Out of the box this computer ain't working

[Yeehaw]

Greetings,

 

Just assembled everything today and tried to load XP. Other that the first screen flying by, everything takes forever to happen. Like to get to an >A: prompt when using a win98 startup disk takes aproximately two to three minutes to complete.

 

First thing I did was flash the bios with N4D623-3 - diamond flash image for bios (the latest factory bios & the one that allows dual processor support). Everything went nicely as expected.

 

I tried loading XP from the CD and between the initial looking at the system configuration and starting to load files was 3-4 minutes. Shortly thereafter it said a file was missing and would not load.

 

I then found the drive was no longer formatted, wouldn't work in my other computer and I needed to Fdisk and reformat it. It was so corrupted my other computer would not work with XP & Partition magic so I had to remove all drives and then reformat it.

 

When I replaced the newly formatted drive in the new machine I was able to get the first stage of loading XP accomplished but then it hung after the initial laying down of files. It seemed to be running slowly like using DOS to install it but without smartdrv installed.

 

I had to restart but again the drive was borked and it was not recgonized.

 

I looked in the bios & saw memtest so I ran it & on stage #6 there were 32 errors. I moved the ram from the orange slots to the yellow slots and reran memtest & this time there were no failures.

 

I tried to fdisk & reformat from within the nF4 and it would not check the drive integrity and the screen appeared frozen at 0%

 

I exchanged the OCZ ram with Twinex Corsair and that made no difference.

 

I decided to let it run and see if the drive integrity checking function of fdisk would kick in & after all this typing it has indeed increased. Now it says 1% completed...

 

On my other computer XP2600, it does it as expected.

 

Since different ram did not make a difference I assume it's not the ram

 

In memtest it shows I'm at 1.800Ghz & using an AMD64 Athlon

 

This thing is truly not working right.

 

Is there an idea you might have what I should look at or try doing?

 

This thing makes a turtle look like it's on Nitro...

 

Again, I've changed nothing bios or boardwise except flashing the bios to the newest version.

 

Thanks

[Reinvented]

Your OCZ memory was fine. Is your PSU a native 24 pin? Are all four motherboard connectors connected? IE, 24-pin ATX, P4, 4-pin Molex, and FDD? Those help with stability believe it or not.

 

When you reformat your HDD, you should be using the one on the XP CD. Make sure you also slipstream SP2 into it as well.

[Yeehaw]

Your OCZ memory was fine. Is your PSU a native 24 pin? Are all four motherboard connectors connected? IE, 24-pin ATX, P4, 4-pin Molex, and FDD? Those help with stability believe it or not.

 

When you reformat your HDD, you should be using the one on the XP CD. Make sure you also slipstream SP2 into it as well.

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

Yes, a new Antec 500W supply with 24 pin, I have the 4 pin connector inserted next to the 24 pin and the plug onboard looking like a CD power plug I have also attached to the PS.

 

I've been putting together computers for years & this is a first.

[gnomepunk]

The CD power plug is a 4 pin Molex (12v/5v). A little to the left of that is a 4 pin Floppy Disk power connector, plug that in too. It looks like a standard fan header, but has 4 pins.

 

The memtest86 errors could be because you have PC-4200 running at PC-3200 speeds. I've had trouble with my OCZ when it wasn't close to the PC-4000 speeds.

 

I would try a Fedora Core 4 install and see how that goes. Could be a media problem complicated by an older hard drive. Try another hard drive if you have a spare.

[Yeehaw]

The CD power plug is a 4 pin Molex (12v/5v). A little to the left of that is a 4 pin Floppy Disk power connector, plug that in too. It looks like a standard fan header, but has 4 pins.

 

The memtest86 errors could be because you have PC-4200 running at PC-3200 speeds. I've had trouble with my OCZ when it wasn't close to the PC-4000 speeds.

 

I would try a Fedora Core 4 install and see how that goes. Could be a media problem complicated by an older hard drive. Try another hard drive if you have a spare.

 

Hi,

 

Not sure at this moment where to make the change to get the memory closer to it's expected speed (probably the 200MHZ) . The Twinex I tried is 3200 so it would have been right for that.

 

Fedora Core 4? I did a google & that relates to linux, I'm needing XP installed.

 

I just went back & tried to activate the partition & it's still not working.

 

When I enter fdisk & say yes to large disks it takes 15 seconds & then I get the selection options. If I choose #4: Display Partition information it says:

Current fixed disk drive: 1 & at the bottom it says "No partitions defined"

 

I go back & tell it to create a DOS partition or a logical disk drive and that's where it locks up saying "Verifying Drive integrity: 0% complete.

 

On my other computer this task is done with no hesitation, the drive is 2 years old & still under warranty & earlier I ran the s.m.a.r.t feature & it reads as good so the drive itself shouldn't be a problem.

 

Maybe...

[Yeehaw]

criminy,

 

Can't even get partition magic for dos to load. First disk is OK but the second one goes bananas.

 

Major problem here...

[Yeehaw]

Well... Just tried using one of my 250G SATA drives and the same thing happens, I am looking at a frozen blue Windows Setup screen, the one where Windows Setup is in the top left corner with the two whiler lines underneath. In the bottom of the screen is the light tan line saying "Setup is starting Windows"

 

Not the ram, not the drive. Could there be some switch I need to change on the motherboard? It comes prepared for a single video card and I did not enable SLI. Actually, I changed no settings anywhere as far as jumpers go. All I did was attach the cables.

 

this is lousy

[Thracian]

Let me get this straight, you bought a motherboard designed to overclock but have not a clue as to how to do this or what even at default settings you should be using with your hardware?

 

You don't know what cpu or ram settings you are/should using/use.

 

You are loading windows xp before using the correct bios settings and becoming stable.

 

You are trying to format your hdd with 98's fdisk just to load winxp (which has it's own format options)

 

Excuse me when I say, this is butt backwards.

 

For the LOVE OF GOD stop trying to load xp untill you get your bios figured out and are 100% stable. If you are unstable now you will have nothing but trouble once xp is loaded.

[EdLSmith]

@Yeehaw - some good points there You can run memtest without HDD from within BIOS.

Genie Bios bottom of page, just enable. Leave all voltage at stock but your TCCD likes the 2.7 volts and you could enable the .03 add on under that. You want to run memtest Test # 5 about 5 passes and then test #8 about 5 passes incrementing HTT by ten for each test.

When you get to 260 then before you go to 270 reset DRAM divider to 180 or 9/10 and continue memtest up to 300. then set it back to 1/01 and HTT back to 200 and run full

set of memtest for 24 hours. Make sure any settings in memory section of bios is auto except you can set your timings to loose settings that will take you all the way through the memtest procedure and with that RAM that should be 3-4-8-4 1T.

 

It is to your benefit to not rush and read about Clearing CMOS, cause you are going to do that a lot with this board.

 

Welcome to DFI-Street.

[Yeehaw]

Let me get this straight, you bought a motherboard designed to overclock but have not a clue as to how to do this or what even at default settings you should be using with your hardware?

 

You don't know what cpu or ram settings you are/should using/use.

 

You are loading windows xp before using the correct bios settings and becoming stable.

 

You are trying to format your hdd with 98's fdisk just to load winxp (which has it's own format options)

 

Excuse me when I say, this is butt backwards.

 

For the LOVE OF GOD stop trying to load xp untill you get your bios figured out and are 100% stable. If you are unstable now you will have nothing but trouble once xp is loaded.

 

Stable? and how would you define stable if you have no operating system on the computer? Boot vs no boot?

 

I've been overclocking computers since 1982 and when did you start? This is the first time I have experienced this problem in my entire life.

 

My other computer is watercooled using an Iwaki MD-20RZ and a Cascade waterblock which I bought from Cathar it's inventor.

 

You don't start overclocking untill you have a system that is burned in and is stable. At this point I want it to simply run.

 

Now if you have a suggestion as to what is going on with my computer then let me hear that but this 100% stable when you're running nothing is a fools errand.

[EdLSmith]

@Yeehaw - check my post.

 

FYI - unfortunately DFI does not officially support Opterons.

You can read all about that in

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26642

[EdLSmith]

@Thracian - we are civil here. Perhaps helpful. Bet you had simular problem with your first DFI board.