MSI p35 neo2 wont boot

[Red Squirrel]

Using intel Core2 Quad processor, 8Gigs of OCZ ram, the thing just wont boot. I can make it to the bios, it detects my cdrom and hard drives as well as the 8GB of ram. Now, the HDDs are blank, but with the cdrom it should start loading any bootable CD. Instead it just sits at a black screen forever. Cpu temp looks ok in bios, its about 40C.

It only seems to do this if the cdrom is connected, if its not connected then it will just give me a boot error which is normal as nothing is bootable (hdds are brand new). It also wont take USB but I have yet to see a motherboard that can boot off USB so this is not really a surprise.

Also whenever I turn it on, it turns itself off, then back on. Do I have a bad board? I sure hope not, this whole system cost me 1700 last thing I need is some bad parts... I kind of regret going Intel in a way, I've never had issues like this with AMD builds.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Check to make sure everything is securly plugged in. Also check to make sure you don't have anything dronded. I'm sure you've already set the bios to boot from CD first. Since it just hangs there you may have a problem with the optical drive.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Tried two drives. I'm wondering if the IDE controller is fubar. Based on the research I made lot of people have trouble with this thing booting, though mind boots further then what I've read so far. I'll have to go out and buy a sata drive and hope for the best. I hate having to buy local as its 3 times the price but I really can't wait another full week just so I can try something.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've concluded the IDE interface is fubar. I plugged the same cdrom drive to my HDD external enclosure and it booted off it no problem. Was testing using the memtest cd I have so I decided to let it run a bit, no issues. Way too hot in my room to let it run for longer though but at least I know it can boot now, just need to order a sata dvdrom drive now.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Arg started doing it again, it just sits at a black/grayish screen forever instead of trying to boot off something. I REALLY don't want to be stuck having to RMA this...

NEVER buy MSI.... I should of known to only stick with asus. I ordered a sata dvddrive so once that comes in I'll be able to install the OS if it decides to boot off it, this better work out or I'll be pissed. RMAs are a royal pain in the ass. It's easier just buying a new one, and faster. I don't feel like waiting months. And according to my google searching everyone has boot issues with this board, so RMA wont do shit, I'll just get another bad one.

 

[OverVolt]

I had an asus motherboard slowly die on me in a similiar fashion.

I tried to overclock with over-specced parts, only to fail at +3mhz to the FSB, so something was wrong.

I reverted back to stock promptly. Eventually my SATA controller died, and my RAID 0 array went with it. The non-raid slots worked, so I used those. Eventually I started getting stability problems. Memtest86 reported 10,000+ errors all at once, when it would hit on a particular area. The thing was, it happened with 3 different sets of memory. I had to replace the mobo in this computer with a new one, after warranty. It was a bad mobo all along.

Haven't bought asus since. It's just the luck of the draw when it comes to hardware.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Hmm that sucks wondering if I should RMA. REALLY don't feel like going through all that trouble though, and I hate waiting on something because of someone else's lack of quality control testing.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The nic is fried too..... I got a sata dvdrom drive and it booted fine off that, installed the OS. Network randomly dies now. What a POS. RMAing...

 

[Red Squirrel]

There all packaged up and ready to go, what a pita, but now I just wait. I ordered this board instead: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...pNo=3287200&CatId=1533

It has 6 sata ports so that will fix one of my other delimas, just need to get a 4 port card (they seem hard to find) when I decide to build that other disk array which will be a raid 10. But thats for future, I'll have a 2TB raid 5 for now.