My woes... faulty stuff?

[EnglFireball]

I'm just putting together a new PC, as I usually do, from good parts from my old unit, and a few key upgrades.
This time I thought I'd look for some bargains, and I bought my new bits on ebay.
Here's the spec:

New:
AMD 3800+ skt 939
Foxconn nf4uk8aa-8ekrs
Asus X800XT

Existing:
Case
Terratec DMX 6Fire
Samsung DVD/CDRW
Zalman 400W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 200Gb

Now... I put everything together, and no worky At first I couldn't get it to boot past the ram checks, but by elimination i discovered that it just wouldn't boot if I was using a USB keyboard (very odd...)
I tried booting onto the existing windows installation, but this just reboots as soon as I try to (or after about 50 files in safe mode). But this is really to be expected after a motherboard and CPU change, right?
So I stick in an extra hard drive (Western Digital Caviar 80Gb) and decide to install windows on this, since I don't want to format the data on the other drive. I put in the windows CD, and let it boot onto it. It does the scanning hardware thing, asks if I need to install raid drivers etc (which I don't) and then starts the "loading files" thing. Halfway through this it blue screens. I get an error saying either nothing in particular, with the code starting 0x0000007e, or one stating that my motherboard/bios (can't remember which) is non-acpi compliant. Which it surely is? I try this several times... always the same things. I have a look around on here, and see something about pressing f7 to bypass acpi mode. But that just makes it reboot there, instead of giving me a blue screen.
I figured it could just be a PSU issue, what with the new PCIe graphics card, 64-bit processor etc. So I go out and buy an Enermax Noisetaker 600w (I needed a new PSU anyway, and this was the only non-cheap thing my local store had) and plug it all in. No avail. I try the old reseating ram thing, try different slots... no avail. Still the same two error messages.

So now I'm thinking... surely I have a faulty component? But from what I've told you... can you tell me if it's the GFX card, processor or motherboard? It can't (shouldn't) be any of the others, as they've been working fine in my old system (with an abit an7, asus fx5200 and athlon 1800xp). It can't be the soundcard, as I've taken it out (just leaving in the bare essential hardware to try and get it up and running). I've tried it on both hard drives, same errors. And several different windows CDs from my friends (although all Xp)

Can any of you help me? Do my problems point to anything specific?

 

[EnglFireball]

Seriously... no-one knows? On a technical support forum? :S

 

[ZeroRift]

you're right, it's probably a faulty hardware issue.
you probably know the drill for isolating the problem though:

1) remove all non-essential hardware
2) switch-out the essential ones one by one with ones you know work until the issue resolves itself
3) if it doesn't work, come back here.

I, personally know nothing about acpi issues. I've never even heard of one. Judging by the symptoms and the new hardware, I'd say mainboard, but that's just a hunch. Offhandedly, did you connect the 4 pin ATX 2.0 cabel to the mainboard?

BTW: you have to give some time to your post before you can expect a real good answer, if there's one out here for you. A lot of the good techies are night owls, so don't be surprised if you have to wait for the forums to get busy enough for someone with your answer to find you, especially one as intimidating as yours.

 

[SLIorCROSSFIRE]

my guess is the new mobo, prob why it was on ebay in the first place, some cheaky b@st@rd thinking he can get away with it.

 

[EnglFireball]

Yeh the old switch out method is what I'd normally do - but I don't know anyone else with a socket 939 or PCI express system, so I don't really have any way of doing that :-(
I've connected the 24pin main plug, the 4 pin CPU plug, and also the molex "aux" plug down by the PCI slots (I've tried with and without this).
The only hardware in at the moment is the mobo and CPU, graphics card, hard drive and dvd drive. I don't think there's anything else I can take out.

And yeh sorry I wasn't being impatient... it was just a bump as it'd already slipped down a page or two and didn't want it to get missed

Thanks also "SLIorCROSSFIRE" I was pretty sure it's a faulty part... but can I be confident it was the mobo, not the gfx or cpu?


Thanks again.

 

[mountcarlmore]

is your cpu the venice core? it could be the guy that sold it to you had the same problem, and got rid of it w/o solving the problem. it could simply be that you need a bios flash cause the one on there might be flaky with the venice. id still just return the board cause of the unpredictable nature of flashes, and buy a late revision board. also, you could run memtest, just cause it passes on your old computer doesnt mean the new mobo likes it.

 

[EnglFireball]

How can I tell if it was a venice core?

 

[CrispyFried]

Tried resetting the bios? Or flashing it to the newest?

Also, being used, try blowing out all the slots with compressed air.

 

[EnglFireball]

Well I flashed the bios today, seems it was the same version anyway Reseting the CMOS was about the first thing I tried, didn't change anything unfortunately I'll pick up a can of air and see if that helps, thanks

Still playing with the faulty idea... is there any chance it could be anything other than the motherboard? Could it be a graphics card problem?

 

[EnglFireball]

*helpful bump*

 

[ender11122]

unlikely its the video. that wont really even be used until you get into windows. It COULD be something other than mobo, but thats the first thing most here would recommend you test.

 

[EnglFireball]

Is there any way of testing it other than that already mentioned?

 

[ender11122]

you might try different ram if you have some. sometimes boards are picky about that.

other than swap it out, I dont know of a good test for a mobo.

 

[EnglFireball]

anyone else?

 

[EnglFireball]

Well I tried someone else's ram today... same errors.
Knoppix says something about kernel panic?