DFI NF3 Dead Board?? Advice

[Genetics]

Hey Everyone, first post here.

This is my first DFI board so I was hoping for a smooth ride but didn't work out that way.

 

Installed Cpu, Ram, and Video. Booted just fine, went into the bios and disabled the full screen boot, no problems.

 

Installed the rest of my drives and my audigy booted no problem. Popped into the bios and turned off all the extra's I didn't need. Hit save and exit, yes, rebooted and now I've got nothing.

 

Troubleshooting Time

Tried to clear the bios, no go

Unplugged everything and I got a consistent series of long beeps, no long then short beeps.

Installed one stick of memory, long beeps

Installed video card, nothing.

Tried a different stick in a different slot, nothing.

Tried without memory and I got long beeps.

Cleared CMOS for about 30 minutes with the battery taken out, nothing

 

Any ideas or just RMA it?

 

Thanks

Genetics

 

Specs

DFI NF3 w/ Athlon 64 3000+ NewCastle

Koolance Water Cooling

Antec TruePower 480 watt PSU

2x512 Matched Cosair 3200 Low Latency

VisionTek Radeon 9800 Pro w/ Danger Den Block

Creative Audigy

Seagate 200 gb drive

Western Digital 120 gb drive

NEC 3500A DVD Recorder

[RGone]

:confused: Disable cpu throttling. If so it will not boot until flashing to at least beta 9/12 bios.

 

Normally you can hold insert key down at bootup and boot using the defaults and it should boot. If you disabled cpu throttling you might be able to get it back booting with removing the battery for a few mins these boards are not normally like the DFI NF2's for CMOS clearing problems.

 

RGone...

 

PS: I think long beeps now means more than just "memory" which is all it used to mean. Now it can mean you do not have the commode where it will flush since so many use LEDS to signal what is happening they have just about done away with the meanings of beep codes.

 

Also see you did a 30 mins clear of cmos. This one has me stumped.

[Genetics]

Would love to disable cpu throttling since that would get me in the bios : )

 

I'll trying holding down insert this evening when I get home.

 

One other thing I did check my temps before the last reboot and they were steady at 44c.

 

I was slightly stumped myself since the board has some life in it and I tried every trick in the book I know except for a bios flash but it isn't even polling the floppy disk.

 

Genetics

[TobyWong]

I made the mistake of disabling CPU throttling with stock bios on mine too. A bios clear fixed it... board came right back up with defaults. Remove battery & change jumper.

 

Cleared CMOS for about 30 minutes with the battery taken out, nothing

 

When you say "cleared CMOS", what steps did you actually do?

[jdlo56]

if you have a different stick of memory, try it in Dimm Slot 1

 

I found out that certain memory modules wont POST with the board's default Vdimm, which is 2.5V i believe (my Mushkin PC3500 level 2 couldnt )

[Genetics]

if you have a different stick of memory, try it in Dimm Slot 1

 

I've tried two different sticks in all three slots.

 

 

When you say "cleared CMOS", what steps did you actually do?

 

I changed the jumper on the CMOS jumper, popped out the batter, and unplugged the system for at least 30 minutes.

 

Then popped the battery back in, changed the jumper, plugged the power back in, and rebooted. Nothing

 

Genetics

[TimDawgz]

It doesn't sound like your clearing the CMOS correctly.

 

You should:

1. Change the CMOS Jumper

2. Power on the system for 30 seconds (it won't boot)

3. Power off the system and change the jumper back

4. Power on system (it should boot normally)

 

If this is what you've done, I apologize. According to your posts, it didn't sound like you were doing this correctly.

[Genetics]

No worries TimDawgz, actually I have tried that one too but I will go over it again in a few hours here just to make sure.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Gen

[Genetics]

I was able to resolve my issue.

 

I brought home from work the extra ram I purchased, some value kingston ram. Figured I would just make sure my ram wasn't bad and sure enough the system booted up just fine. I put my old ram back in and again it booted fine. Went throught he bios and afterwards it wouldn't boot. After clearing the bios the old ram would still not boot the system. After swapping ram again I went through each bios setting and found the culprit.

 

If I change PCI Resources Controlled By to Manual ( which if I remember is preferred for 2k and greater ), the system will not with either ram. Once I left that to auto the system is working great.

 

Thanks For the Help Guys

Genetics

[TobyWong]

It should be set to auto unless you have some specific piece of hardware that isn't behaving and needs manual intervention.

[scyphe]

Hmm... Thought I'd registered here way back.. Oh well..

 

Anyway, took me quite a while to figure out it was the CPU Thermal Throttling that stumped me every time. I built the machine last night an d panicked at the thought that I'd might have another Lanparty Ultra ver.B on my hands (hours and hours of BIOS-swapping, settings, CMOS-resets before even being able to use the dang thing).

 

Now, where can I find newer BIOS'es? I've seen the latest beta from Oscar Wu, but from what I've read, most people seem to stick with the september bios, is that right? And I can't find it in DFI Bios Collection etc.

 

I'm confused enough already with all the new stuff I've got to learn (zillion RAM-settings I know nothing about, balance of HTT/CPU/AGP/FID/VID/OOGABOOGA) before I can do any serious OC'ing.. Besides, I've only got the stock cooling since I decided to wait with the latest Thermaltake ~0.7Kg copper-sink until I've learnt the basics of the board.

[Guest RoJo]

If you need to know more about ram timings, then try these two links here: http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx?location=1 and here: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=329627

 

I was lost when I looked at the ram setup on this board. When I fitted it the other day.

 

And those to links helped me a lot.