HELP - can't get ACORP 6A815EPD mobo to work

[MrHappyMonkey]

I've got an Acorp 6A815EPD motherboard installed in a fresh PC. Here are the components i've got:

20gig Maxtor HD
P3 700
no-name sound card
ATI rage mobility AGP video
generic 52x cd-rom
1 stick of PC100 64mb
1 stick of PC133 128mb
Belkin 10/100 NIC

I have the board all setup and installed, but some reason it will not boot to Windows. I did a fresh format on the HD and loaded XP pro on it. I can startup Windows in safe mode, but that dosnt do me any good. What happens is that after the Windows XP load screen comes up with the status bar, right before it would normally load up Windows, it just goes to a black screen and stays there. I think it might have to do with the RAID adpater. I am not using a RAID array, just one 20gig drive. Is there any way to disable raid? When I boot up, it always prompts me to setup the raid array, when i try to configure it, it tells me that no raid is found. I didn't find anything in the BIOS that mentioned disabled RAID.

Any help?

 

[Coaster]

When the system boots up, what multiplier and bus speed does it show for the CPU (should be 7 x 100)?
If it shows the FSB is 133 instead of 100, then that could be the problem (the CPU and the 100 Mhz stick of RAM may not be able to run at 133)
The motherboard also has some jumpers for setting the FSB to 66, 100, 133 or auto? Did you try setting the jumper to 100? Does running with just 1 stick of RAM work OK?

Are you running one 700MHz CPU or 2? If you're running with just one CPU, did you try it in the other socket?

Are you sure the drive is plugged into the main IDE controller? When the system boots up does it detect the drive on the main IDE controller or does it show up on the Promise controller?

Is the hard drive plugged into its own IDE cable or does it share a cable with the CDROM?

I just got this motherboard a week or 2 ago (Computer Geeks special) and have it running with two 1 GHz P3s, cD0 stepping at 7.5 x 133 Mhz FSB and Windows 2000 Professional. I've been testing with 2 drives on the Promise controller in a RAID 0 config. Been running fine so far...

Hope this helps.

 

[MrHappyMonkey]

When the system boots up, what multiplier and bus speed does it show for the CPU (should be 7 x 100)?

yes, i have the mutipler set at 7 and when the system boots it shows a 100mhz bus

If it shows the FSB is 133 instead of 100, then that could be the problem (the CPU and the 100 Mhz stick of RAM may not be able to run at 133)
The motherboard also has some jumpers for setting the FSB to 66, 100, 133 or auto? Did you try setting the jumper to 100? Does running with just 1 stick of RAM work OK?

Are you running one 700MHz CPU or 2? If you're running with just one CPU, did you try it in the other socket?

i am running just 1 CPU. I have it plugged into the socket labeled CPU1

Are you sure the drive is plugged into the main IDE controller? When the system boots up does it detect the drive on the main IDE controller or does it show up on the Promise controller?

I've got the HD plugged into the 1st "blue" IDE channel. I've also tried using a PCI ATA100 card with the HD plugged into that but am getting the same results. After the computer posts, it goes to a screen that says "scanning IDE drives...." after about a minute, it says that it can not find any arrays and that to push ESC to escape or CTRL-F to set one up.


Is the hard drive plugged into its own IDE cable or does it share a cable with the CDROM?

yes

I just got this motherboard a week or 2 ago (Computer Geeks special) and have it running with two 1 GHz P3s, cD0 stepping at 7.5 x 133 Mhz FSB and Windows 2000 Professional. I've been testing with 2 drives on the Promise controller in a RAID 0 config. Been running fine so far...

Hope this helps.

 

[Coaster]

Don't worry about those messages you're getting from the Promise controller. That's just its not very helpful way of saying there are no drives connected to the RAID IDE connectors. You can press esc or just wait a few seconds and it will move on. Mine did that to.

My appologies if you've already tried some of these. Just trying to give you some ideas that have helped me before

Try reseting the CMOS (Move jumper JP9 from 1-2 to 2-3 then back to 1-2). We had a new system at work that was very flaky until we cleared the CMOS. This set everything in the BIOS to default values and the system ran fine after that.

Did you try running the CPU in the other socket?

Did you try using just 1 stick of RAM? I've had system problems before that I traced to a bad stick of RAM.

If you go into the BIOS, what temp does it show the CPU running at after its been on for a few minutes? Mine runs in the low 30s (deg C) after the system has been up for a few hours, about 40C under very heavy load.