Music from BIOS, 550W is STILL not enough power? What am I doing wrong?

[Nebor]

I'd say it's that board.... I do not heart Asus motherboards. I went through hell with a p4c800 deluxe for a month or two...

 

[ASSVTLightning]

What kinds of hell did you experience? Was it power-related too?

 

[ElFenix]

you're running less than i was on my antec 330 (3x 7200 rpm drives, athlon 2 ghz, radeon 9800 pro)

have you changed the cables?

edit: oh i see you did

the board is toast.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I didn't read everything but did you also try a different PS to see if the Antec is defective somehow?

 

[ASSVTLightning]

Hmmm, 2 votes for "Board is toast."

No I have not tried another PSU since buying my Antec (my 3rd PSU already). I suppose I could try swapping in another and return it if there's no difference.

Why the votes against the mobo? The hard drives that have been failing have been off of the Promise ATA 100 controller card, not the mobo IDE channels. Or does that not make a difference?

 

[GrumpyMan]

Try another PSU first since it will cost you less than a new mobo. Even thought Antec makes some excellant PS's, which I also use all the time, I'm sure one goes bad every once in while. It's the nature of the beast so to speak.

 

[ASSVTLightning]

OK, tried another PSU and while I haven't had a problem yet... the voltage readings are the same (MBM reports 11.38 and AsusProbe reports 11.968-12.032 on the +12V rail). The 3.3V rail is the one most off I guess, as it's showing 3.28 (which is still within spec) though it did briefly dip and spike for some reason (down to 2.8X). Still observing behavior with new PSU before I try next step (mobo?).

EDIT: I went into MBM settings and changed the voltage sensor attributes to Asus Standard 2 and now both AsusProbe and MBM agree on indicated voltages. Still observing....

 

[ASSVTLightning]

UPDATE: Man the chit is hitting the fan now. It's definitely getting worse. This morning I booted up and no BIOS Music but the amber HDD light was solid and nothing happened (screen was black/blank). I hit reset and the computer started to boot and went staight to BIOS with a warning message that said "NOW THAT YOU HAVE INSTALLED YOUR NEW PROCESSOR, PLEASE [something about selecting clock speed]." Instead of my usual MANUAL overclocked setting, I went with the default 2.4 GHz, and it booted fine. Haven't tried to boot again @ regular O/C speed though.

I want to add though, that this is NOT the same message I see when I have my processor clocked too high (that warning message says something about YOUR COMPUTER DID NOT SHUT DOWN PROPERLY DUE TO IMPROPER CLOCK SPEED or something like that). So wtf is going on? Why does my BIOS/mobo think I installed a new processor (and what signs does it look for to detect this?)?

Is this yet another nail in the mobo coffin?

EDIT: Forgot to mention I got the dangerous SMART alert about the "Spin Up Retry Count" again on the same HD when I booted to WinXP.

 

[ASSVTLightning]

Whoah... big time update. I just tried to transfer some files using a 256 MB JumpDrive 2.0 Pro (one of those USB memory sticks) and as soon as the tip of the male USB plug touched the female USB port on the front of my case, I heard slight static electricity crackle under my sock and my whole PC cut off. Computer booted up and failed to detect the hard drive on the Promise ATA Controller card. Cold booted and the hard drive magically reappeared. WTF? Never happened to me before, and I used the JumpDrive a lot.

 

[Slinger34]

I think it's a P4PE problem. I moved to Asus and a P4PE after some Abit problems and I'd have to say I'm very dissapointed.

From day one I had 3 hdds a 120 GB SATA WD, and my old pair of IBM DTLA 30 GB drives, as well as a CDRW and a DVD drive. I cannot get the mobo to recognise all three hdds at once, period.

If I run one of the DTLA's off the ATA100 connector on the SATA/RAID controller, one of two things happens. If I turn off IDE as a bootup sequence choice (booting off the RAID/SATA controller) then I can see the 120 GB drive and also the DTLA on the RAID/SATA controller, but not the other IDE drive. It just doesn't detect it. If I turn off IDE as a boot sequence option, then I cant see the DTLA on the RAID/SATA controller, but can see the one on the IDE controller.

So I gave up on trying to install a hdd on the ATA100 port for the SATA controllers, and installed both DTLAs as primary devices on the IDE controllers. Then when I boot, the primary master is detected fine, but the secondary master looks like gibberish in the BIOS. Uh Oh, sounds like a bad drive. But if I disconnect the primary master from the data cable and reboot, there's the secondary master, working fine.

I don't think I have a power problem. With all three hdd connected, the Bios reports my voltages as:

Vcore: 1.55v
+3.3: 3.18v
+5: 5.05v
+12: 11.9v

OK not perfect, but not an explanation for what I am seeing. What I am seeing is a piece of crap Mobo that can't handle being anywhere near full on its IDE, ATA and SATA channels. I've emailed Asus, but they just don't respond. Believe me, it will be my last Asus purchase. They used to have such a good rep for solid mobos, what happened?

I think your problem is the same as mine, and the mobo is to blame.

 

[ASSVTLightning]

Yeah, I think I am starting to agree with you (and everyone else). I read such great reviews about the P4PE's overclocking ability and stability and features... and I loved my last Asus mobo. So I'm kind of in denial right now. I am going to try switching PCI slots to see if it makes a difference... then I'm going to replace the mobo. I almost wish it was just my hard drive slowly dying... (those are easier to replace than mobos).

 

[Slinger34]

I doubt the PCI slots will help. I have nothing in any of them, just a Radeon 9700 in the AGP slot. Sorry for more bad news.