8RDA+ boot problem

[Pocket]

Been reading a lot of post of people with this problem, but nodoby seems to have gotten a very good answer.

I installed my brand new Epox 8RDA+ motherboard into my brand new Antec case with a 350W SmartPower psu, then I installed my Geforce 4 Ti4200 card (it's all the way in, I promise), then I stick my Kingstom pc2100 286mb valueram stick into the motherboard. I turn on the system and everything works fine for about a second. Oh yeah, I've got a AMD Athlon XP 2100 Tbred B in there with a properly installed heatsink and fan. The lights all come on and the fans start up. I get the post codes C1 and C3 and then 29 before the entire system shuts down before anything appears on my monitor. I've tried almost everything and the same problem keeps reaccurring. Please help me out. Thanks

 

[mechBgon]

It's almost a certainty that your heatsink isn't making square contact with the CPU core, and the usual reason is that the heatsink is on backwards. Look at this photo of the underside of a typical SocketA heatsink: click me See the step in the end of the base? That end must face the top of your case, in the case of the 8RDA+. Try that and you should get better results. You're using thermal grease between CPU and heatsink, right?

 

[Pocket]

Yeah, I'm almost positive I attached the heatsink and fan correctly. The little step in the heatsink is facing the top of the case and is not coming into contact with the housing for the CPU itself. I'm using Arctic Silver 3 between the heatsink and CPU. I put on a small layer on top of the CPU die and then a bit on the heatsink. This is the first time I've done it and I'm terrified of frying my CPU, so I put on a fair amount of thermal grease and made sure the heatsink was attached properly. Is it possible to use too much thermal grease so as to make the CPU not work. I'm also using a copper shim. Could that cause any problems.

I emailed Epox tech support and followed their suggestion to try powering up with the motherboard outside the case. I tried that and got a few good results. My system still shut down but it was on for about 5 seconds instead of 1 second as before. The LED display on the motherboard goes through several codes now before coming to 75, at which point my system shuts down. I'm not hearing any of the beeping that other people seem to be, so I don't reckon it's the CPU temp.

Thanks for the suggestion, got anymore?

Oh yeah, according to the manual 75 indicates the MB is trying to intialize the IDE devices. So I plugged in a floppy drive and a hard drive to see if that'd work, but the same problem still occured. I even tried booting up with a disk in my floppy drive with the latest BIOS bin file. Didn't work. Help!!

p.s. My heatsink/fan is a SVC GC69

 

[mechBgon]

Copper shim... DING DING DING! Take that out pronto, if it's even a hair too thick then it will prevent the heatsink from touching the core. Not necessary either, as long as you don't touch the heatsink itself as you fasten down the clip. As long as you only apply pressure to the end of the clip, and not the heatsink, the CPU will feel the pressure dead-center, since the heatsink clip's pressure point is directly over the CPU core.

 

[MichaelD]

Is the ram seated correctly? Are the drives jumpered correctly?

 

[Pocket]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my ram is installed correctly. It seems pretty fool-proof anyways. Is there some way it could me improperly installed and I wouldn't know it? Also, what do you mean by the drives being jumpered properly? You mean the the little pins on the mobo that control CPU FSB frequency?

Gonna try powering up without the copper shim now. Cross your fingers.

 

[Pocket]

Nice! Thanks mechBgon! Removing the copper shim did it. My system is up and running. Now all I gotta do is download all these freaking drivers.

Oh, I connect to the internet through my school's network. Has anyone had any troubles getting the onboard LAN for this board to work properly? I got it to work for a bit, but now it doesn't connect at all. I installed my old LAN card from my other system, and that seems to be working perfectly. Any thoughts? If not it's cool. Guess I'll just stick with a filled PCI slot.

Again, thanks a million for the help! Problem solved.

 

[MichaelD]

Your motherboard came with a CD Rom that has all the drivers (including the onboard NIC) on it. However, you will want to use the NForce v2.0 drivers, readily obtainable off of NVidia's site.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Your motherboard came with a CD Rom that has all the drivers (including the onboard NIC) on it. However, you will want to use the NForce v2.0 drivers, readily obtainable off of NVidia's site.

Yeah, you can get the 2.03 drivers from nVidia's website.

Shims often cause more harm than good... they give most users a "shim job" instead of doing what they're advertised to do...

 

[syberscott]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Your motherboard came with a CD Rom that has all the drivers (including the onboard NIC) on it. However, you will want to use the NForce v2.0 drivers, readily obtainable off of NVidia's site.

Is this a catch-22 or what??? 'Just download the drivers that will enable you to connect to the internet'

I am laughing so hard.


Ok, seriously, are the non metal shims ok? They look like corkboard or something similar.