Abit SA6R won't post unless I clear CMOS

[madboy]

I just picked up an SA6R today. I booted up and configured the CMOS exactly as it should be, I think. It reboots fine the first and sometimes 2nd time, but after that, it refuses to post. It just starts giving 5 second post tones over and over. I can't even get to the point of loading an OS. All the parts were taken out of my previous machine earlier today and all of them were working perfectly so I doubt it's a periph problem. The hard drives were all formatted prior to installing. The only way to boot again is to clear the bios. I've tried several different bios configs and it does the same thing. I've tried with and without the RAID enabled. Any ideas? My FSB and memory are set to 133. If I set the system memory to auto, it comes up at 100, but I'm running PC133. Could it be a power problem? I have a 250watt power supply. Also, the manual leads you to beleive that you have to set the RAID as your boot drive. That doesn't sound right to me. I'm using a single drive on the primary IDE as my boot and system drive.
Thanks,
madboy

Abit SA6R
PIII-866(133)
256MB PC133 SDRAM
Matrox Millenium 32MB G400 AGP
Orangelink Firewire PCI
Soundblaster Live! Value
Creative Dxr-2 DVD decoder
Creative 5X DVD
BTC 4x4x24 CDRW
IBM Deskstar 46GB (Primary Drive)
(2) Maxtor 30GB (RAID Drives)

 

[Supradude]

Seems like something wasn't installed "tight", ram maybe,... because the 5 second tones are indicative of something probably hardware... re-install it and double-check stuff

 

[mastertech01]

Im running an SA6R and have not had that happen... if you arent using raid then of course you dont boot to it.. Reseat everything and give it a try again or remove all cards but video and install your OS, then install cards one at a time. The book probably assumes you bought a Raid board to run raid so it doesnt go greatly into detail how to setup a standard hdd configuration. Try booting with the failsafe configuration settings if all else fails and setup cpu with standard settings

 

[madboy]

Mastertech....I am using the RAID, but I'm using it for storage only, not a boot drive. I'll try reinsering everything and see if that helps.
Thanks,
madboy

 

[mastertech01]

Beeping long beeps over and over may be a ram issue.. You know you cant run 3 sticks at 133FSB and you must use the 1st and second ram slots for double sided ram.. 3 and 4 are for single sided ram only. And make sure it is seated properly. If you are useing more than one stick try just one stick

 

[madboy]

I'm only using 2 sticks of RAM (128's). I'll try them one at a time.
thx,
madboy

 

[madboy]

I changed the RAM and it's booting fine now. The RAM that was in it works fine in another machine, just not on the SA6R. The only problem I'm having now, is that one of my RAID drives starts clicking real bad after running for 10-15 minutes. It's a maxtor 30GB that's only about 6 weeks old. It's been working great in my other machine, now it sounds like the actuator is sticking or something. Any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks,
Shane

 

[bonkers325]

rma the harddrive if its that bad

 

[mastertech01]

Ensure your drive is getting plenty of juice and no loose connections. Then prepare for RMA as bonkers suggests.