Build Problems

[Choir]

Sorry for the length of this article, wasn't sure what was important and what wasn't tried to include everything.

Building a new computer,

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD Burner ? OEM

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5 - Retail

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard ? Retail

XFX HD-487A-ZHFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card ? Retail

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ? Retail

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply compatible with core i7 - Retail

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500AAJS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM





Hook everything up, things go okay. Had some problems because the things are kind of tight in the case (especially the video card ? barely fits), and the power supply is on the bottom of the case while all the motherboard power connectors are at the top of the case.

Hook the HD and the DVD drive up to the SATA connectors. The motherboard actually has two sets of SATA connectors ? 6 orange ones that are part of the ICH10R southbridge, and 2 purple ones that are listed as part of a GIGABYTE SATA2 chip. Not sure what the differences are and why both are on the motherboard. Anyhow, I hooked up to the southbridge SATA ports (SATA2_0, SATA2_1).

Powered the machine up, and everything looked normal. Brought the machine down, attached a PS2 keyboard and mouse, powered back up and got into the BIOS. The standard CMOS page had my drives listed: The HD as the Channel 0 master and the DVD as the Channel 1 master. Both Channels 0 and 1 had master and slave listed, while Channels 1 and 2 just had master listed, weird but it accounts for all 6 connectors.

Set the time and the date. Since I had a sound card, I disabled the onboard sound. Set the boot order to CD ROM then Hard Drive. I pretty much left the other settings alone. Saved the CMOS settings and rebooted. Popped in the Win7 RC disk I had burned and proceeded to install Windows 7. A little bit into installation, a dialoged popped asking me to insert the disk with the CD/DVD drivers. Did some research into this, and it looked like this was going to be a long, involved solution. Didn?t have time for that, so I just took out the Win7 installation disk, and rebooted with the Win XP SP2 installation disk I had.

The Win XP installation disk correctly identified my HD and gave me the option to create a partition on it. I selected the HD and told it to format the drive with the NTFS file system. About 1.5 hours later (after formatting completes), the installation disk copies a bunch of files to the HD, then tells me that the machine will be rebooted, take any disks out of the drives, and installation will continue after the reboot.

This is things start to get funky. During the boot process I see a message ?Discovering disk drives; None; no disk drives found?. The machine won?t boot from the HD, I get a ?disk read error occurred: press CTL+ALT+DEL to restart? error message. This happens two or three times in a row. I bring the BIOS back up and the HD is still listed in there. I change some settings (SATA controller to ACHI rather than IDE, stuff like that) and reboot. Same error. I disconnect from the southbridge SATA connectos and connect to the GIGABYTE SATA2 (purple) connectors. The boot up screen changes a little and it actually lists my drives (the DVD is the master and the HD is the slave, if it matters). However, same end result ?Disk read error occurred: press CTL+ALT+DEL to restart?
I go into the bios and switch the GIGABYTE SATA2 controller to ACHI mode, reboot. Now it lists my drives (and in color!) during the boot process, but still gets the disk read error.

I figure that maybe there is something wrong with the HD so I boot from the WD HD diagnostics disk I have. The diagnostics immediately error out: ?No drive found. Error Code 0120? (could be wrong on the number)

I put the XP install disk back in and decide to go through installation again. Installation starts up, shows the HD but it says there is nothing on the HD and I have to go through formatting it again. Format the partition again with NTFS, 1.5 hours later it copies files over the formatted drive and then reboots the system. This time instead of the disk read error it just goes into and endless reboot loop. Figuring maybe an unformatted HD would be an issue with the WD diagnostics, I reboot from the HD Diagnostics disk. Same error ? ?No Drive Found?


Stuck and grasping for straws.



Choir

 

[mpilchfamily]

RMA the HDD. It may have gotten damaged durring shipping.

 

[Choir]

By sheer coincidence, I RMA'd a HD with WD about two weeks ago. Waiting for the new HD to arrive any day now.

Going to put this build on hold until the new HD arrives, then try again with the new HD. Will keep this post updated with my progress.






Choir

 

[Slugbait]

I believe your problem began with Win7...it does not require a floppy drive to install the OS, and it appears to have left SATA drivers behind when you aborted install.

After formatting again during XP install and a reboot, those drivers were lost.

Hook the drives back to the original SATA ports you were using. But this time, Optical=0, HD=1. Disable the SATA2 chipset in the BIOS (this will eliminate potential issues, and drastically decrease boot time). Set AHCI while you're there (switching from IDE emulation to AHCI after Windows is installed is a major PITA, and doesn't work at all for some).

If you desire XP, hit the F6 key at the very beginning of text mode (it will actually say to do this at the bottom). You only have about a three-second window, so if you miss it, installation will see no hard drive again and you'll have to reboot and try again.

After text mode finishes copying files into memory, it will show a screen asking for the driver disc for the mass storage device. Pop in the floppy disc containing the AHCI drivers, make your selection, and you're golden.

 

[Choir]

I don't have a floppy drive on the system.

The only two drives I have are CD/DVD (i.e. optical) and HD.
But the motherboard manual does have a procedure for putting the ACHI drivers on a thumb drive. Was planning on doing that tonight anyway.

If you desire XP, hit the F6 key at the very beginning of text mode (it will actually say to do this at the bottom). You only have about a three-second window, so if you miss it, installation will see no hard drive again and you'll have to reboot and try again.

Not exactly sure what you mean here. I am sure it actually makes perfect sense, but I am a little slow so I don't always catch on very fast.

Let me play around some tonight and if I can't figure it out, I will post here what I tried to do and you can tell me where I went wrong.




Thanks,


Choir

 

[Choir]

Things are getting worse.

I have not touched the system in a couple days, but I decided to try some of Slugbait's advice and see what happened. I have a separate room in the house where I am building the system, and I keep the door to that room closed at all times, so nobody has been in there since the last time I was.

I reconnect the drives to the onboard SATA (ICH10R) connectors, and power on the system.
This time NOTHING happens. My monitor screen stays black the whole time and it appears that the system is getting about halfway through POST and then resetting. (the green light comes on my keyboard for a while, then goes off, then comes back on for a while, then goes off, etc.)


Got a whole pile of straws now, still no closer to figuring out what is going on.




Choir

 

[Old Hippie]

Just some general outlines...

Clear CMOS...

If possible, I would disable those purple SATA ports and just use the Intel ICH10R connectors.....

If you're going with XP, don't bother with AHCI and leave it in IDE compatability mode....

I would try the install with 1 stick of RAM......

All these suggestions will be moot if the HD is failing......

 

[Choir]

I am starting to think the rig is cursed.

Checked it this morning, and now when I power it up it runs for about 30-45 seconds (screen stays blank the whole time) and then powers down all by itself.

The numlock light on the keyboard stays lit though, which surprised me.




Choir (the straw collector)

 

[Choir]

Disconnected the HD and optical drive.
removed the sound card and graphics card.
Powered the machine on, it ran for about a minute and then shut itself down.

Starting to think I have an overheating problem, most likely the cpu. If the cpu overheats, the system will shutdown, won't it?




Choir

 

[Old Hippie]

If the cpu overheats, the system will shutdown, won't it?

That's how it's supposed to go....

I use CoreTemp or you can read it thru the BIOS.

 

[Choir]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
I use CoreTemp or you can read it thru the BIOS.

Problem is, I don't even make it to the BIOS (much less windows) before the system shuts down.



Choir