new system woes, need help!

[kef7]

I assembled a new system over the weekend but am having trouble with it.
specs:
asus cusl2-m bios rev 1002.a
tdk cdrw
kenwood 72x
ibm 15 gig
w-d 30 gig
p3 933
384 meg (3*128 mb)

I had planned on using onboard sound and video until I get an operating system installed so there is nothing occupying the agp or any of the pci slots.

It boots up fine (gives one beep which according to manual is normal), posts, I can get into bios, (all devices are displayed properly) out of bios but it stops at the next screen after bios (screen where it lists more system info like pci device listing ,irqs, etc.). the cursor just blinks in the lower left corner.

So far I have tried:
-another power supply (think the one I was using is going bad, perhaps took mobo with it?)
-disconnecting cd and cdrw and one hard drive and floppy (various combos)
-hooked up another hard drive with win98 installed on it
-reset system defaults in bios
-took out the mobo battery for a few minutes

Nothing seems to work. I'm starting to think the onboard ide and floppy controllers might be the cause.
Although I disconnected the floppy I now get an error "FLOPPY DISK(S) FAIL (40)" unless i disable in BIOS.
Also since one change in BIOS (don't remember what I did?) it gives an error "<BIOS:> BIOS update data incorrect. CPUID=00000686.
Not sure what that means, it didn't give that error at first, perhaps this is an older bios version that doesn't recognize a p3 933.

before I ramble on anymore please give some advice or suggestions!

thanks in advance

 

[sohcrates]

might wanna try actually flashing the bios to the newest version

of course...you'll have to get the floppy working first...

 

[kef7]

time for bed bump

tried another hard drive with no other devices hooked up and still nothing.

 

[kef7]

morning bump

 

[kef7]

lunch bump

 

[sohcrates]

so you're floppy definitely doens't work right?

next step is to do what i always do and rip that sucker apart down to the bone.

pull out all cards except video card.

take out all IDE cables and then hook up just hard drive and nothing else

does hard drive show up in bios?

 

[WarCon]

I don't think he has any cards in and he said his devices display in bios. I would also think that it wouldn't even run with that processor if it didn't support it.

Have you tried two sticks of memory, instead of three?

That error is the correct one if you pulled the floppy cable so I don't think thats the problem.

You could see if you pull your ide cables if it makes it past the update and asks for a boot disk? If you have a different power supply laying around you might try it too.

.....................edit......................
Have you tried clearing cmos?

 

[kef7]

thanks for the suggestions:

i'm going to try out another floppy in the offhand chance the floppy in the new system went bad.

-pulled out two sticks of ram and tried booting with 1 stick 256 mb or 1 stick 128mb=no change
-cleared cmos (assume by pulling battery and shorting across the terminations?)= no change
-remove all ide cables and floppy cable=no change
-tried different power supply already=no change BUT will try another power supply a 2nd time because the original power supply i've been using stopped working again and then started working again (150w enlight)--i mentioned this in my initial post; perhaps it damaged the board somehow? doubtful, but possible

anyone ever have trouble with the built in bios virus detection? called "trend away chip virus" or something like that? disabled but no change

will update after different floppy is used

 

[kef7]

tried a different floppy and power supply, still boots to just past bios and then locks.

stupid question time: this board has built in rj45 connector and the 4th option under boot devices (after floppy, hard drive, cd-rom) is to boot from network; is there any possibility to boot this way?

 

[WarCon]

Its not getting past updating the ESCD (sp?), which is probably where its hanging. Have you tried reseting configuration data from bios? One other thing you need to check, when you put it together did you make sure that you didn't have any extra risers that might be shorting out the mobo.

I just grasping at straws right now man. Kind of sounds like a bad board.

Hope it is something easy though...............

If your not making it past ESCD update then it don't matter what device you want to boot from. Do you have an older processor that might work in that board? So you can check whether its the board or the chip?

It is also very possible for a powersupply to injure equipment as it dies, so if that supply cooked that may be the source of your troubles.

.........................edit...........................
Since you can get into bios, have you tried loading default setup? Also what setting are you using for Plug and Play OS?

 

[kef7]

one thing I did find out was that my two win98 boot disks got corrupted somehow; perhaps in my haste i had reversed the cable connector on the floppy? would that corrupt a disk? tried booting with winme disks and still no go.

warcon--not sure about the escd question, don't know anything about it--I read a little out of a book just now and it seems to refer to pnp cards, i'm not using any cards yet, just using onboard sound and video. don't know enough about it to give you an intelligent reply.

bios default for plug and play o/s is "no"; i have tried booting with "yes" but nothing different happened

i have loaded default setup, no change.

other cpus I have: p3 900 and a celeron 900; I think the celeron 900 is actually newer than the p3 933 I'm trying to use. but before I risk the celeron I'm going to tear everything out and install the 933 cpu and a harddrive in my old system. if that works it pretty much narrows down the problem to the motherboard.

if it is the mobo then i'm not sure what to do; it was a gift and i have no receipt info or anything. can anyone comment on how asus is with rma's?

need some shuteye, becoming more and more incoherent...

 

[kef7]

Took the system apart and verified that the cpu and floppy worked in another system.

I then left the mobo outside of the case; that may not have been a good idea because since then the onboard video doesn't display properly. Alpha-numeric gibberish over the entire screen, I can make out bits and pieces but it appears that the onboard video got damaged somehow. A few times it came on clear and normal but then the alpha-numeric gibberish started up.

One other thing I noticed is that the board has what I would call a significant bow in area where the memory and cpu reside. Inserting memory (until it clicks it place) makes the bow even worse; this is the hardest mobo I have seen to get memory in.

Unless anyone else has suggestions I'm left with two possibilites:
1.) mobo is bad, issue with vga suggests it may get worse
2.) older bios version can't handle a p3 933 after POST

I'm going to check over on asusboards.com to see if anyone knows the fastest processor supported by this bios. Otherwise will try and RMA. Any suggestions on handling RMA's with asus? This board was a gift so I don't have a reciept or anything.

 

[kef7]

last bump for help!

 

[kef7]

I went to a local computer shop and "borrowed" a celeron 766 to see if it would at least boot far enough to flash the BIOS.

Still no go. No more microcode error but still hangs after post.

The tech that was helping me thinks one of the caps on the board is bad; the cap has a slight bulge at the top like it almost blew.

An engineering friend at work looked it over but cannot be sure if the cap is bad or not; he could replace it but thought better to try and RMA it first.

But, since this mobo was a gift I don't think I can RMA since I don't know who the reseller was.

One thing I thought was strange but is probably nothing is that there is a sticker on the bios eprom that says
"CLSM9"
"1006.A"

Is that supposed to be the rev. of the BIOS that is on the eprom?

If so then why does it say BIOS rev 1002.A when I try and boot?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Kef7