Novice question about 8RDA+

[worldpeace]

hi, i hope this is the right forum, if not please just refer me to another one or another site. i looked around and felt that this was the appropriate forum. i recently bought the epox 8RDA+ with an AMD 170D0+ cpu. i installed eveything, but upon startup i can't enter the bios by pressing delete. sometimes the screen says its searching for any ide drives, but it doesn't seem like its doing anything, i let it sit there for about 10 minutes with no progress. should i wait more? other times it just remains idle on the screen that says press delete to enter bios. It also says that I have an 1100mhz AMD processor and am running 256 of 133mhz ram. As stated above i have an AMD 1700+ and I have one Nanya 2100 256 stick. All i here is the fan running and no lights are blinking. anybody have any ideas about what this problem may be. Do I have to give any more information? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Darren

 

[mechBgon]

One fairly straightforward thing to check is whether you have the keyboard plugged into the mouse port by accident, if you are using a PS/2-style keyboard (round plug). The keyboard port is the one closer to the surface of the motherboard, the mouse is the "upper" one. Also, could you have overlooked plugging the 4-pin power connector into one of your drives?

If that doesn't resolve the issue, then what I would try next is taking the board out of the case, laying it on the antistatic bag it came with, getting at least a 20-ounce hammer, and-- ...oh wait, the hammer comes later! First try running the board all by itself outside of the case, with just the CPU (with heatsink/fan fully clipped down, of course), RAM, video card and keyboard. No drives, no other add-in cards. This helps establish whether one of the "core" components has a problem, without any unnecessary variables. You can use the tip of a screwdriver to make momentary contact between the Power Switch pins to fire up the board.

Just out of curiosity, what is your power supply's brand and model? There seem to be "quality" units, and then there are ho-hum units with inflated wattage ratings. Your setup isn't extremely demanding, but info is always good.

Once you're able to enter the BIOS then you can set the CPU's bus speed to 133 so the CPU is running at its intended speed.

You're in the right place, welcome to the Forums

 

[worldpeace]

Thanks, I will try each and every one of your suggestions. besides the hammer. My power supply is a brand new ATX 300W Switching Power Supply. I hope this is a good one, i got the impression that ATX was the standard, but i could still retrun it, let me know, thanks

 

[mechBgon]

To go in-depth a little more about the power supplies, ATX is the right general style, featuring the 20-pin main power connector that your motherboard uses. The nominal rating of the units, 300 watts in your case, has become a real smoke-and-mirrors thing. What particular brand and model is your power supply? The label should say.

If it's a good-quality 300W unit, it is probably going to provide about 200 to 220 watts on the combined 3.3V and 5V lines, and could power a fairly beefy AthlonXP system. If it's a low-quality unit, it might be providing only 150W or less on those lines and be insufficient to reliably run your system. You can't really trust the nominal rating. I see some "400W" generic units that have only 180W on the 3.3V + 5V lines! :| And then there are the issues of longevity and voltage regulation. The PSU is the foundation of the system, so buying a quality one helps ensure that the system runs properly (or at all).

If none of the other tips help, I'd take that as an excuse to get at least one of these (ignore the blurb about "for P4 processors," it means it has an auxiliary plug that P4's make use of) or one of these (one of the best available in its wattage class, with 242W on 3.3V + 5V lines).

 

[worldpeace]

damn, the only reason that I bought this power supply was b/c i though it was an actual ATX brand power supply. I had mixed up Antec and ATX. As which one was the type and which one was the brand. Anyways, I have an A1 Power ATX 300W Power Supply, model #: JX-9810UH. I bought it from Microcenter but I do not see the product on their website. Is it worth keeping? Anyways, I rechecked the the keyboard/mouse, they were fine. And i rechecked the connections on the drives. Everything seems fine, but there seems to be no power going to my DVD rom(connection seems fine.) CD Rom works. What do you recommend? Should I just disconnect that drive, or just try the motherboard on its own? Thanks for all your help.
Darren

 

[mechBgon]

You can start by trying the motherboard on its own. With the power supply disconnected from the drives it may have enough juice to get the board, memory, CPU and video card rolling so you can confirm that the board is able to make it through the POST procedures. I'll look up the specs on the A1 power supply but if I remember correctly, they are at the opposite end of the spectrum from Antec, Sparkle Power, Enermax and other reputable makes.

 

[mechBgon]

Hah! They took down their website, or it's not coming up for me, anyway: http://www.a1electronicsinc.com/ You are hereby cleared to use any size of hammer on the PSU or return it for credit towards a nice one.

 

[worldpeace]

You are so right, I swapped this power supply for the one that was in my old system(the one i was meaning to replace with the A1 PSU) and it worked out fine. Only problem now is the floppy drive failed(error 40) Probably the cable was loose or maybe even not enough power with this PSU, but I'm able to tinker with the BIOS. Thanks for all your help, but I have one more favor/question. Can you please recommend a power supply thats on Microcenter's webiste. I would love to exchange this PSU for a quality one. Thanks again
Darren

 

[mechBgon]

Sure thing, the Antecs all have 3-year warranties and for your present system the SL300 would get the job done, it's got a nice 220W available on the 3.3V + 5V lines.

If you want to scoot up a little in case you upgrade to a more-demanding CPU later, then they've got the excellent TruePower330 which uses independent 3.3V and 5V lines and has 242W available on those two lines. I have a whole slew of the TruePower 330's in our work fleet and no disappointments. The TruePower series are also extra-quiet and have a special "Fan-Only" connector if you want to reduce speed on a fan that has a 4-pin plug (the voltage on this tail rises as the PSU's temperature goes up).

One more thing: the SL300 power supply is also available in the SLK1600 case/PSU combo and the nifty little SX630II (which also comes with one 80mm case fan). The SLK1600 only adds $10 to the price of the power supply alone (plus additional shipping, I suppose). I'm really fond of the chassis used on the SX630II, myself.

Glad to hear your core equipment is ok, that's good news

 

[SpideyCU]

Only problem now is the floppy drive failed(error 40)

That's one thing I wouldn't blame the power supply for. It's likely that you put it on the wrong connector (maybe you have your floppy assigned as A but you placed it on the spot on the cable where B would go), or connected the cable upside down. I managed to ALWAYS do something wrong and get that 40 error when setting up a new system - I finally just eliminated my floppy drive.

BTW, you said you're able to tinker with the BIOS now, but, just in case you haven't gotten around to it yet - when you set the FSB to 133 MHz (and set it to run syncronously with the memory, given you've got PC2100), your processor will come up correctly as a 1700+. Then the processor's speed will be ~1463 MHz (133*11), which is 1700+ spec. Your FSB is at 100 MHz, that's why it's coming up as 1100 MHz (100*11).