Asus A8V boot-up problems - please help - I am now *desperate*

[BEIF]

Hi all

My last rig was a perfeclty working Asus P4P800 + 2.6P4 o/c to3.3 + Zaman 7000 + 2 x 512 generic Hynix D43 running in dual channel mode @ 2.75v @ 3/4/4/8 @ 1:1 @ 255mhz + WD 80gig 2mb cache disk + generic Gforce 64meg vidio card [ 2 yrs old ] + 420w Topower P/Supply - all HDD's and CD/DVD are IDE connected..... totally stable etc .... working sweet for last 5 months ...

Anyway, I decided to go the A64 route so ... all I have done is install a Asus A8V DLX Rev 2.0 + AMD 3200+ 939 - board shipped with the 1007 90nm compatible bios - *all* other parts are unchanged.

Put the board together - booted up fine - loaded 1008 bios. No problems there. Loaded windows - seemed OK

Then the nightmare begins - the problems I am getting are pretty constant - they are:-

- every 3rd or 4th or 5th full-shutdown / cold boot up, it hangs in the Posting screen where it reads "Initializing USB ...... " - doesnt matter if USB is enabled or disabled in the bios - "warm booting" does not *seem* to be an issue

- then when it actually *does pass* the "USB Initialization ... DONE" its says RAM is OK and goes to the black-pre-XP screen as if it is going to start loading XP, then does a quick audible "beep" [ more like a "bip" actaully ] and re-boots and then cycle continues etc.... - cant getinot BIOS or anything

- once I got into XP and as soon as the GUI was loaded, it just re-booted itself ?!?!

- sometimes it hangs on detecting the Secondary IDE drives

All drives are IDE - main HDD is on IDE 1 and CD-ROM and DVD -READER are on IDE 2 .

In the bios, SATA, RAID, AUDIO, Firewire are all disalbed.

Have tried clearing the CMOS, put in a new battery, re-laoed BIOS defaults a 100 time etc ..... boot-up problems do not change.

In desperation, the other night, I FDISK'ed and formatted the 80 gig HDD, got XP on, loaded some software, re-partitioned the HDD with PM8, did an image of the HDD and thought all was well ..... THEN I did a full shutdown, waited 5 seconds and re-powered on and guess what - SAME PROBLEMS !!!!

Please can anyone help / advise what it could be ?

My ram is on the A8V QVL as approved for this board so I *think* it is OK - it certainly never had an issue on my intel rig.

Any / all suggestions / thoughts / ideas etc... would be ENORMOUSLY appreciated.

Thx,
BEIF

 

[BEIF]

Just tried with 1 stick of my ram in slot 3 and the DDR voltage at 2.7v and the problems are much less, but I am still getting:-

- freezing on the occassional cold-boot up

and

- on my first cold-boot after doing a Drive Image backup file

Any thoughts ?

Does this suggest it could be my ram ?

Beif

 

[Squally Leonharty]

I see you haven't tried memtest86 yet. I suggest you try that: http://www.memtest.org

If it reports errors, then it's your RAM. Otherwise it's something else, but let's just do this first.

 

[Dewey]

It could be a flakey power supply.

 

[BEIF]

Thx - I'll try memtest later this evening.

If it helps / matters / is important, Assu probe is showing as follows at stock / auto idle:-

12v - 11.187
5v - 4.994
3.3v - 3.344
Vcore - 1.405

Could this be indicative of the P/Supply ?

Thx,
Beif

 

[mechBgon]

Make sure that the 80GB WD drive is jumpered in Single Drive mode, not Master, Slave or Cable Select, if it is on a data cable by itself. Also... uh, 420W Topower *cough, generic?, cough* power supply could bite you, especially if you get a burlier video card later.

 

[Dewey]

I don't know if AsusProbe is accurate, but 11.187 is low. Do you have access to a voltmeter or multimeter where you could read it yourself? Or a spare PSU to try?

 

[BEIF]

=> Hi mechBgon

My setup is: WD 80 EIDE by itself in IDE 1 wiht nothing esle + CD and DVD on IDE 2.

As such, I have *no* jumpers in the WD drive.

Is this OK ?

Or should I have the jumper in PIN 6 & 4 or 5 & 3 - as per WD instructions ?

I didnt think this made a difference.


=> Hi Dewey

I am hoping to try another P/S tomorrow.

Beif

 

[BEIF]

Update - put the HDD jumper on 6 & 4 as per the WD website - no change.

As my AsusProbe version was quite old - 2.21.04 - I uninstalled it, cleared out all related Registry entries and d/loaded the latest version from the german FTP - tested after several re-boots etc ... figures are now consistently

12v -> 11.774v <-> 11.84v
5v -> 4.999v
3.3v -> 3.344v
Vcore -> 1.405v

These results probably eliminate the P/Supply from the equation.

*Maybe* it is the RAM !?!?!?!?!?

Beif

 

[Squally Leonharty]

The +12V line is still rather low on voltage, though within the margin.

Just test your RAM first with memtest86, so you can eliminate RAM from the equation (or not, depending on the results).

If RAM happens to be fine, then I'd suggest borrowing a good branded PSU from someone you know or buy a better PSU (Antec, OCZ, etc.; just look in the Cases &amp; Cooling and CPU/Processors fora). Even if that doesn't help, you still have a better PSU in the end.

 

[BEIF]

Ran Memtest 1.40 - as time was limited, I let it run for one hour - no problems - did 2 passes in that time with 0 errors.

Also, I noted that Asus Probe lists the 12v line a +/- %10 - so I figure 11.7 <-> 11.8 is probably OK ?

Is it *imperative* that I run Memetest until it stops ?

IF so, how long does it take to do the full thing ?

Also, I presume that even if my RAM passes Memetest, that does not mean that it is "compatible" wiht my board does it ?

ie:- I assume you can get a %100 perfect Memetest result, but the board, may still not like it ?

Beif

 

[BEIF]

Hi all !

Guess what - I finally got to try some differnent RAM and all seems well - problems have disappeard.

If it helps others, I am using 2 x 512 Kingmax "Hard-core" DDR 500 / PC4000 Super RAM Series " - it is Cas 3 &amp; cost me ~$250US for the 2 sticks.

Hope this helps someone out there.

There is NO doubt that RAM is a MAJOR issue on these 939 boards !!!!

Take care all,
Beif

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Originally posted by: BEIF
Also, I noted that Asus Probe lists the 12v line a +/- %10 - so I figure 11.7 <-> 11.8 is probably OK ?

Is it *imperative* that I run Memetest until it stops ?

IF so, how long does it take to do the full thing ?

Also, I presume that even if my RAM passes Memetest, that does not mean that it is "compatible" wiht my board does it ?

ie:- I assume you can get a %100 perfect Memetest result, but the board, may still not like it ?

Beif

1) The margin is usually 10%, indeed. Nothing much to worry about there.
2) Memtest86 runs infinitely long, until you tell it to stop. It's recommended to let it do at least 2 full standard tests. Also, depending on what kind of tests you choose, it can take about 2 - 3 hours to more than 24 hours. The latter is because of a test that checks if the memory can hold information well over time (i.e. it stores information and waits 12 hours (I think) and retrieves it again, then it checks whether input and output are the same; if so, memory is working very well, otherwise it'll return a failed test).
3) If your motherboard doesn't like the RAM, then Memtest86 will fail at some tests. Otherwise it'd be all perfectly fine.

Here ya go.

 

[CuriousGeeorge]

Know this is kinda old and glad you got it solved, but also for people who are not familiar w/ memtest you should run it in extended mode. Much slower. Many test pass on standard, but don't show up till extended and then only once in awhile. It is way slower...have to let it run for several hrs to be sure. I sometimes wonder about the vcore too. the p4p800dlxe I have w/ p4 2.6c runs as high as 1.6 vcore at times, (mostly 1.55) is set to auto. On intels box it says 1.525 max, but it is obviously designed for that. Makes you wonder tho.