MSI K7N2 Delta2 will not boot with any IDE hard drive

[Fardringle]

I am trying to install a new motherboard and CPU in my computer as the old motherboard and CPU finally died.

I have a Athlon XP (Barton) 2600+ processor and an MSI K7N2 Delta2-LSR motherboard that I am trying to get running in the system. The computer will POST and everything appears to be functioning normally but it will not actually boot from any hard disk (I tried 4) or from a bootable CD if ANY IDE hard drive (I don't have any SATA drives to try) are attached to IDE channel 0 or 1. I have tried multiple known good IDE cables and all four hard drives are known good as they will boot and read just fine in other computers.

If I disconnect all hard drives from the system and leave only a CD drive connected, the computer will boot normally from Windows 2000 and Windows XP CDs, but I can't go anywhere after that since there are no drives attached to install Windows on...

I have tried two different, known good power supplies with no change as well and have tried every combination I can think of between the four hard drives and two CD ROM drives that I have available. Regardless of the combination used, the BIOS always recognizes all drives perfectly but then when it tries to boot from CD or from a hard disk it hangs and I can't do anything other than reset or turn off the computer.

The computer also will not even boot from a known good (just booted from it in another PC) 98SE boot floppy with or without an IDE hard drive connected...

I have checked and reseated all of the cables multiple times and disconnected everything not required to boot the machine with no luck. I would really appreciate any help you can give me!

System specs (basic boot attempts) are:

MSI K7N2 Delta2-LSR motherboard
AMD Athlon (Barton) XP 2600+
TTGI 450 Watt PSU (also tried an Antec 350W from another machine just to make sure it wasn't the PSU)
Twin sticks of 512MB Elixir PC3200 DDR RAM (I have tried with just one stick as well as with both in Dual Channel and standard configurations. I haven't tried other RAM as the only other DDR I have is PC2100 and the specs say the board doesn't like it.)
Geforce4 MX440 AGP video card (nothing special but it works fine)

Have tried 52X Lite-On and generic 24X CD Rom Drives and a 40GB WD hard drive, two different 20GB Maxtor drives (one ATA 133, one ATA 66), and a 1 GB Samsung hard drive (just to see what would happen).

The CPU, Motherboard, and PSU are all new. Everything else is old but confirmed good by testing in other computers.


Edit for update: I managed to flash the motherboard to the newest BIOS using a boot CD and now the POST recognizes the CPU correctly instead of as "unknown processor" but it still will not boot with any IDE hard drive connected...

 

[trevinom]

Is that a 'new' motherboard, or a 'newly refurbished' motherboard?
I am assuming you know about setting the BIOS to boot from 'hd 0', 'hd 1' and the like? There is only 1 choice of CD-ROM but 4 choices for 'HD'. The only time i've ever had a problem like that is when I take a multiple HD setup down to 1 HD and forget to tell it to boot from 'HD 0' as oposed to 'HD 1' when it had multiple HD. The only thing is, it would eventually (sometimes ~3 minutes) come back and tell me 'no bootable disk found'.
Oh, yea, the other time was when it was unable to recognize the HD I had put in...but you say it recognizes them fine, so that's not the problem.

It sounds to me like you got yourself a bad MB.

just my .02

 

[Fardringle]

It's a new retail motherboard. Just opened the factory sealed box yesterday when FedEx delivered it..

I do know about the BIOS setting to select the boot priority. I have tried booting with drives connected as primary and secondary master and slave (not all at the same time) and setting the boot priority appropriately with no luck. Definitely a good suggestion, though.

This system with this motherboard has not ever booted past the initial POST except for when it only has the CD drive and nothing else attached. Otherwise it always hangs right at the point when it should be reading the OS loader from the hard disk or CD. I have let it sit for as long as 30 minutes at this point during my attempts to get it working.

I was thinking that it is a bad board as well, but I really don't want to go through the annoyance of an RMA so I was hoping to find an easy solution.

 

[BlackMountainCow]

**bump for a TeAm Mate**

 

[GeoffS]

If you have an ATA100 card that you can attach your HD to, and it boots okay, that would indicate to me perhaps a problem with the onboard IDE...

 

[BadThad]

Personally, I'd RMA that mobo. You've done everything correctly and it refuses to work...somethings just not right with the mobo.

 

[Unforgiven]

the fact that it recognizes all devices but wont boot from them i find rather odd. ive never seen anything like that before.... especially in that when you remove all drives then (and only then) you can boot from a bootable cd....im stumped. id just RMA the board and dont waste anymore time on it.

 

[JWMiddleton]

Hey Fardringle!

Sorry about the problems. I have had a system where the CD-ROM kept me from boot if it was on the same cable. (master/salve) What happens if you just attach the HD? Can you get OS not found? Or, does it not get past POST?

Good luck with it!

 

[Fardringle]

I have tried every combination of every IDE configuration I can think of. When 'solo' (no other drives attached) both CD drives will boot perfectly when set as Primary or Secondary IDE master or slave. The system will also boot perfectly when only the two CD-ROM drives are attached in any configuration.

However, whenever ANY IDE hard drives are attached to the system, whether connected alone as master or slave on either IDE channel, or with other hard drives or either (or both) of the CD drives, regardless of which cables they are connected to, the system will not boot past the POST process. The POST completes successfully with no errors and detects all of the drives correctly, but the point at which the OS loader normally would be read from the CD or from the hard drive, the system hangs and will not continue.

The only thing I can think of that I have not yet tried is to boot with an unformatted, unpartitioned disk as the only attached hard drive. All of the drives I have tried contain data that I will need to back up or move before I can do that. I plan to try it when I get home tonight and I will let you know. I am also thinking of taking an Athlon XP 2000+ CPU out of another computer and plugging it into this motherboard to see what happens. I'll let you know the results tonight.

edit: typo.

 

[BadThad]

Is that 2600+ and unlocked cpu? Man, I love the fact that my 2500+ is unlocked! Running it at 11x200!

 

[Fardringle]

Yes. It's an unlocked Mobile Barton. It will be lots of fun if I can ever get the thing to boot past the POST.

 

[Fardringle]

Update. I tried booting with two different, unpartitioned hard drives and the PC still will not go any further than the POST process. Looks like it's time to talk to MSI about a replacement.

Thanks for the help and advice!

 

[trevinom]

I had the same problem with that same board that got from Newegg, refurbished. I had a 2500+ Barton OC'ed to 3200+(11*200), but I guess something was going on because it would not boot into a pre-installed win98 or Win ME OS. Sometimes it would get part of the way through setting up devices, sometimes, it would not even get to the splashscreen, would just reboot. Sometimes, it wouldn't even get past the main boot screen. I lowered the FSB to 100 (1100+) and it booted into WIN98 fine. I then upgraded it to XP and it installed fine. After I set up all the drivers and HD, I upped the FSB to 133(1900+) and it ran in a stable manner. After a day at that speed, I raised it to 166(2500+) and ran at THAT speed for a day. I finally went to FSB 200 and that's when it started acting strange. So I lowered the FSB to 166 and it's been running fine. I guess I don't have the right kind of ram in there...so gonna get better ram and try to take it up a notch again.