Biostar NF325-A7 can't get past post

[Hop]

First of all, I did a little no-no by installing the drivers from the included CD. I should have gone to the site and downloaded fresh ones, but I didn't. I've never had a problem before, but then I never had a low-end budget MOBO like this before.

Everything was going great, PSU checked out fine (400 Watt Allied/Apex), all rails are terrific, even under full device load. Windows XP installed fine, memtest86+ ran all night without issue. All I did was install the NForce drivers on the included CD, then the thing rebooted. Now, I get the post, then a blank screen. After many attempts, I cleared the CMOS, but it still happens. I can get to the bios just fine, but no further.

So I tried to reinstall windows, I get as far as hitting any key to boot from the CD, and then nothing for about a minute, I get a BSOD with a hardware error, but can't relay it because now I can't recreate it. ???

One interesting thing to note. I just tried to run memtest and it didn't get past the opening screen (blank with a flashing red "+" by memtest86). I shut it off, disconnected the HD and the CD, including power of course, and now memtest86 runs fine. 15 passes so far, no errors.

Moved the PSU to another system that is working, after I plugged it into a tester and looked at the voltages with a DMM under a 20 watt load. Its rails are reporting better than the one I replaced it with. The system booted fine, and there are 3 drives in there, a beefier video card, and 2 PCI cards.

So I guess I should suspect the hard drive, a little 13.6 WD, or maybe something that is written on it. Could someone maybe recommend their favorite hard drive tools that run in dos? I'll put them on my flash drive that is set to boot in windows 98 dos. Just want to zero write the drive and try again.

I'm not ready to write the mobo off as dead, because I can get to the bios, and memtest is working (still). I also read about the same problem happening to people with this board after installing the nforce drivers off the CD. Some got around it, but I can't find a solution anywhere.

Last resort before RMA'ing it is to use my other combo. I bought two. I would like to get both working because they are for two systems for the daughters.

EDIT:
Using a Athlon 64 Sempron 3000+, CORSAIR ValueSelect 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) x 2 (1gb)

Thanks for your time!

Hop

 

[Hop]

OK, I've done a ton of work trying to diagnose my issue.

I've run the Western Digital diagnostic tools on my little 13.6gb drive and nothing seems to be wrong. I even wrote zeros to the drive, yet, when I try to install windows again, I get a blue screen, and a hard error.
STOP: C0000221 unknown hard error
\SystemRoot\System32\ntdll.dll

Like I posted earlier, I ran memtest86+ overnight, and not a single error was found with my ram.

So I wonder, is the board faulty?

NOTE: I am curious about the bios settings for DDR voltages. When I went in there, I found options for Default, 2.7v, 2.8v, and 2.9v. I wonder what the default setting is? My ram is 2.5v. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

SO, I cleared a 80gb Maxtor IDE drive, plugged it in replacing the 13.6, and my first boot up, it locked up on "boot from CD". ???

It smells like a bad motherboard, but I had this problem before on my new C2D machine when the settings were not set right for my ram in the bios. I can't manually set the DDR voltage because all the options are higher, and don't match what my RAM wants.

Any suggestions?

Hop

 

[Hop]

Well, it locked up in the bios, so I'm done with this board, and putting the other one in to see if my luck changes.

I feel so defeated. Well, at $54 CPU/MOBO combo, you take your chances. I rolled wrong and crapped out. sigh

Hop

 

[o1die]

An old post recommended not using the board cd, but go directly to nvidia's website and burn their nforce3 drivers to a blank cd. Can't remember why, but I would give it a shot after a fresh format. It's easier than an rma.

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: o1die
An old post recommended not using the board cd, but go directly to nvidia's website and burn their nforce3 drivers to a blank cd. Can't remember why, but I would give it a shot after a fresh format. It's easier than an rma.

Agreed, but I'm thinking me using the CD's Nforce drivers and the reboot, and not getting to windows ever again was coincidental. After all, I zero wrote the drive and tried again, only to get that blue screen error. I used three different CD/DVD drives, different memory, different power supplies, even different hard drives, and the problems persisted. The only factor I didn't change was the board.

And I can't use new drivers when I can't even install windows at all. It's gotta be the MOBO. Unless there is a flash memory portion in the NFORCE chipset I don't know about that the driver I installed messed with, I have no other option.

And thanks o1die for responding. I was beginning to think my crisis was to be unnoticed. =)

Hop

 

[Hop]

OK, got it working, not without a scare or two, but it is working.

I'm embarrassed by the solution too. After all the machines I built, I have successfully forgotten the obvious, sigh.

None of the hardware was the problem, but the Windows CD I was installing from. When I received my Windows XP Pro CD, I immediately made an ISO of it, and burned a copy to use. I'm really hard on CD's, so I did this so I could tuck the original away for safe-keeping. Anyway, it was the CD all this time. I made a new one, and everything went well from there. Well, almost well...

The problem I see with this board, outside of not being able to get rid of the post BioStar logo so you can see the actual memory test and other post information, is the nVidia Ethernet drivers. OH MAN! What a nightmare!

Staying away from the included driver CD this time, I went to the website to get the drivers. Turns out that the so-called nv 5.11 drivers for the chipset do NOT take care of the on-board ethernet. After installing those drivers, all but one device was taken care of, and the remaining question mark in device manager (other pci bridge device) was left unsatisfied. So I went to the nvidia site, but the nForce3 drivers were not an option. I had to follow a link from a google search to get there (another sigh). I ran the installer, and halfway through the process, my machine restarted. After getting back to Windows, I was greeted with the dialog telling me the system has a serious error. At this point, I pulled out the last of my remaining hair, shouted an explicative, and then checked device manager again. The ethernet LAN devices were there, and no question marks or exclamation points. YIPPEEE!

So why the reboot I have no idea. Maybe an interrupt conflict of some kind? I'm a little out of my league on this subject. Any suggestions to make sure all is well would be very much appreciated!

Anyway, for others that are following this thread, here is another thing worth noting;
Because of the boot logo that won't go away, I thought I had an intermittent boot problem, or 'hang' because I had disabled the quick boot option in the bios. Because of that, while the extensive memory test was happening in the post, I was looking at that freaking logo, and it appeared to hang. If anyone that has this motherboard has found a way to get rid of that damn logo, I'm all ears, er, eyes!

Thanks again for your time. I'm so glad I'm finally past my setup issues with this hardware.

Hop

 

[o1die]

you're right.

 

[Hop]

Originally posted by: o1die
You found the problem listed in the original post. Uninstall the nvidia chipset driver in "add/remove programs" in the control panel and use nvidia's own drivers instead of ecs. This problem is unique to this ecs board, one of the first nforce3 boards and sold to alot of unsuspecting folks as a Fry's combo special.

WHOA! ECS? Don't tell me that this BioStar NF325-A7 is really an ECS motherboard. Oh man, that's really funny. I get away from an ECS motherboard with issues, to get another ECS motherboard with issues? sigh

And now I have new issues. Boot up audio stutters, and it just rebooted on its own. I didn't uninstall the old drivers before using the nVidia drivers from their site. I wonder if that is the problem. I just disabled the wired LAN connection, and the system rebooted again. The mouse also stutters sometimes. arg!

EDIT: I don't even want to use the on-board LAN. I'm using a wireless NIC to access the wireless part of our network, and I can' get the dlink to connect at all. I'm positive I set up all the settings correctly. Here I was thinking I was past the hardest parts, go figure.

I feel like I'm setting up Linux for the first time, all over again. lol

 

[Hop]

Sigh, I'm at a loss. I looked at the device manager, and the dlink wireless nic is there, but when I do a ipconfig in the command prompt, I get nothing. Netstat shows nothing also.

I'm reaching back a lot of years, but I wonder if it matters what PCI slot I put the NIC into. Any validity to that shot-in-the-dark guess?

Hop

EDIT: I've just about had it with this board. After all I've been through, I really want to get it to work, but these after install issues have all but convinced me to go get another NFORCE board that has AGP and supports Sempron. Problem is, I don't know of any.

 

[Hop]

I'm the biggest poster in this thread, shamefully, but as new info comes up, I'll continue so some poor b*stard out there that uses this motherboard and follows this thread might gain some good info.

I used 3 CD/DVD drives trying to install windows, and there were so many other issues, that wasn't really the best approach at the time.

But now that I have narrowed in on the cause of my problems, I decided to target the CD/DVD ROM as a possible problem, and sure enough, in my test bed, and on two other systems, the drive caused problems installing Windows XP off the factory CD. With the factory disc, and three I burned off of an ISO with three different burners on three different systems.

So, reluctantly, I pulled the LiteOn out of my trustworthy linux box and put it into my daughters machine and went after yet another reinstall. This attempt has to be getting close to 10 times I think.

Anyway, things are a LOT more speedy, and after yet another delete, create, and format of a NTFS partition completes, I'll see if I have any issues.

But then there is still the issues with the ethernet. This is my LAST GASP ATTEMPT with this board. If I have issues after this, then I'm done. RMA and get something else. I'll put in my recently replaced P4P800SE with P4 3GHz Northwood into my daughter's build, and figure something else more stable for my better half. I'm done jumping through hoops with this BIOSTAR board.

Hop