4 LED's of Death....RMA?

[puppetmasta]

I have been experiencing the 4 LED's of death since I upgraded my hardware two days ago. Prior to installation I cleared the CMOS, loaded optimized defaults in bios, and let the board update the CMOS with those defaults. I even had a bios saviour which I stored my old bios settings on so I could revert to them if need be.

 

I replaced a generic stick of 512 PC2100 with 2x512 sticks of OCZ Platinum rev 2. I also replaced my old axp 2200+ with an axp-m 2600+. I installed an SP-97 to cool the 2600 and I was very cautious not to damage any of the SMD's on the board since i've heard this is a common problem when installing bolt through HSF. I even installed it with the neo back plate so the board wouldn't be damaged. Everything installed fine and looks to be in working order, but I can't get around the 4 LEDs of death.

 

So one would think its a corrupted bios right? Well last night I took my bios saviour over to a friends who has an A78NX Deluxe. It uses the same bios chip so I was able to flash the original 6/19 bios onto my saviour chip. I came home put the saviour in my lpb, loaded with the saviour bios chip and still 4 LEDs.

 

I've cleared CMOS multiple times at this point and I've tried using the J8 jumper to force 100fsb. Neither of these had any effect. I've even tried holding insert on power up, no help. I've tried the power and reset trick where you hold reset for 10-15 secs after your board powers up, no help....

 

I'm at the point where I don't have anything left to try... Does anyone have any other suggestions???

 

Should I just RMA the board since I've tried everything imaginable to get this board to work? I don't see what could have happen during installation that would suddenly make the board stop working.

 

AG/RG any advice you can give would be much appreciated. I would love to get my lpb roaring with the ocz and axp-m, but I'm out of things to try.

 

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[Emil]

JUst RMA it .... you seem to have done the needed installation precautions !!

 

edit: on 2nd thought, if your rig was working well prior to the upgrade, a thousand and one things could have gone wrong ... even a simple static electricity discharge could unmake the whole thing.

 

It has happened to me twice in the past (not a DFI mb) and I ended up removing the mb out of the case and setting it up in the most simple config. Access bios, using (1) mem stick, PCI graphics card and a processor which I am sure was working earlier. It if does not work, don't waste much of your time and mental energy..... RMA the mb if the terms of guarantee warrant.

 

Good luck............

[RGone]

I know everybody tries to change all the shett out at one time and I wonder at the wisdom of it? Because now you are in the same spot as racers are when they take a running engine and change the camshaft, carburetor and headers all out a the same time and the result is an engine that runs like crap and the racer has no clue which thing the carb, cam or headers is at fault.

 

And the real killer of diagnosing your particular problem is what everyone sees as a tendancy for the board to corrupt bios and never come back. However in your case I don't see it like that really at all. You had a working board and you changed a bunch of pieces and now it does not work. So something you put into the board or a procedure killed the board or causes it not to start. But then you have the craziness of the board to take into account.

 

My real guess and I am not there to 'really' look at the symptoms is that the board does not like the tCCd memory at all. I had a very very hard time cranking my Ultra Infiinty on tCCd. Or in fact your SP97 installation did in fact dork the board.

 

Your symptoms and how the lights are flashing and given a feel of the won't crank > my guess is to pull the tCCd out and put the stick of memory in that worked all along and clear the cmos with battery out for 5 or 6 hours with no A/c to the board and see if it comes back up with the old memory. If it does not I guess knowing me and how I like to find the answer> I would revert it back to the original working config and see if the board works. If it does then I know for sure something I am 'adding' to the mix is causing problems and I add 'only' one new component at a time until I see which component is causing the failure which is the way I would have added the new components anyway likely. One at a time.

 

You made yourself a head scratcher with putting all new pieces in at once and now it will not crank. And I sit here going over it in my head and one second my mind says; "he dorked the board with SP97" and the next second my mind says from personal experience; "the tCCd is causing problems". And when all of that is said and done > maybe the cpu is no good. What a jumbled mess.

 

Try the single stick that used to work in slot futherest from the cpu and with battery out clear the cmos at least 5 hours and see what happens. If that does not change anything > well I already told you what I would do as I am methodical and want to know what I did wrong or what is wrong.

 

RGone...

[puppetmasta]

RGone,

 

It's not the TCCD b/c I tried putting the old ram back in to see if it would boot with it, no luck. I tried the old ram with the axp 2200 and the axp-m 2600. Neither configuration would make the board boot.

 

I haven't tried moving the original 512 stick to the 3rd slot, will this make a difference in how the board boots? I'm guessing you're trying to fool the board to look for a new stick of ram at a differnet location since there isnt a stick present in the first slot anymore?

 

I've had the CMOS clearing since last night, so when i get home and have a chance to move the old ram to the furthest slot it will have been plenty of time for the CMOS to clear. If that doesn't do it then what?

 

I'll let you know what happens after I get a chance to look at it tonight, in the meantime if anyone else has any other suggestions I would more than welcome them.

[puppetmasta]

Well after the long 12+ hour CMOS clear I tried putting my old stick off ram in the 3rd slot. It still didn't boot, 4 LEDs turn on instantly....

 

The only thing I can think is maybe the flash I did on my friends computer wasn't successful so I'm going to send my bios chip to DFI to get reflashed.

 

I hope this works, after that I'm really out of ideas....

[RGone]

Yep after a good reflash and it don't work it will most likely be the 97 thang dorked something. So hope instead it is a corrupt bios only.

 

RGone...

[puppetmasta]

So in that case I voided my warranty?? or am i still eligible for RMA? If not, is there any way to repair it myself?

[puppetmasta]

Well, I got my bios chip back from Ogie at DFI last night and everything came together and worked!!!!!

 

I was soooo amazed!!! Ogie even said that my bios seemed to be fine and that he flashed it to the most recent 7/28/2004 version. I'm thinking this was the difference since all the parts didn't work together prior to the bios update.

 

So I'd just like to thank RGone and especially Ogie who got my bios chip back in 8 days door to door, he even shipped it back fedex Thanks man!!!

 

Now i'm off to read more on oc'n the axp's. Tried some last night, but couldn't get past 1.3ghz when the chip is stock at 1.67ghz, is this a common symptom in some boards?

 

Anyways thanks to all, this forum rules and has probably single handedly made me a DFI customer for as long as you guys produce awesome boards.