Trouble booting new computer, Soltek SL-K8AN2-GR

[bojak83]

I've just recently put together a new computer. Here are the specs:

AMD Athlon64 3400+ 2.4gb
Soltek SL-K8AN2-GR: NForce 250gb
PQI 1x 1024mb DDR400 PC3200
eVGA GeForce4 64mb 🙁

And everytime I boot up the computer, it detects for IDEs. So when i reboot, it tries to redetect everything. I can't even install windows because setup process restarts the computer.

At first, I also had a problem with the BIOS, it used to say "BIOS not installed", so I thought this was the source of the redetecting problem. I went to Soltek's FAQ, and I fixed this problem. But it still detects IDE drives everytime.

Does anyone know what the possible sources of this problem could be? Is something wrong with the motherboard? Or my IDE connections?

 

[Muscles]

You're going to have to rephrase some things before anyone can help.

And everytime I boot up the computer, it detects for IDEs. So when i reboot, it tries to redetect everything. I can't even install windows because setup process restarts the computer.

It detects IDEs? What do you mean? You didn't post what ide devices you've installed. I'm guessing a single hard drive and maybe an optical drive? Everytime your pc boots up of course it's going to detect what's installed every time. Have you gone into the bios and set your cdrom drive as 1st boot device so you can install whatever operating system you're trying to install?

 

[mechBgon]

Hit Quote and edit your info into this example, and people will probably be able to get some insight 🙂 I'll start with this: in this image, the red X marks the IDE port that's operated by the onboard RAID controller. It will not run an optical drive. So if your opticals were on there, switch them to the IDE ports up higher, and put your HDD's up there too. The "BIOS not installed" message indicates that this RAID controller found no hard drives and therefore is not installing its own lil' BIOS, and you can disable that controller in the mobo's own BIOS if you get tired of seeing that message (as you may already have found out).

Ok, hardware info template thing:

• CORE HARDWARE
  
  • Power supply Antec TruePower 430
  • Motherboard Asus K8N-E Deluxe
    • Revision 1.03
    • BIOS 1005
  • CPU Athlon64 3000+
    • Core 130nm Clawhammer
  • Memory (2) 512MB Corsair XMS 3200C2 modules
    • Voltage Manually set to 2.7 volts
    • Timings AUTO, results in 2-3-2-6 @ 200MHz
• CARDS
  • Primary video card ATI Radeon 9800Pro AGP 8x
  • Secondary video card n/a
  • PCI slot #1 (top) empty
  • PCI slot #2 empty
  • PCI slot #3 LeadTek Winfast TV/FM tuner card
  • PCI slot #4 Creative Audigy 2 ZS
  • PCI slot #5 LSI Logic Ultra160 SCSI
  • PCI slot #6 (board only has five PCI slots)
• DRIVES
  • Boot drive 160GB Seagate 7200.7
    • Interface Serial ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 SATA controller
    • Jumper setting not applicable (SATA)
  • Additional hard drive 40GB Seagate 7200.7
    • Interface Parallel ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, primary channel
    • Jumper setting Master
  • Additional hard drive 18GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.3
    • Interface SCSI
    • Controller hosting this drive LSI Logic U160 card
    • Jumper setting SCSI ID 01
  • Optical drive #1 NEC 3500A DVD burner
    • Interface Parallel ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, secondary channel
    • Jumper setting Master
  • Optical drive #2 Lite-On combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW
    • Interface Parallel ATA
    • Controller hosting this drive nForce3 standard ATA controller, secondary channel
    • Jumper setting Slave
• OS AND SECURITY
  • Operating System WindowsXP Professional
  • Service Pack SP2
  • Internet connection Cable
  • Hardware firewall Netgear RP614 router
  • Software firewall WindowsXP firewall
  • Antivirus Norton Antivirus 2004

 

[Megatomic]

Nice form there mechBgon. :thumbsup:

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Nice form there mechBgon. :thumbsup:

I wish I were a l33t HTML guru and could make a fill-outable page, where people could just fill in blanks and it would output it with the FuseTalk tags 😱 Not in my skill set, though. Maybe screw3d or someone will come to my rescue 🙂

 

[bojak83]

Sorry about that post. It was my first time. And I was under the influence of pain killers last night, hence that poor grammer. I just had a wisdom tooth removed.

Anyway, here are the specs again

CORE HARDWARE
Power Supply ANTEC Life Style Series Black Case With 380W Power Supply, Model "SONATA"
MotherBoard Soltek SL-K8AN2-GR: NForce 250gb
CPU AMD Athlon64 3400+ 2.4gb
Core: Newcastle
Memory PQI 1x 1024mb DDR400 PC3200

CARDS
Video Card eVGA GeForce4 64mb AGP 8x

DRIVES
Boot Drive Western Digital 80gb enhanced IDE
Jumper setting Cable select

Optical Drive Lite-On CD/RW 52-32-52

OPERATING SYSTEM
Trying to Install Windows XP Pro w/ SP1


And basically, my problem is that it goes through an IDE detection very time i reboot. And it takes a long long time. Heres wats displayed on screen:

It displays my core hardware....CPU, Memory, Memory type....
And then after a long wait. It says "Detecting IDEs..."
And after an even longer wait, it displays and identifies my drives:

"IDE 0 Master: 80gb harddrive.."
"IDE 0 Slave: empty"
"IDE 1 Master: Lite-On Cd/Rw.."
"IDE 1 Slave: empty"
"IDE 3: 3.5 diskette drive" even though i didn't install one.
"IDE 4: empty"
then says something about "IDE 1 no 80 pin installed..."

and finally it says "verifying DMI Pool....boot from CD:"

So when I try to install windows, it does this whole IDE detecting during the computer restart. And it doesnt know that I'm in the middle of my installation, It makes me start all over from the begining.

Could this be fixed by just setting my 1st boot device to CD-ROM?

Thanks.

 

[Muscles]

I'm still confused. Do you get to the WinXP setup screen where it copies files and you have to partition your HD etc.? In the bios, disable anything you're not using like promise and the floppy disk controller, change the boot order to 1st boot device = CDROM 2nd boot device = hard drive. Put the winxp cd into your liteon and boot the pc. If it says to press a button to boot from cd do so and enter windows setup. Setup a partition to install windows on finish the setup process.

 

[bojak83]

Yea, I get to partition and format the HD, then it copies the necessary files to install. After that, it needs to restart. Once it restarts, i have to start all over from the begining....ie format, copy files, etc.

But Ill try what you suggested. Thanks alot.