Anyone with coldboot problems.....?

[swayzak]

please see http://www.asusboards.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29668


is this likely to be cured by a BIOS update or is it completely hardware related ?


swayzak

 

[SFang]

Thanks. I have cold-boot problem with my Abit-IT7 with Crucial PC2100 DDR 256MB*2, Antec SmartPower 350W.

Reboot, start up, everything is fine. Except when I leave the computer shut off for more than an hour, If I press the power button, it will power up, but no video, reset at this point doesn't work too. If I press the power button for 4 second to shut it off, unplug the power cord, and plug it back on, everything become normal. To put is short, any power off, reset within one hour is fine, outside one hour need to unpower the PC. It is wierd.

I am still researching how to solve this problem.

 

[pillage2001]

Everytime I power up my pc in the morn, I'll go into BSOD while loading windows. Then I'll just restart and everything would be fine. Werid.

 

[oldfart]

Yeah, I left them out in the garage last night. I hate sticking my foot into a cold boot. I usually let them warm up for a few before I put them on.

 

[SFang]

Yeah, I left them out in the garage last night. I hate sticking my foot into a cold boot. I usually let them warm up for a few before I put them on.

LOL.

As I research the net, I found this IT7 cold boot problem has been long existed. Anyone found a solution yet? I searched the forum for IT7, nothing informational shows up. Help please and thanks.

 

[THUGSROOK]

i suffer too

just as SFang described

 

[SFang]

Well, if THUGSROOK also suffers, I will just give up hope searching then. Don't know who to blame, Abit or Intel?

Edit: I made some discovery, but it is wierd:

I have four harddrives, two DVD/CDROM, five case fan, one CPU fan, two power fan in my Antec 1080AMG with the IT7 board. My power supply is Antec SmartPower 350W. I thought it might be the problem of no enough power.

So, I unpluged three case fans, and one CDROM from 4-pin connector of the PS. This time the machine won't even show up the video after power it on right after a successful power off. I tried several times and gave up. Then, I put the three case fans and CDROM back into power cord, this time it powers up smoothly, like I said, with one hour, everything is fine.

This is unexplainable. Less power consumption make the board perform bad, more power consumption make the board perform better. Too bad I have no place to install another fan. But I guess the cold boot problem is power related. I will try more combinations to test if it can be stable.

 

[DoobieOnline]

Well it finally bit me in the @ss. I've only seen the cold boot issue once (last night), but my girlfriend said it happened to her a couple of days ago, too. I've backed off the OC on the BE7 to test it for a few days and see if it pops up again. 'Puter goes through boot just fine, but no vid signal. Had to press reset and then it booted with video. Doh!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

My P4PE/L is purring along

 

[THUGSROOK]

its not the overclock ~ ive tested 100% stable prime95 and memtest86 over 5 hours each.

its a cold boot problem with the vid.
(the puter is actually booting in the background)
1.7v wire mod does not fix it.

might be agp voltage or agp lock problem?

i just revert back to 133fsb before shutting it off.
im not having any reboot problems or any other problems at all.
its a kick@ss board if not for the cold boot problem

 

[bonehead]

I have the same problem with a MSI KT3 ULTRA and 2200xp chip on WIN2K. Hit power button in the morning ,starts up ,no video.Hit restart button works fine after that.Strange.

 

[SFang]

My boot fail code is "A7" on IT7 board, what does that mean? It is not in the menu. Anyone have the same boot fail code, or know a website to explain it? Thanks.

Edit: Just called Abit, the CSR said "A7" is a memory related problem, but he also say it might be my power supply problem although I told him I used Antec 350W, he then said maybe my video card is consuming too much power, and I told him it is just a Geforce 2 card... I don't think he is very nice answering my questions, maybe he has been asking about the same problem too many times. Oh well, I will try to find out the solution myself then.

 

[ronein]

well i have an Epox 8KA3...i thought modding the psu to have the rails over their specks would help, but still am experiencing it...no biggie since a good press on reset does the dtrick...annoying yes, but i can live with that.

but am really curious whats causing the problem

 

[Mikki]

Yep, another example of the fine Abit customer service we've been seeing lately. :disgust: SFang, thanks for trying...

 

[SFang]

Okay, here is my findout in three days:

Please noted, the board is flashed with the latest BIOS C6, WinXP freshly installed. Prime95, Memtest86, Sandra all past at all FSB tested. All the other components has been tested, and work very well with other motherboard (Asus P4B266-C) at FSB150 or lower. And, I am 100% sure the system is NOT booting at the background since I put a bootable floppy into A drive, whenever it hangs, it just hangs, harddrive light goes off, no reading or light from floppy drive. The motherboard during cold boot simply hangs with its own problem.

1. Running 150FSB on IT7, cold boot problem as described before.

Symptom: Reboot, start up in short time, everything is fine. Except when I leave the computer shut off for more than an hour, If I press the power button, it will power up, but no video, reset at this point does NOT work too. If I press the power button for 4 second to shut it off, unplug the power cord, and plug it back on, everything become normal. To put is short, any power off, reset within one hour is fine, outside one hour need to unpower the PC.

swap memory from crucial to viking.................... does NOT help
swap video card from geforce to ati .................. does NOT help
unplug some case fan to save power................ does NOT help, become even worse

2. Running 144FSB on IT7, still cold boot problem, somewhat relaxed/changed a bit.

Symptom: Reboot, start up in short time, everything is fine. When I leave the computer shut off for more than an hour, If I press the power button, it will power up, video does show up. But Booting hangs right after finished the memory self-test, error messages shows on screen complaining about BIOS checksum error, also complains about no keyboard found, although I am sure everything is fine with my keyboard. Reset at this point does work, and will make the system booting into WinXP without problem. But the first power up always hangs.

3. Running 133FSB on IT7, NO cold boot problem.
Symptom: Reboot, start up in short time or long time work fine. No cold boot problem.

My guess is, this board will only perform well at FSB133 or lower. Higher FSB will resulting cold boot problem. The Abit motherboard is the weakest part in the three overclocking components, e.g. CPU, Mem, MB. Too bad this is my first Abit motherboard, and may be my last one too.

 

[THUGSROOK]

my system wont cold boot starting @ 155fsb.
doesnt matter what changes i make it just wont cold boot @ 155 or above :disgust:

my system is 100% prime95 and memtest86 stable @ 167fsb
im just gonna go back to a p4b533 til granite bay comes out.

 

[computerman1]

There are no guarantees in life. However, if you would increase your power supply watts from a 350 to 450 you would resolve your problem. Also, i would check the wattage output at the motherboard connection with your present power supply. Happy hunting....

 

[THUGSROOK]

...and what about the ppl already running 550W PSUs?