New Computer Won't Boot - Just Built

[ThunderLew]

My friend and I just put together a computer and now the computer won't boot. No operating system has ben installed and the initial set up gets hung up on the PCI device listing screen. The devices listed are the:

SMBus Controller
USB 1.1 OHCI Controller
USB 2.0 EHCI Controller
Display Controller
Multimedia Device
Serial Bus Controller
ACPI Controller

Originally, when the computer was put togehter, the load screen would complete, look for and OS and then give me a message that there was not Boot disk.

I put in my XP Pro CD and part way through the install, I got an error that read:

"A problem as been detected and windows has been shyt down to preven damage to your computer

SESSION3_INIALIZATION_FAILED"

There is more to the error message, saying that I need to check my hardware or softwar is perperly installed.

Here is my PC Info:
ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939
AMD FX-57
EVGA 7899 GTX
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
Corsair XMS 2GB 184 PIN DDR SDRAM DDR 400
PLEXTOR px-740A
ASUS DVD-E616P3

Please help,

Thanks

 

[mechBgon]

't boot? Try the third link on this page: http://www.mechbgon.com/

Welcome to the Forums

 

[ThunderLew]

Thanks for the link... I am looking through this, but I suspect that the hardware error message and the bios not getting past the PCI device listing segment are related. The strange thing is that when I enter the BIOS, the BIOS sees my devices.

I had my buddy, who is familiar with putting computers together build it, perhaps I should have had him install the OS too.... to bad he was strapped for time.

Still... I need to learn this stuff anyways.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: ThunderLew
My friend and I just put together a computer and now the computer won't boot. No operating system has ben installed and the initial set up gets hung up on the PCI device listing screen. The devices listed are the:

SMBus Controller
USB 1.1 OHCI Controller
USB 2.0 EHCI Controller
Display Controller
Multimedia Device
Serial Bus Controller
ACPI Controller

Originally, when the computer was put togehter, the load screen would complete, look for and OS and then give me a message that there was not Boot disk.

I put in my XP Pro CD and part way through the install, I got an error that read:

"A problem as been detected and windows has been shyt down to preven damage to your computer

SESSION3_INIALIZATION_FAILED"

There is more to the error message, saying that I need to check my hardware or softwar is perperly installed.

Here is my PC Info:
ASUS A8N-SLI Socket 939
AMD FX-57
EVGA 7899 GTX
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS
Corsair XMS 2GB 184 PIN DDR SDRAM DDR 400
PLEXTOR px-740A
ASUS DVD-E616P3

Please help,

Thanks

Ok, with the specs on hand, here's my advice:

1) make sure the motherboard's EZ Plug is hooked up, and obviously the PCI-Express power plug on the video card (duh)

2) Set your memory voltage manually. Corsair XMS isn't vanilla RAM, give it 2.8 volts in the motherboard's Advanced > JumperFree section. Also get that Audigy2 out of there to start off with.

3) if your power supply is not a good brand, that could cause stability problems too. There are average ones, good ones, great ones, and trashy ones, and your system deserves at least "good". What brand & model do you have, anyway?

Also, what brand & model of hard drive are you using?

 

[ThunderLew]

My power supply is an Aspire 520

Also... the Sound Blaster isn't a good sound card?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: ThunderLew
My power supply is an Aspire 520

Also... the Sound Blaster isn't a good sound card?

Aspire... I'd put that in the "average" bracket, maybe...

When troubleshooting, sometimes it helps to strip the system down to the bare essentials, and Audigy2's are occasionally fussy, so it couldn't hurt to leave it out for now and then see how the system behaves with one optical drive, one hard drive, memory at full rated voltage, and all possible power cables hooked up. And if it gets extra troublesome, take it out of the case, lay it on cardboard, and test it outside the case with no case wiring hooked up.

It could help to know what brand/model of hard drive you're using. In particular, if it happened to be a Western Digital with a Parallel ATA interface, those can throw a fit if they're not set to the Single Master jumper setting, which is when the jumper cap is removed from the pins altogether. That crops up every so often and can make the motherboard hang before, during or after its POST screen, so that's what made me think of it.

 

[ThunderLew]

My primary HD is a Seagate Barracuda. I checked the HD instructions and it is set to primary.

My slave HD, which I am taking out for testing is a Maxtor diamond Max

 

[ThunderLew]

Update: I switched HDD and that fixed the initiation problem... after that, I was able to get the no bootable disk message (so 1/2 was completed).

I then tried booting from my secondary dvd bay and it seem to have worked. I am going through the rest of the XP Pro install.