upgraded CPU, Mobo, and RAM

[jfiveeight]

ok so my friend bought an Asus A8V Deluxe, 3200+ AMD64, and 2.5CAS Corsair PC3200 RAM (2x512)

i installed this all on his computer put in his 9800Pro 256MB AGP8x card, two cd rom drives, and a 40GB maxtor connected and booted.. it turned on but no POST beeps, AND no video signal, there isn't any onboard video so we hook it up to his other computer as primary (unhooking the other one) and it says ok! format! so we get teh drive to 78% NTSF? (not the quick) format and he accidently turns off the computer, we cannot get back to the format HD screen. I then set it as slave to the normal primary and it works fine as a slave drive.... writes fine and all..... so i move it back to the computer that i assembled and nothing still.... any help?

 

[SpecialistX]

have you set your jumpers on correctly? does drive thats not working as a primary have its jumpers set on slave? if so, have you tried deleting and recreating your partitions for your hdds? i hope im getting your question/problem, because i seem to be turned towards the hdd from what you are telling me.

 

[jfiveeight]

Yeah, i really think it's the drive and it isn't set on slave any more..... is there anyway i can make this thing work? my main troubles are, i'd like to hear a POST beep and I want to have some video output (the monitor sits on idle). Would erasing the drive and re formatting it again work? i mean.. does it have to have something on it to boot a computer and then install the OS? (i didn't think it did) if so what is it? sorry, i ramble a lot. Also what (if all else fails of course) about my primary... would it work to boot it up as it does have XP on it?

 

[Uncle Bob]

if your new motherboard won't produce any video signal then you have a major problem and messing around with formatting hard discs on another pc won't get you anywhere

start by making sure that you've mounted the motherboard into the case using 'stand offs' (these are usually little brass pillars which screw into the mounting plate inside the computer case and provide support for mounting the motherboard so that it doesn't short-circuit against the metal mounting plate.

ensure that the cpu is installed properly and that the heatsink/fan is mounted firmly making full contact with the cpu and that the fan is connected to the cpu fan connector on the motherboard.

there should be two power leads from the psu to the motherboard - a large rectangular connector with either 20 or 24 pins in two rows AND a smaller square connector with 4 pins. Both need to be connected.

install the ram and your video card. make sure that a power cable is plugged into the video card (same type as connects power to hard disc or cdrom) and connect a monitor.

connect the power switch from the case to the motherboard and plug ac power into the psu (you should see an led light up on the motherboard to indicate that there is power in the system even though you haven't yet turned it on.

connect a pair speakers or headphones to the line-out jack on the rear of the motherboard ao you can listen to the vocal post messages

power it up with the button on the front of the case, the fans should spin on the cpu and on the video card and you should see a post screen on the monitor. if not it's likely you have a faulty or damaged motherboard or cpu.


hth

 

[jackschmittusa]

I recently had a format go bad and it fouled up the MBR. It had win2k on an existing partition which still worked fine. Couldn't do much with the rest of the drive though. Tried the manufacturer's utilities/dianostics, fdisk (Incl. fdisk /mbr), to no avail. I then found a little utility to write 0s to the MBR. Instantly fixed it. Could partition and format normally. You can find it here Zap63.

Boot from a win98 floppy and run the program. If you are working on the primary hd type - zap 0, secondary hd zap 1, etc.. When it asks you if you want to do it, type YES (must be in all caps, don't know why). Takes about 2 seconds.

 

[jfiveeight]

I have connected all the power connectors from the PSU to the motherboard that i know of... I cannot seem to find this 4 pin power you are talking about. The motherboard is already on spacers. The fan spins on the video card and the CPU heatsink but that's all that happens. Thanks.

 

[Uncle Bob]

check the photo's on this page
http://www.omnicast.net/~tmcfa...ides/build/cables.html

if your psu doesn't have one of these you will need to buy an new psu, your new motherboard/cpu won't work without it.

In any case a 350w generic PSU is not really up to providing reliable and stable operation with the sort of cpu and graphics card you have. Buy a decent quality PSU that's capable of providing at least 25A on the 12V rail.

If you spend a little extra and get a decent quality PSU it will last you through several upgrades - the power requirements of CPU's and Graphics cards are increasing all the time.

 

[jfiveeight]

Thanks, it was the PSU. no ATX connector but now i get errors on the 6th windows XP boot disk.

 

[Uncle Bob]

can't you boot from the XP CD?

 

[amdskip]

Originally posted by: jfiveeight
Thanks, it was the PSU. no ATX connector but now i get errors on the 6th windows XP boot disk.

You mean you are using restore disks to install xp? You realize xp is 1 cd right and that you can't use restore disks on a system they were not made for.

 

[jfiveeight]

Well... we are using a compaq copy of Xp pro and it won't boot from the cd. also... i have the HDD jumper on master (i think)

. . . . .
. . . .
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this is reversed i cannot seem to get it to have the extra . (pin) on the left side.

the line represents where i have the jumper now....its an old Maxtor IDE it boots up and sees it as secondary slave? thanks again hopefully.

 

[amdskip]

If it is seeing it as a slave drive, you need to move the jumper. Maxtor's website has jumper settings lised for all of their hard drives so you can double check it there.

You probably can't use a Compaq copy of xp pro to install windows. You may get lucky but most of the time it will not work. Also, windows xp is 1 cd, not multiple so if you are using 6 different disks, it definately will not work.