04bf9737]

Thanks mac, ill try this when i can be botherd to get out of bed. :D (on laptop at the moment)

Ill get back to you as soon as ive done it.

Thanks To Both Of you
Lewis :wink:

[Lewis1_2_3]

Rite i flashed the Bios,

and well now nothing is working

i turn on and the fans start spinning but nothing comes up, even after i hit the restart button still nothing happens

Any ideas any1??

Cheers
Lewis

[Lewis1_2_3]

Ok so I found the memory was faulty, now I'm having trouble re installing windows, after the first stage of setup (in the dos style setup) then after restart the HDD wont boot, I keep getting a ‘system/system32/ntdll.sys’ error or something.

One of my tutors said it would be either the HDD or CD that is knackered. but i've heard of trouble with installing windows on DVD ROM or R/W.

I’m now installing with a CD drive i’ve scavenged from a spare pc.

So far so good, the HDD completed a full format (I though SATA2 was meant to be fast, it took ages to fully format, and there were no files on it ! ! ! ) copying setup files now.

will update later. as I need to post some pics of my rig in the gaming section

Cheers
Lewis

[mac124]

Glad your making progress mate, and large HDD do take AAAAAAGGGGEEEEESSSSS to format. :wink:

[Lewis1_2_3]

Oh, please dont remind me, lol

Well it actually looks like after all the sloooooooooooooooowww formatting, my hard drives bust.

Now, i cant really blame aria, but 2 bust hard drives in less than 3 months. im sure most people would find that annoying

But usal aria service should be able to cheer me up :D


Lewis
:wink:

[Belso]

Thats because your using Maxtor.

Buy a Seagate and all your troubles will disapear.

Also replace that IDE Cable just incase :)

[Lewis1_2_3]

I've tried with different cables,

And for Maxtor, well I figure that now, lol

But from research it seems there are reports of incompatibility with Maxtor's and the N-Force4 chipset.

My Hard Drive after all isn't bust as it installed fine in my spare pc.

I contacted Maxtor and they sent me a long list of things to fill in and send back to them, wooooo lucky me.

I'll report on my findings later

Cheers
Lewis :wink:

[Devils-Blood]

The disk might be a sata 2 drive but they are still ruled by the mechanical parts inside. There no drive on the market that do burst speed of 300mb let alone 150mb sata 1. Did you use killdisk or similar programme to clean the drive before reinstalling windows. Put a search in google killdisk and sites will come up for the free version. I use a programme that includes german millitary to USA military disk cleaning.

I gave up on maxtor disks a while back after I had them fail on me too often. Seagate, western digitial and samsung are the best hhd manufactures. The maxtor drive last 6 months before it packed up. Another company with a good reputation for their products have let their reputation go down the pan. I don't know anybody who will maxtor anymore.

Its seems since ddr2 has arrived peeps need to take care in matching the right memory to their mobo. Seeing more and more posts with memory incompatiability problems. I haven't come across hdd incompatiability before but with all the new chipsets on the market it doesn't surprise me.

[bunter]

i had this with my hiper psu, theres 2 power leads that go to the mobo ;)

[Lewis1_2_3]

Thanks for the info Devils-Blood I didn't use a program to format I just did a Full format in windows setup.

And yep Bunter, I have both the ATX and ATX12v leads plugged in, but thanks for trying anyway.

Maxtor told me to acquire new drivers so now I'm currently trying to find an updated version of my nForce SATA drivers hopefully they will see through the incompatibility problem.

Ill keep this topic updated, and believe me I wont give up until I have it working. I actually have the pc working at the moment just without the 300GB HDD but how can I settle for second best, its just not in my nature.

Cheers everyone
Lewis :wink: