HELP!!! MY new Abit NF7-S board won't work

[bullion416]

Sorry for posting this in the main motherboard section (I saw the huge post for NF7-S boards, but it was too long, so I posted it here instead). I just got the Abit NF7-S (v2.0) according to excalliburPC who I bought the board from. I am running it with an AMD XP2600+ (333FSB) and Crucial PC3200 (400Mhz) memory. When I turned on the computer all I get is a repeating single beep. For example......it will beep once, pause a few seconds and then repeat that beep (it keeps doing this and doesn't stop). I am not getting anything on the screen either. What should I do? The only thing I can think of is the fact that I am using an Antec 300W PSU (which may or may not be big enough, but the system powers on). What do you think?

 

[dunkster]

Can you get into your BIOS?

My first guess is that default memory timings assigned by BIOS are too tight for stable memory operation.

Relax memory latencies to CAS 2.5, Trp 3, Trcd 3, Tras 9. See if it boots.

Hope this helps!

 

[Megatomic]

It shouldn't be necessary to do this since it's a new motherboard but you might have to clear your CMOS from the sounds of things. There are instructions in your manual on how to do this.

One question: are the red and green LEDs at the bottom right of your board illuminated?

 

[bullion416]

Hey, I got the board to work. I tried pulling the video card and ram out a few times and then putting them back in and now it works. I guess one of them was not in correctly. The only problem I am having now is getting the win xp pro setup to recognize my hard drive. I am using the SATA to IDE convertor on my hard drive. How do I get xp to recognize my drive on the SATA controller?

 

[bullion416]

Okay, nevermind on the getting xp to recognize SATA (i figured that out). Well, windows xp installed, but when it got to the final screen where you activate windows, I got a blue screen. I restarted the computer before I could read it, but I am pretty sure it had to do with dumping the memory. Now I just get a black screen after the bios posts. What should I do?

 

[KF]

Maybe you did not have the XP setup program install drivers for the SATA controller, where it says press F6 to do so? When XP finally boots all the way, it tranfers control from the BIOS to a Windows driver.

But booting XP is a severe test of the CPU and memory. It is not unusual to crash just when XP seems just about to put up the desktop.

 

[Richdog]

Originally posted by: bullion416
Okay, nevermind on the getting xp to recognize SATA (i figured that out). Well, windows xp installed, but when it got to the final screen where you activate windows, I got a blue screen. I restarted the computer before I could read it, but I am pretty sure it had to do with dumping the memory. Now I just get a black screen after the bios posts. What should I do?

I've just installed an NF7-S and i had a few teething problems too, including the blue screen where it says I had a corrupt hard-drive, memory probs etc. I just took everything out and seated it back in one by one before re-formatting and re-installing again, painful process but it worked like a charm. And make sure ALL of your BIOS options are confiugured correctly before you boot the thing to save more problems. :beer: