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New AMD X2 Rig: Onboard Firewire and PCI cards not recognised

A

Aardman

Junior Member
OK my rig details are in my sig(hopefully). The MoBo is second hand, CPU New, other parts working from my old rig.

My question, if (like me) you just built this rig, and

1.The onboard IEEE 1394 Firewire port did not appear in device manager, or work

2. None of the 3 PCI cards that were just working in your old MoBo were being picked up in any slot.

3. The above state of affairs persisted through 4 BIOS flashes, 3 reinstals and 3 days of no overclocked stability testing -Rig is now overclocked and dual prime stable, AGP locked @ 67. USB devices and AGP are fine. BIOS is currently the latest modded MSI one (70251B3). Ive now tried every Neo2 BIOS that recognises the X@ 3800 dual core CPU. One of my HDDs died a week after the rebuild, but Im pretty sure it was due to at its age. That was the reason for XP reinstall # 3. All Temps are low, even gaiming or burining DVDs, OCZ DDR Booster is in but at near stock 2.7 Volts.

What would you test to identify the fault? If I get any plausible answers I'll try them and report back. NB I'm not a tech and on a tight budget having bought the CPU and MoBo! Happy to post screens e.g BIOS Device Manager if justified.

Ive tried this question on the MSI and Rebelshaven forums, the only suggestions there being to check peripherals were enabled in BIOS, (done) watch POST on Reboot (done) and reinstall Win XP SP2 again (oh no). No answer here and I'll have to save up to get a PC tech to look at it I guess🙁

 
Stop overclocking and see what happens. Plus the mb is used, so I wonder if it is ok. What are the pci cards? If you are going to overclockl always start with a fully functional stable system. That way you will know if it is the overclock or something else.

Good luck

Perry
 
OK Perry its all now at stock. Did a scan for hardware chages in device manager, still nothing sadly. Either as you say the MoBO isnt OK or its some sort of dual core ACPI/IRQ issue I guess. To be fair to myself I did carefully OC per the guidelines on this and other forums, and tested 3 days for stability at stock speed. And the rig was/is dual prime95 stable I just didnt test everything I could plug in, as you say a flaw in my methodology especially with a second hand MoBo. Tthere was the distraction at the time of changing to beta and modded bioses to make the X2 3800 recognised by the Neo2. Still have to use a modded on as the offical MSI BIOS doesnt have USB 2.0! All XP reinstalls were at stock. Maybe more guides should mention testing peripherals in the pre OC testing stage. PCI cards tested were SB Audigy 2 (with onboard audio disabled) Pixelview PlayTV Pro BT878P and a Netcomm inmodem 56 v92. Thanks for the consideration and advice, Perry and I'd be happy to hear any more.
 
Now I have run some of the Mainboard utilities from the Ultimaite Boot CD, looking for erros to explain my ongoing invisible/inoperative onboard IEEE 1394 and PCI cards..

The "PC Config" and NSSI Mainboard utilities both show "ROM PCI routing table appears faulty" errors.

More info from thje BIOS section of NSSI:

"Table version OK size 320 bytes OK IRQs assigned to PCI 3,5,7,10,11, 14 +15. IRQs 5 7 10 + 11 showing 2 PCI devices. Table Checksum 44h-FAILED."

Some of that sounds bad. Possibly relevant. Clue me in please anyone on what it means and if it does indeed relate to the firewire PCI card issue...
 
Have you at any time plugged a case's front-USB or front-Firewire ports into your mobo?
 
No I havent, mechBgon - I havent hooked the USB up and there is no front firewire on this case. I did get the MoBo second hand however so the previous owner might have done.

I have been wondering if the IEEE 1394 d Bracket might work, but I didnt get one with the MoBo, could connect something simialr I guess..your thoughts?

 
I remembered some gripes about MSI boards having +5V pins in the USBOC position, which is supposed to be ground. People were finding that if they snipped the wire on their case wiring in that position, then the USB would work.

Well guess what, PCI uses 5V as well. So I was just thinking maybe the 5V plane went *poof* as a result of the +5V miswiring of some MSI boards, but I don't know how you'd determine if your board were affected, unless maybe you begin probing the USB pins that ARE supposed to be 5V, using a voltmeter or multimeter, and maybe your PCI slots as well. On a PCI slot, the last two contacts are +5V and the one at the opposite corner is ground, so if the potential between opposite corner contacts is not 5V or -5V, that may tell you something (unless the mobo has powered down the slot... disable power management in the BIOS first).

Crazy brainstorms at 11PM here 😕 Good luck and remember, it's nothing money can't fix (new mobo), might just take time to scrape together $100 for a new board is all.
 
Interesting info there thanks mechBgon -its a problem at this sort of level I fear and you are right on about the fund scraping situation too brother, except way down where I am in New Zealand its $NZL 220 for a new Neo2-the man pays us the same number of dollars but everything costs twice as much. Now where can I borrow a voltmeter from? Anyone after a used Neo2 by the way?
 
OK well the first part of my postscript-I swapped out the Neo2 for a Gigabyte Ga K8NS Ultra 939. With only an in-place reinstall of XP, the Gigabyte is able to recognise all onboard and connected devices, including Firewire and all the PCI cards that didnt work on the Neo2. Interestingly the shipped Gigabyte BIOS recognised the X2 by name , but did not enable dual core support-easilly fixed with a BIOS flash.The Gigabyte also allows an overclock to 2.4 ghz at 1:1, which I could NOT achieve on the Neo2 with the same X2 3800 CPU and same UTT BH5 RAM @3.3V. I've posted the Neo2 back to the supplier, and will update with the result.
 
Second postscript-I got the old MSI box back today with the original cables and manuals but a newly sealed MoBo with a higher serial number on its back to the one on the box label. The seller e-mailed me to say it was replaced by the agent, and I'll presume this is what usually happens with an RMA -just getting the broken bit replaced,-unless I read otherwise. Wish there was some paperwork though! So I guess now the question is if there is much value in swapping the Gigabyte K8NS ultra 939 back out for this, or whether I should sell it still sealed. Especially when I have a DDR booster and an X2 3800 that is never going to go anywhere near a 300 mhz FSB. BTW turns out the Gigabyte wasnt totally stable @ 240 1:1 though it would run for a while. Any thoughts, guys?
 
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