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Problems with new rig [Long]

Precept

Junior Member
I realized it is quite long, Cliff's notes at the end for those with short attention spans.

Specs:

DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra B
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Mobile
1 Gig Geil PC3200 Dual Channel
Asus GeForce FX 5900
Maxtor 120 GB 8MB Cache
Maxtor 60 GB 2MB Cache

Alright, I put this rig together about 2 weeks ago and had some small problems which I will run through and now one very large problem that I cannot figure out for the life of me.

Things ran alright at first, as in the first boot. After that, I started getting scanlines at the BIOS and Windows splash screens. The computer would boot the desktop with no lines. I figured this could possibly be a driver issue but I couldn't install the drivers. Both the nVidia reference drivers and the Asus drivers would lock up at 62%. They would lock for a couple seconds, then reboot.

So I figured it might be a physical problem, either with the card or with the AGP Slot on the mobo, so I tried to wiggle it, this caused the scanlines to change position, but not go away completely. So, I attributed it to some sort of physical problem. To narrow the problem down I plugged in my old PNY GF4 Ti4200, and it worked, so it was the card.

Well one night, just for the hell of it I plugged the card back in, and low and behold it worked GREAT. Games were flying was stable, everything was good. So I figured it was alright, and that I had misseated it(even though I reseated the card a hundred times) so I went in there and started working on the wiring. On the next boot up, sure enough, the lines were back. And now it wasn't even booting to the desktop; I could hear it, but not see it. So I put the old card back in and said forget it.

Now, I took a week and went to Florida to see some old friends.

So I come back and I think, "What the hell, why not try it one more time." I put in the new card and it doesn't work, Crap. I put the old one back in the sh*t hits the fan, I mean the sh*t REALLY hits the f*cking fan. It won't post, I look at the diagnostic LEDs and it says something about the CMOS battery. So just push down on it, I don't think I really did anything, and it gets past that point. But now I see a message telling me there was a CMOS Checksum Error, to I want to go to setup, or Continue. I go to setup and make sure there is nothing wrong and there isn't so I reboot again.

Sure enough, it's there again. So, I tried pressing continue, and it tells me, error loading operating system, F*ck. At this point it was getting late and I was tired, so I thing to myself, I'll just reset the CMOS. I move the shunt to were the mobo manual says to move it to reset it and I do so. On that boot up it tells me something about new processor and to check my settings, so I go through and put them back where they belong. And now it says "error loading operating system."

Now I have all of my important data backed up on both drives, so I decided I was going to format the Primary(120 GB) and reinstall the OS. I booted from the CD, formatted, then began the installation, it got as far as it could, then needed to reboot. On that boot it came back again, "Error loading operating system."

That's where I am now, clueless.

Any help would be appreciated.
--------

Cliff's Notes

- Built new rig.
- Had some vid card problems.
- CMOS Battery error.
- CMOS Checksum error.
- "Error Loading Operating System."
- Reset CMOS.
- "Error Loading Operating System."
- Format and Reinstall OS
- "Error Loading Operating System."
- Clueless.

Thanks in advance.
 
What brand, model and wattage of power supply is towing the boat there? The FX5900 draws about as much power as a second CPU, so I hope you've got a quality-brand 350W+ unit in there?
 
I have an Antec True380.

Im really not worried about the video card as much as I am the error loading operating system. I have no idea where to go with that error.
 
Good PSU, that oughta do the job in the PSU department 🙂

My first suggestion is to replace the CMOS battery (they're only $2 or so) and then check your boot-device order in the BIOS to confirm that the hard drive is, in fact, one of the boot devices it's supposed to try.

If it wasn't, make it so, and then you might as well try booting up. If that doesn't work, then start Windows Setup again and delete the existing partitions so the HDD has no partitions, and then exit Setup with the HDD in this state. Now reboot and start Setup again and see what happens.

If that isn't helping, I'd say it's time to get the Maxtor PowerMax utility out and see if it finds any problems with the boot drive. At any rate, good luck and welcome to the Forums 🙂
 
Before I get ahead of myself, thank you very much. I really appreciate your help.

What really gets me is that it was working alright (with the old video card). I just swapped them out and then started having these problems, leaving me where I am now.

The drive has no partitions so tonight I pull out the Maxtor software and take a look.
 
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