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NEED HELP - new mobo or no?

F

fcastle

Member
Here is my situation:

Please see the link below for a listing of my system. Ever since I installed my ATI Radeon 9700 Pro into my computer system, I get three annoying beeps and hang on a cold boot. I hit the reset button and the computer boots fine. I have tried EVERYTHING to fix this problem. I wrote to Iwill, ATI, and Power Color. I implemented all their suggestions with no luck. I installed the ATI card in a buddy's computer and it works fine. I put his Geforce 2 in mine, and all I got was the standard single beep and the computer loaded. I have updated all drivers, reseated the board, and checked and switched the various power connections. I am at a dead end. Obviously the card works fine, and my computer works fine with another graphics card (I do not know anyone with a spare ATI Radeon lying around so I cannot check that situation out). I have a couple choices:

1. Continue to be annoyed at having to hear three beeps EVERY TIME I start my computer and having to hit the reset button EVERY TIME as well, eventually leading to the day I pick the computer case up and throw it out the window (this day is not far away)

2. Buy another mobo that will support my Athlon XP 1800+ and 640 MB of PC133 SDRAM

3. But a new mobo, CPU, and RAM.

With my current setup (which I am happy with), I was hoping to wait until the fall to upgrade the mobo/RAM/CPU. I would not mind paying $50-$75 for another mobo just to get me through until then, especially if I can pick up a couple $$ for my current mobo. If I were to do that, any suggestions on what motherboard to buy?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - thanks!
 
For reference and to make it easier, he's using a KK266Plus board.

Have you tried setting all the CMOS settings to default, optimal, compatible mode, whatever your board offers?

What suggestions did Iwill, ATi, and PowerColor give you? No sense in the rest of us telling you the same things to try.

I assume you're using the latest BIOS for the board?

I was going to suggest the PSU may not be supplying enough power, but then I see you have a 431W Enermax (I presume of the EG-465P line). The Radeon 9700 Pro draws extra power on the 12V line. Your symptoms sound suspiciously like that may be the problem. The initial boot gets the hard drives spinning and the fans spinning (which use the +12V line as well; Maxtor drives are particularly power hungry), but the PSU doesn't have enough power to get the video card working at the same time. Once the drives and fans are spinning, then they stop pulling their maximum amperage, and the PSU is able to supply power to the video card when you hit reset.

However that line of PSU's has 20A on the +12V line. That should be plenty to power all your components even at maximum draw. I would suggest though that you try booting the system with the hard drives unplugged. If it works, then your PSU may be defective. Whether it works or not, see if you can try another PSU.
 
Thanks for your quick reply.

To respond to your comments. I have tried booting the computer with only my WD HD powered by the PSU. I disconnected two case fans, the Maxtor drive, and the two CD drives. Still got the beeps.

I am using the latest BIOS, it is from 02/27/02. That is the latest avail on the Iwill webpage.

I unfortunately do not have another power supply available to test.

I have not tried resetting the BIOS to a default mode. I made a number of BIOS changes that Iwill and ATI suggested which included turning the Gate A20 option to normal, VGA Palette Snooping to disabled, and a number of other changes, none of which made any difference.

The companies also recommended: updating my BIOS (duh), changing the VIO setting (I tried the two options of 5% and 10% - no luck), getting the latest drivers (duh), checking and switching the power connections, trying different RAM configs, and trying 2x and 4x AGP (mine is default 4x). None of these suggestions helped.

The Enermax is a PG465-VE.

I completely understand what you are talking about with the PSU. If the PSU were the problem, wouldn't it boot OK when all the other devices were unplugged?

Argh.



 
If the PSU were actually defective in some way (since the power output should be fine even with everything plugged in) then who knows whether it "should" work fine with everything unplugged. The only way to be sure really is to get another PSU and try it. Can you borrow the one in your friend's computer that you tested the video card with?

The need to reset it after the initial boot, and then it working fine, but only with the 9700 Pro installed, really seems to indicate the power is an issue, or possibly the AGP slot is an issue. It may not be able to provide enough power to the card, even though the card uses an extra power connector to handle the high power needs.

Did they suggest changing the AGP Driving Control or Drive Strength? With some boards there were issues with nvidia chipset cards, where the motherboard wouldn't properly detect and set this value. This may also be affecting your system with such a new video card. It may need to be boosted up. It's in hex, if it's set to DA, then change it to EA and that's the "next" level. I wouldn't say to go any higher than that, and set it back to Auto if it doesn't help. It may make no difference at all, just a suggestion. Setting it too high can also damage the video card.
 
Thanks for the help. Probably not on borrowing the PSU. I may just buy one, try it, and return it (depending on the result). Is there a different PSU I should try?

Where is "hex"? Could you give me a slightly more detailed description of that process to change the value to EA so I can try it?

Thanks again.
 
"hex" is short for hexadecimal, 0 through F standing for 0 through 15, which can be converted to 4 bit binary quickly. Two hex digits together makes one 8 bit binary number.

Search google and you can find more information about the Drive Strength or Drive Control setting. It should be simple to find, and I'm pretty sure your board has it based on sites I found mentioning how to get Geforce chips to work on it.
 
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