problems with bios msi kn8 neo 2 platinum 939

[spunducky]

ok this is the first comp ive ever built so bare with me plz i got a fx55 on a msi 939 neo 2 platinum when i post the bios should i hear anything or should anything light up? the led on the mobo dosnt light up but on the back of my usb addon port i get 4 green lights so i think post is ok? im having a problem with the gigabit lan it keeps trying to do a wire check and cant find one so it asks me for a disk. i cant find a lan option to disable it in the bios thou maybe im missing it. also i set up the raid array striping 0 in the bios and it seems ok but on one of the options is calling it a scsi did i do something wrong? it sees my 2 raptors as one 68 gig hd. also i see a option for os2 or os if greater then 64mb enable does this mean if i have a operating system that is 64 bit? or does it mean if i have 2 operating systems? i left it disabled for now. i cant load windows on it thou i get hung up because of the gigabit lan problem. its a watercooled system and temp is running 30/90 isnt this high for water cooling?

 

[mechBgon]

You're doing great so far That wire check is simply the mobo trying to boot from the LAN as a last resort. So you got through Windows Setup, right? And it just won't actually boot up Windows? I think all you'll need to do here is to change your mobo's boot-device priority.

Go into the motherboard's BIOS, then into Advanced Chipset Features, and you see the boot device list, like shown on page 3-8 of your manual. Leave the first boot device as "CD-ROM" but set the second one to "SCSI" and see if Windows now boots up. The SATA drives aren't really SCSI but that's a pseudo-generic term for "not regular old IDE" so try it. If the list specifically includes "SATA" then you might try that instead, or "HDD-0."

It's normal for the two drives to appear as a single entity after they've been RAID0'ed. Leave that "greater than 64MB" thing disabled. Hope that helps, and welcome to the Forums. Nice rig!

edit: by the way, be aware of the danger of worms attacking your fresh Windows installation if you don't have firewall protection when the onboard NIC comes online. Here's some suggestions to prevent that.

 

[spunducky]

no no windows setup yet. the wire check happens if i dont hit delete to enter bios. ya i figured the scsi was a generic term just wasnt sure. also under my ide primary devices it dosnt list my opticals at all it just says none. i got service pack one saved on disk im gonna install that prior to plugging up my ethernet wire. ill see if it has a sata or hdd-0. but what is post that just means turning it on and u can enter the bios menu? cause my computer made no sounds or beeps and no led lit up on my mobo.

 

[mechBgon]

POST stands for Power-On Self Test and means that the motherboard displays stuff like in this picture.

You will still be vulnerable to worms with Service Pack 1. Get Service Pack 2 or else make sure you have a hardware or software firewall to keep the worms out before plugging the network cable in.

If you haven't started Windows Setup yet, then make the first boot device the CD-ROM drive and throw your Windows CD in there and begin. When the system says "Press any key to boot from CD..." the first time around, do so. Windows Setup will run, and on your board it should see the RAID0 array as one drive and you can set Windows up on it.

After it's done formatting and copying files, Windows Setup will restart the system. This time, you don't want to press a key to boot from CD. You want it to move on to the RAID0 array and boot from that. That's why your second boot device in the BIOS needs to be ________ (whatever the mobo calls the SATA array, whether it's "SCSI" or "HDD-0" or whatever, experiment if necessary).

Good luck, and don't underestimate the worm threat. Firewalls are your friend

 

[spunducky]

i see a post screen i can hit tab to post or delete to enter bios
if i dont hit any keys i dont get a post like the picture you show me mine is just a all black screen says
verifing dmi pool data..........
disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter

i have my winxp disk in my primary and all my boot sequence 1,2,3 set to boot from cdrom

 

[mechBgon]

I see. If the boot sequence is set to include CD-ROM, then ordinarily you would see it saying "Press any key to boot from CD...". Since it isn't doing that, double-check your optical drive and make sure it has both its power cable and data cable firmly seated, and check the data cable at the motherboard end too. If you have two optical drives on the same cable, make sure one's set to Master and the other to Slave, or else both set to Cable Select. Two masters or two slaves on one cable = confused computer.

Basically, it sounds like your mobo and your optical drive(s) aren't talking to eachother. Or else your Windows disc isn't bootable. It's a real Microsoft-made CD, right?

 

[spunducky]

can you believe it was simply that the a: floppy drive wire was installed backward? haha i guess it only works in one direction and it was confusing the mobo. windows installed i hit f6 and installed the sata drivers on the floppy but the raid is not working it sees it as 2 drives i went into control panel and changed the unallocated disk but it made it a seperate disk but typing this come to think of it i think i need to install service pack one before windows will recognize the raid configuration. thx for the help you were close with the cable but i had em set to master and slave it was the other cable thou.

 

[mechBgon]

Sounds like you're making headway

 

[spunducky]

ya the only real problem i got now is setting up the raid 0 array and the new viewsonic crt i got has some weird flicker in the top right corner like a line runs thru it or something i switched it to 85 herts and it helped but i think its defective

 

[ChessPieceFace]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
You're doing great so far That wire check is simply the mobo trying to boot from the LAN as a last resort. So you got through Windows Setup, right? And it just won't actually boot up Windows? I think all you'll need to do here is to change your mobo's boot-device priority.

Go into the motherboard's BIOS, then into Advanced Chipset Features, and you see the boot device list, like shown on page 3-8 of your manual. Leave the first boot device as "CD-ROM" but set the second one to "SCSI" and see if Windows now boots up. The SATA drives aren't really SCSI but that's a pseudo-generic term for "not regular old IDE" so try it. If the list specifically includes "SATA" then you might try that instead, or "HDD-0."

I'm piggybacking here because I think my issue is related... I built (well, actually, it's fairer to say my friend built for me) a new PC over the weekend, using this mobo. We used my old IDE HD for storage, and installed WinXP on the new SATA 200gb HD.

The problem is, when booting, it seems to have trouble finding the SATA HD, even though that's set to first in the Boot Order. If there's no CD in the drive, it gets to "Boot from CD:" and then freezes. If there's a CD in the drive, however, it goes "Boot From CD:" then "Press a key to boot from CD..." (or similar) then prompts me to boot into WinXP (new drive) or Windows 98 (old drive). During boot, if I check the boot order, the SATA drive has magically changed to last... and if I enter the boot menu and manually select the SATA drive, it then boots from it as it should.

I know this has to be a changeable BIOS setting, but damned if I can find it. We scoured the BIOS settings for any clues, but came up short. Your response above seems likely to be on the right track to fix this, but I don't see anything about SCSI or SATA in the boot order settings. Just Floppy, CDROM, Hard Disk, etc. I looked in the Advanced Chipset screen, and the Advanced BIOS Features (that's 3-8 in my book, and the screen where the boot device order is laid out).

Any advice? I'd really appreciate the help... this is making me crazy.

 

[ChessPieceFace]

Hmm... perhaps I should've started a new topic to get noticed...

Bottom line: I have a new SATA HD, loaded with XP, and an old IDE with an old install of 98. I need to know what settings to change in BIOS so it boots into the SATA HD, without my needing to have a CD in the drive or changing the boot order each time. I don't see where to specify SCSI/SATA vs. IDE in the Boot Order section of the BIOS, and the SATA drive is currently ignored.

Please help... anybody?