AK86-L trouble

[howminn]

Hi

Bought an AK86-L motherboard, and an Athlon 64 3000+. The board I bought would not at first start up the monitor at all on first power on. Clearing the cmos then allowed the board to actually switch on the monitor, but there is always the cmos checksum error message on the bios. This is not all
Any time it has to restart, the board loses the ability to switch on the monitor, and I have to clear the CMOS.
This means installing an operating system is impossible.
After returning this board and getting a new one, this problem is seen to exist in the new board as well.
I've tried three agp cards:
ati radeon 9200se
geforce4 mx440
cheap crap sis315 card

I've tried multiple memory types, latest one 512MB DDR400.
All components are OK, and have been tested in multiple other PCs.

The bios is version 1.02. I had trouble trying to reflash it on the first board - I gave up and RMA'd the board.
The conclusion for the first board was that the bios had been improperly flashed at the factory. However, this is unlikely to occur for more than one board bought from two different vendors, surely?
And yes, the batteries for both board's Bios' have been changed and tried and measured. The batteries are fine.

I really need suggestions from people on this. Does anyone have any ideas?
Cheers

 

[rstove02]

Heh sounds a lot like the problem I had with my AK86-L.

Link

System ran fine for 3 days or so then started getting video out problems with the board. RMA'ed it and everything working fine now.

BTW, did you purchase the board from NewEgg? If so, I wonder if they have a bad batch of them.

 

[howminn]

Sorry no, this is problems from the word go.
I bought the first one from www.pcnextday.co.uk
and the second one from www.dabs.com/uk
Both boards are identical, both boards are giving the same problem, Did you have cmos checksum errors? Please also could you list the H'ware you are using? I want to be absolutely sure it's not a compatability issue.
IMPORTANT!! WHAT BIOS VERSION HAVE YOU GOT?

 

[mechBgon]

Welcome to the Forums howminn What memory voltage is your BIOS set to? If it's Auto, try manually setting it to 2.7 volts.

Also, a complete spec list would help. Of particular interest: the brand and model of your power supply, because there are cheap ones and then there are quality ones, and guess which ones cause trouble like yours? Yeah. So reassure me that you built your new rig on a good foundation like an Antec TruePower430 or Enermax 465 or something respectable

Furthermore, do not plug that SiS card into your motherboard. IIRC those are 3.3V-only AGP2x cards and can damage your board permanently. Use it as a wind chime or something

 

[CraigRT]

Aopen... nuff said

well, at least that is how I feel.

 

[howminn]

ok will do once exams are over (got studying to do for tomorrow) But the sis agp card seemed fine! There's a agp over voltage warning led beside the agp slot, and it did not light up - so all must have been ok. Thanks for the warning though
I'm pretty sure that the power supply has not got a guilty spark. I've used it in other pcs , and had no trouble. Nah, its not top of the range psu - some eagle standard stuff.
The cmos checksum error really gets my attention however. Sure it must be a bios-caused error. I'll check that mem voltage too, but would that not give errors straight away? Win2k starts formatting the HDD and installing without any complaints, it's when the restart has to occur that the trouble begins. Please if anyone else has this board even if they're not having trouble, what bios version are you using?
Thanks for the swift words

 

[mechBgon]

The CMOS Checksum error can be caused by the board attempting to boot but failing on its first try. It then kicks down to "failsafe" settings and throws the error at you. This is its saftey valve in case a person sets his computer for an impossible overclock, to prevent an impasse situation.

One cause of this problem is a PSU that is not up to the task of getting the motherboard initialized while also getting the drives' spindles rolling from a standstill. All things considered, after you blew almost £300 on a CPU, I would think that spending a fraction of that for a commensurate-quality power supply is reasonable

(also, do make sure your ATX12V cable is plugged in, although I doubt the board would POST at all without it, so it's probably not the problem)

 

[howminn]

actually it was £130 for the cpu

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: howminn
actually it was £130 for the cpu

Ooops! I read "3400+" instead of "3000+" for some reason Sorry about that! Probably a good choice on your part, the 3000+ is a good value. I bought one too.

 

[rstove02]

System hardware I am using:
(2) 512MB Corsair PC3200 memory sticks
(2) 120GB 8MB buffer hard drives
(1) floppy drive
(1) DVDR/CDR combo drive
Gainward FX5600 video card
350Watt ATX power supply

Did not get the CMOS checksum errors. If memory serves me right it came with the 1.04 BIOS that I promptly upgraded to the 1.11 one before installing Windows.

Never did try fiddling with the voltage levels that another person suggested. Wound up buying the board after the glowing review on anandtech even though I had reservations on the AOpen brand. My last two boards I used were both ASUS ones and never had any trouble with them. Next time I upgrade or if the new AOpen board dies, am definately going back to ASUS.

 

[kristof007]

Wow I am plannin to buy a new computer in the near future with the AOpen AK-86L .. but this might change my thought. Why so much trouble with it?

How did it get to win the Editor's Choice award if it's buggy like u guys said?

 

[rstove02]

The 2nd AOpen board I got worked and still is going strong as I write this.

It is a decent board, but does not seem anything really special about it that makes it stand out with the other motherboards I have used and installed.

I am a Computer Engineer and have been building my own and families PCs for the last 10 years so I know the step-by-step process of building a PC and things to so when determine what component is bad in a system.

Wrote up a long and exhaustive report that I sent to their Dr. AOpen customer service department on their website about my problems about the motherboard, just for a second opinion before I sent the board out for an RMA. Took them over 3 buisness days to respond, only to respond with questions that I had already covered in my report. For example one question that they asked me was if the system freezes occur only while windows was loading at boot up, when in my report I said it would freeze before POST, during POST, while browsing the BIOS menu, during windows boot up and during windows operation. Last I checked BIOS menus are not part of the Window's O/S.
/sarcasm off

Seems that their email report system is just as scripted and their phone support.

 

[howminn]

I'm wondering then. I think i'll look about for an alternative board. That said though I still intent to find out what it is thats the cause of this. If however it starts looking like i'll never find out, then there is not a lot I can do other than to stop wasting my own time and go buy another board from somewhere else.