Previously: cooling on P4- now P4 and Asus problem

[DocDooDaa]

This was previously in the "Cooling issue on P4" thread but the problem has changed a bit...
please read on....


****************************************
It hasn't anything to do with Hard drives, windows, device database or anything.
It will hang just sitting idle in the bios screen--- before it even gets into the "meat" of booting.


A kind soul- and you know who you are- pointed me toward the fact that the 1002 bios on the Asus board reports the wrong temp.

I actually was able to get the board to boot into Dos long enough to flash the bios to 1003 and now the temp readout is correct. It reports 39 degrees C which is about what I would expect for a lower-end heatsink.

Upon further investigation, I still have problems.

I have tried both PCI and AGP cards. I have tried different combinations of RIMMS- even did a long post where the memory was checked continuously without any errors.

The motherboard temperature reading is only a couple of degrees over room temp so I don't think it is the mobo having heat probs. (The northbridge does have a heatsink on it that isn't exactly centered but it is on well enough that I doubt very seriously that could be a problem.)

I am at a complete loss. I have been building systems for 15 years and have never had this much problem with a system before. In the past it either worked or it didn't. If it didn't work then tracking down the problem was easy.....

Now...... well, I just barely have any hair left.
I have spent my entire savings account to build this technological glory only to have it poop in my face.

(Before any comments are made, I have had just as many problems with AMD systems in the past as I have had with Intel systems.)

It is at the point where I am about to ship both the mobo and CPU back to the respective resellers and say "I want another please!"

I have had some good suggestions but any further thoughts before I rake out more on shipping and wait another 2-3 weeks to get this thing going?

I have got mid-terms and term-papers coming up and I refuse to use the computer at the library--- that 386 piece of junk.

E-mail

 

[Flat]

that maxtor Hd u were selling... how much, what speed?

 

[Flat]

my uncle had almost the exact same problem... his motherboard was faulty, bad AGP to system bus or something, just defective. did you get this from an OEM (ie Dell)? if you did they should just send you out a new motherboard, and then you ship yours back. i have also heard about some problems with the RAM... about the quality being not so great. but worst case, from what I understand you can get in windows? if thats the case just use it as a word processor for a few weeks then ship it back.

 

[DocDooDaa]

I bought the Asus P4T retail box through an online reseller...

I am starting to lean toward a faulty mobo but I am still uncertain at the moment.

I have had several offers for the 40 gig maxtor. It is the original 5400rpm ATA66 model.
(Make an offer- I usually won't go below a certain %{which depends on age of equipment} of the current pricewatch value as my stuff stays in retail condition)


Unfortuantely, I have to wait until the system is going to dump the contents off onto another HD or DVD.

 

[frustrated2]

I wish you lived near me cause NOS and I have a similiar setup and we could narrow it down real quick. Do you have any computer shops near you that could test the cpu and ram?? or even another p4 computer near by would work as well. This way you would know real quick what was going on (one nice thing about NOS and I having similiar stuff all the time is the ability to test on each other setups helps with troubleshooting although we haven't had to do this since the athlon days).

It sounds like something is defective and I would lean towards the motherboard or ram. IMHO the only way to narrow it down is find someone to let you test the cpu and ram out.

Oh and thanks your welcome for the temp reading heads up

 

[DocDooDaa]

Unfortunately, frustrated2, I am the only person I know in my tri-city area that has a P4 system.

My penalty for being cutting edge. I am sure there are others but so few and far between, I would never be able to find them.

Around here, we are still stuck in the area of celeron 600s. The Duron 700 is the "hot" new technological breakthrough that everyone has to have....

The computer shops near me..!?!.?** Half the time, they call me if they have questions about the spanking new p120 or p166 they get in....

I am in the process of trying to track down someone though.

I think I have eliminated the ram as being an issue.

I have 4 sticks and have tried every permutation of combinations to ensure that if I had a bad one out of the 4, it wouldn't be in the system. The chances of having 2 bad ones are very slim and 3 is next to nil. So surely, I have had 2 sticks of good memory in there at one time. They all pass the POST ram test.... but I still have the same lock up no matter.

I am pretty sure I am sending the MB and CPU back though. This kind of money, I am not gonna jack around with it.
when you lay this kind of smack down, you expect to get something that works.

Any ideas before I send it back will be tested and are certainly appreciated.

 

[frustrated2]

Well does any of the shops have a p4 or a motherboard in there place?? Probably not since you said they are a little behind the times
You wouldn't happen to be talking about the tri cities in central/lower Michigan would you?? if so you can drive down and we can figure this out. I am betting that the motherboard has the problem. They should cross ship you one to try without asking any questions.

Also how long will it stay in the bios?? Will it run indefinately in the bios window?? if so you could assume that there is a problem with your existing load of windows.

 

[DocDooDaa]

No, we are talking about tri-cities Tennessee.... nope, no P4's around here.

Unfortunately, I wish I could blame it on windows but..... it locks in the bios while it is just sitting there.


I don't think it will sit indefinately anywhere... even if I put a 2ton weight on top of it.

 

[frustrated2]

I am assuming that you will get either a new board and cpu or one or the other when they get done testing. A good online store should pay the shipping back but those stores are few and far between.

 

[frustrated2]

You have tried a different video card correct?? It just seems to me that it has to be the motherboard. But you never know. Where did you buy the stuff from??

 

[DocDooDaa]

I got the motherboard from PowerStartPC and the CPU from American Design Componenets...

I am a stickler for saving money sometimes.... but when there is a $50-100 difference between the next lowest retailer...

Yeah, I tried a good ole fashioned 2Meg Cirrus Logic PCI video card to no avail...

I tend to agree it is the mobo.... but never had a bad Asus board before.. that is what was throwing me off.

 

[frustrated2]

Thats a good point ASUS is pretty reliable. I wouldn't think the cpu is bad because Intel has to run them to clock them don't they?? so it at least worked when it left the factory I would assume. I don't know if ASUS tests every single motherboard???

 

[DocDooDaa]

Thanks to all for the help.

I finally had a resolution to the problem. After receiving a new mobo from the place of purchase, I am up and running.

All I can say is this thing eats my previous P3 1GHz for lunch.


I have it running 1875mHz stable @ 39degC with just a globalwin heatsink and 7200 rpm fan.

Amazing what this thing can do out of the box.

 

[NOS440]

Thats awesome I take it you have a 1.5 ghz. Asus actually made a bad board hmmmm.

 

[DocDooDaa]

yes, 1.5GHz....

Update-------

I have actually gotten this thing to boot (with only an AGP video card and SCSI card) at 1995mHz-

15 x 133fsb.

Unfortunately I have noticed one thing with the Asus mobo. When using the jumper block to set frequencies etc, the bios setting for CPU voltage disappears. Using Jumper free, you can set the CPU voltage but you have no control over PCI and AGP bus speeds (unless the bios sets that automatically).

I am not sure that the bios sets those speeds automatically though because when I add in all my cards, the computer freezes after boot-up at that speed setting. Looking at the jumper settings, if the bios doesn't auto-adjust, then the PCI and AGP would be severely overclocked- would explain the lockups. I have an ASUS v6800 Geforce that is very overclock friendly.

On older motherboards, I have had this thing clocked above 80mHz with no problem.


Does anyone know how to clarify this?

If I could get the FSB at 133 with the PCI and AGP in spec, I would have a 2GHz out of a 1.5.
I could use the jumper block to set fsb=133 pci=33.7 and AGP=66.7 but I have no CPU voltage control and the board just hard-locks when booted...

Any ideas?

 

[NOS440]

I was wondering the same thing. I have not been able to find a Utility that will tell me what the AGP and PCI are running at. I thought Sisoft would tell me but I can't find anything about the Bus speeds in there. Wish there were jumpers for voltage on the board that would be sweet. If the Motherboard supports the different settings to dictate the divider for AGP/PCI by the dip switches I would think that Asus could impliment them in the Soft Menu in bios for us.