Major problem with an ECS P4S5ADX+ - EDIT: Solved!?

[Booster]

At first everything worked well with this board, but pretty soon it wouldn't power up. I turn the PC on, no POST, no sounds. But, being accustomed to crappy hardware and crappy machinery in general, it was very easy to turn it on. I only had to switch the PSU off, press the "on" button for a second, switch it back on and finally it would power up and run super stable and glitch free... Well, until I turn it off at the end of the day. Then I'd have to repeat the procedure. Kind of screwed up, isn't it?

I did a quick Google search on the P4S5ADX+ problems and that's what it revealed: Link. What that guy wrote describes my problem much better than I can. It isn't the video card or PSU fault, neither it's an FSB problem (nothing is OCed, using 400FSB CPU).

My question basically is... Has anyone encountered similar problems with the same board as mine or maybe the P4S5A as they seem pretty identical? What did you do to solve the problem? Changing the moboard is out of the question, I'm too tired of upgrades and reassembling and reinstalling all over again etc. I may change the video card, though. Considering a fanless Radeon 9000. Does anyone know if this card will for sure work on my board?

Also, do you think that changing some BIOS settings could eradicate the issue? The board seems to be very BIOS sensitive. If I altered some settings on, say, an ASUS or Gigabyte board it would make hardly any difference at all. But with my current board, if I load the best performance settings instead of optimized ones I get a lockup or an instability, even though the memory timings stay the same.

Pls help, thanks for any input.

 

[Booster]

NE1 else has the same board?

 

[Booster]

All right, I see noone's intrested. What ought I expect? Who else would buy this moboard except me. Sigh...

But in case some of you folks have this sucker or the P4S5A or DX maybe, I'm happy to announce that I could successfully solve the TV Tuner issue with onboard sound. Whoever uses onboard sound could solve many problems by setting 'Onboard midi port' in BIOS from 300h to 330h. Who would have thought it would be so easy!

Now if I could only make this sucker power up each time I press the power button. It's really starting to piss me off. Believe me or not, I like this board and intend to keep it. I was going to change the video card anyway. I think my problems are b/c of the fact that the GF256 I use draws too much power (2x the amount of the GF2 GTS or even more). And the moboard doesn't have a dedicated P4 plug. Maybe not enough starting voltage, right? But once it starts, everything is solid. I'm using the board right now, and it's fine till it is rebooted or turned off.

Why I started this thread is that I wanted to know from experienced with this board people whether it'd run a Radeon 9000 or not. Maybe it just doesn't like nVidia cards or something.

Anyone?

 

[Peter]

I guess your power supply unit just isn't up to it. For example, it might not be providing enough juice on the +5Vstandby rail, preventing the power button from working.

 

[Booster]

Originally posted by: Peter
I guess your power supply unit just isn't up to it. For example, it might not be providing enough juice on the +5Vstandby rail, preventing the power button from working.

It's a 300W Fortron PSU, and the system only has 1 HD, 1CDRW and no extras. My problem is exactly as described in the link I posted. I think it's a video card problem. Now I need to find a compatible video card.

 

[Peter]

Why does everyone think no display is a video card problem? In 99 percent and more of those cases, it isn't. PARTICULARLY because you're obviously wrestling with power issues.

What's the fine print on your "300W" PSU? Total combined output on +5V and +3.3V?

 

[Booster]

Total combined output on +5V and +3.3V?

It says 150W. Is that enough?

 

[Booster]

Yeah, right, it wasn't a video card problem, neither was it a PSU problem. I digged out my old and trashed GF2MX, and guess what, with a low power consumption video card the problem was exactly the same - no POST. Then I remembered when I just built the system it had been running fine, for about 10 days. I couldn't remember this problem. Why did it happen? I didn't know. I flashed the BIOS back to the original version, without HT support (I don't have an HT P4 anyway). The same problem. Then it suddenly struck me that I should play with BIOS settings. I found that setting PCI IDE Busmaster setting to 'enabled' in combination with the primary video adapter set to AGP reproduces the problem. I set them back to default values, and it now turns on every time! And reboots without any hiccups, just like it originally was.

Of course, this problem could be a more serious one, so if anyone is intrested I'll post the results in a few days to tell if it came back. It seems OK for now.

 

[Booster]

Miraculously, severe hardware fault (no POST) problem is gone as it never even existed. It's ridiculous and strange. Why changing 1 BIOS setting (PCI IDE Busmaster) would cause the system inoperable?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Booster
Miraculously, severe hardware fault (no POST) problem is gone as it never even existed. It's ridiculous and strange. Why changing 1 BIOS setting (PCI IDE Busmaster) would cause the system inoperable?

Why ask why? Add the data to your brain pan's troubleshooting guide and enjoy your working system

 

[Booster]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: Booster
Miraculously, severe hardware fault (no POST) problem is gone as it never even existed. It's ridiculous and strange. Why changing 1 BIOS setting (PCI IDE Busmaster) would cause the system inoperable?

Why ask why? Add the data to your brain pan's troubleshooting guide and enjoy your working system

Working? Oh my... Wish the problem didn't come back soon thereafter . Now it's warranty exchange time . And no, there's no way I'm getting another ECS this time. I've had enough of it. THe reason why I got this board was it's SDRAM and DDR memory. But I see how much a P4 stinks with SDRAM, so I guess I'd better sell my SDRAM and get DDR instead with some DDR only board, like Gigabyte SiS 648, for example.