POST problem on system rebuild

[Thanearchon]

Building a system for my GF - was a good excuse to update some of the stuff on my main system.

Anyways.....
System powers on, the CPU is recognized
"Intel (R) Core(TM)2 CPU E8400 @ 3.00 Ghz , Speed: 333x6=1998 MHz"
"DRAM Frequency ForDDR2 800 (Dual-Channel )
Initializing USB Controllers .. Done.
2048 OK (also 409 ok - first thing I tried was pulling out some memory)

Then it just hangs... I never get to BIOS. My old Mobo has a LED diagnostic tool that tells me where it hangs but not this one.

Components:
MSI P7N SLI (750i)
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750W
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Crucial Ballistix 4 x 1.0 G (2 right now)
MSI 8800 GTX video card

I have had this mobo running in another system (for afew days only) and it was fine.

Ideas?
Also, prob dumb question, but why is the speed listing 1998 Mhz? Wouldn't that be slow?

Thanks in advance

 

[gplracer]

What kind of hard drives? Are they IDE? It might be the jumpers try cable select and master/slave.

 

[Thanearchon]

Initially I had 1 floppy drive (it was lying around so I threw it in), one IDE DVD drive, and a SATA hard drive. All three have been disconnected and the POST goes no further than previously.

 

[sgrinavi]

Did you try with 1 stick of RAM? Or, better yet, a stick of cheap-ass 1.8 v RAM


You may have to adjust the voltage before you can add more. I had the same probelm with some mushkin sticks....

 

[Thanearchon]

I'll try that... DDR2 DIMMs don't have to be paired?

Let you know this evening.

I guess my question is: With the boot sequence having gone past the 2096M OK, can it still be the memory or is more likely some other component?

Thanks.

 

[Thanearchon]

All right - 1 stick of ram (tried several) does not work. I also powered off and disconnected the power supply and popped the mobo battery - that didn't help either.

Could this be the processor? Not real excited about pulling everything out of the case, but maybe I'll rebuild on a sheet of cardboard to make troubleshooting easier.

Would be delighted by any further suggestions.

Thanks

 

[myocardia]

You most likely just need to install an older CPU, and update the BIOS to a version that supports 45nm processors.

 

[Thanearchon]

I checked - the BIOS version currently on the mobo is the most recent available.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Really does sound like a compatibility issue, mobo bios is not identifying the processor properly, spec should read 9x1333Mhz, not 6x333Mhz.

There are two versions of the E8400 cpu (Sspec SLAPL/C0 stepping and Sspec SLB9J/E0 stepping), according to MSI website you need bios 7380v20 for the C0 stepping and 7380v21 for the E0 version

 

[Thanearchon]

Well, rats that is embarrassing. You are of course correct sir.

Unfortunately, when I look through the specifications of the processor, I don't see any mention of stepping, and I must confess I don't actually know what it is. I'm guessing that the 45 nm E8400 using E0? In which case, I have bios ver 20, and I need 21.

And I just RMA'd the processor because I exchanged it for the one on this machine (a quad core). The result was the new machine booted right up and this one didn't, but I guess it may have been the same problem with this mobo.

GRrrrrr.....

We won't mention this little issue to newegg.

Thanks,
I'll let you know if it works when the new one comes.