ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe - reboot on XP setup

[Neolicious]

Hey everyone,

I'm somewhat of a newbie to these forums but not to building PCs. I can't get past one single technical issue regarding a new rig I have put together...

First, here are the detailed specs:
Intel P4 2.8C (retail)
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard
Thermaltake 480W SilentPower
Aspire X-Dreamer II Case
(512x2)MB of DDR4 Kingston HyperX in Dual-Channel mode
(1) 120GB SATA HD and (1) 160GB IDE HD
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro
SB Audigy2
Samsung CD-RW and DVD-ROM


Now, everything posts perfectly. Every item is detected, including all IDE and SATA devices. POST shows no errors whatsoever.

But, I can't seem to install Windows XP. I've tried via a bootable CD-ROM and the six boot floppies. Here's what happens:

Computer boots, does the POST, and starts the XP setup with the remark, "Setup is inspecting your computer's configuration...". At this point, I'm like awesome! However, the computer then reboots after about 3-4 seconds of this message being displayed. If there is an error code it is not on the screen long enough to view it.

I've done what I can through the BIOS. The Promise controller is disabled for RAID functions (which I won't be using yet anyway) and I have the SATA drive on the Third "IDE" Master and set as my primary bootable drive (rather than the IDE drive, which is on the Primary IDE Master). The IDE HD on the Primary IDE Master port is set to "Master". Of course, the SATA HD does not have a master/slave jumper. Yay for SATA.

What could I be doing wrong? Or what setting have I missed? It seems odd that the system would just reboot by itself. Almost as if the motherboard is encountering an error and pushing a STOP command.

Any ideas? I'm really in a bind here as I have no idea what to try next. As I said before, everything is detetected properly. I haven't tried to install any other OSes (maybe I should do that), but I only want Windows XP Pro.

Thanks, I would really appreciate any assistance.

Update: I have removed the SATA HD and chosen the IDE HD as the primary/default boot HD. Same problem! I've also reseated all devices.

 

[mechBgon]

I have some ideas. For starters, you don't mention what brand your IDE hard drive is, but some brands have a jumper setting for Single Drive (Western Digital, for example). If it does have such a setting, use it.

Secondly, I suggest manually setting the memory timings and voltage to something not too tight, and I've even given step-by-step instructions here if you need them (P4C800 Deluxe, not the -E, but close enough, I hope).

Besides that, it may be beneficial to ensure that your Audigy isn't in a PCI slot whose IRQ is shared by important stuff like your AGP slot. Looking at page 2-15 of your manual, I see that PCI slots 1 & 5 share their IRQ only with eachother, so why not park your Audigy 2 down in the bottom PCI slot (#5) for good luck

If nothing is helping, pull the board out of the case, lay it on cardboard, threaten it with violence, and try it with just one memory module, the CPU/heatsink/fan, the keyboard and the video card. No drives except your CD-ROM drive... try Setup from CD-ROM without any hard drives at all, as a fact-finding step. Also consider trying a different video card if you have others.

Good luck with the new rig Neolicious, I hope it all works out

 

[mechBgon]

Oh, and I just noticed it's a Samsung CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. I've seen a couple of those and they were both very touchy about IDE cables, giving me Windows-Setup problems and CRC errors Try a different optical drive if you've got one.

 

[Neolicious]

mechBgon:

Wow, thank you for the great response. It's rather late right now (and I'm sick, darn sinus infection), but tomorrow in the AM I'll be trying out your suggestions.

Thanks for the best, by far, suggestions I have gotten thus far from anyone (including other websites and knowleadgable people)!

I am worried that it might be a DDR conflict. The motherboard detected the Dual-Channel kit of Kingston and perhaps that is throwing the XP setup for a loop..?

I'll also move the Audigy board as that could be the culprit. Heck, I'll just remove it for now.

The IDE drive is a Maxtor and the SATA drive is a Seagate.

I'll give all of your suggestions a try and let you know the outcome. I appreciate the g/l comment!

 

[mechBgon]

Good deal, I'll be curious to hear how it goes Your memory type ought to be well-suited to the system, methinks, it's just that oftentimes a little bump in voltage and some fine-tuning helps. Sorry to hear about the sinus infection

 

[Neolicious]

Well, here's my update:

Of the list of changes to make and possible problem components gathered on this message board and others, here is what I have done:

Removed all PCI cards (SB Audigy, for example).

Disabled FireWire controller in BIOS.

Removed IDE hard drive and SATA hard drive.

Put CD-RW and DVD-ROM drives on primary IDE channel. Double-checked jumpers on these as well.

Relaxed the timings on the Kingston memory. Upped the voltage to 2.75v (thanks mechBgon for the info on that).

Checked all connections and so forth.

Once again, "Setup is inspecting your computer's configuration..." and REBOOT. Happens endlessly.

I think I'm ready to RMA this board. Should I go through Newegg (the supplier) or ASUS?



Thanks to all for the comments/help, esp. mechBgon.

 

[mechBgon]

Darn! And excuse me for asking the obvious, but you have a power plug from the PSU to the video card, right? Do you have any other video cards to test with? And if you had a different optical drive besides the Samsungs, you might consider trying that too, just for kicks.

 

[Neolicious]

mechBgon: I do have the PSU connected to the video card. I don't have any other optical drives to work with, but I did try removing one and then the other to see if that had any affect. Of course it didn't though...Thanks, mechBgon. I've tried everything and I think it's RMA-time.