AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

[pentium]

As you may remember, I got an MSI K7N2 delta2 board and today for the first timeI tried it out with 2 128 meg ddr sticks. The system beeped and POST'ed and I was happy...until I learned that the bios only allowed for a single floppy drive.
I ten shut the system off, opened the case and removed my multidrive and installed a single 3 1/2" floppy drive with a new (er) floppy cable.
I then close her up and flip the switch. The system comes on but it fails to
POST.
Confused, I check my wiring for anything and try again. sme thing:
The hard drive led is on, the power led is off, the system is getting power, the drives are not spinning and the fans are going. Now I am concerned and I completely strip the system down and do a test using only the CPU, the heatsink, the power supply, the speaker, a single stick of good ram and a screwdriver to close the power switch jumper. The system came on but I didn't even get post beeps. I checked for shorts or loose components and still I got no POST. What's going on here? A floppy drive should not cause this.

[toastygoodness]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

The floppy drive's cable isn't backwards, is it? It could be that you generated static electricity while moving around.

[kc8adu]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

clear cmos.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Yeah, sorry for the long wait but I was away for the weekend and I couldn't do anything. I'll try that and see what happens, the battery was removed for the weekend anyways.

[Maxxarcade]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

I've found that for some reason certain boards need cmos cleared after recapping to make them stable. Perhaps the soldering iron loads down the battery circuit enough to currupt the cmos?

Speaking of cmos, I know what it is and how to use it, but I never did understand where it is actually held on the board. What chip is actually the cmos? Can't be the bios chip cause that's read-only... Is it in the northbridge?

[dood]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

CMOS is simply a form of logic controller (see wikipedia article for cmos)

BIOS hasn't been on a read-only chip since the early 90's. Hence how you can actually get a BIOS-based virus.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Okay, so a CMOS reset put everything back in order...or did it?
When I last used xp I never shut the system down properly so I wend into safe mode and the system suddenly restarted. I tried again and it happened again in the exact same place. I then tried to cd boot from the Xp cd and the system gave me a memory overflow error and restarted. I then tried a floppy boot and it hangs with the drive light on at "Scanning PCI bus using Mechanism #2". The three fingered salute won't work so I have to press the reset button. I then noticed a message at POST telling me that my 2 matching 128 mb DDR ram sticks are running at 133 mhz. Could it be a memory issue? The sticks were pulled from two matching boards, both with badcaps.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Okay, I'm starting to smash stuff. This board is REALLY pissing me off.
After5 assuming that the dvd drive was bad I opened the case onec more and replaced it. Immediately afterward it started to give a keyboard error and say that the keyboard was locked. Funny thing is that there is no keylock connector for the system. Assuming the cmos again I pull the battery and do the cmos jumper short then replace the battery. This time the system tells me of a cmos checksum error and that defaults have been loaded, that's normal. I then discover that the keyboard is STILL dead (but still receiving power) and no matter what I do the system will always reload the cmos defaults even if I presset the reset button and I know I didn't keep the cmos short jumper shorted.

[kc8adu]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

maybe the battery is dead?
and isnt this the 3rd board you have reported to be acting posessed?
you have a bad psu,kb,or some other hardware messing with you.

[gdement]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

I had a glitchy time with the k7n2 I received a while back. I noticed the posts were inconsistent so I tried a better PSU and it started running much better. I also found that PCI video *really* didn't work with my board, not even at POST. From my understanding PCI video is broken in the nForce2 chipset so there's not much reason to use it anyway. Still, it at least booted on my NF7, but not on k7n2.
My suspicion is the PSU. Do you have the extra 4-pin connection plugged in? What voltages do you get in the bios?

until I learned that the bios only allowed for a single floppy drive.

Thanks- that may explain why I couldn't get the floppy to work. I guess I need to use a modern single-drive type cable.

[gdement]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Speaking of cmos, I know what it is and how to use it, but I never did understand where it is actually held on the board. What chip is actually the cmos? Can't be the bios chip cause that's read-only... Is it in the northbridge?

I think the CMOS nvram is integrated in the southbridge these days. Don't remember where I got that from though, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

I'm beginning tp comb things out and get to the bottom.
Our keyboard locked errors have vanished. My game controllers require a connection with the keyboard port. Guess who forgor to check te opposite side of the controller for an unplugged cable?
The DVD drive turned out to be bad so I dumped it for a fast CD-rw drive (and now I only have dvd access by an external drive....bottlenecked).
I also think I do have cold joints on the keyboard/mouse ports.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Speak of the devil!
After posting that I realized that the super fast CD-rw drive I installed has a problem.
It will spin the disc as fast as it can and do completely nothing. Now I am out of fast drives (for rewritable cd's or anything for dvd's) and no matter what I gotta crawl bekind the system abd remove the case AGAIN.
I'm gonna do tis when I have the time.
Case closed.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Problems have been solved and the system is up and running finally.
the drive was just very dirty and a cleaning brought it up to snuff.
Oh, it's sad to say but it's nice to see XP again.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

UGH! IT DID IT AGAIN!
I switched the system and went to have dinner and when I returned and pressed power I got the same symptoms as before:
-no power lamp but the drive lamp is lit
-all IDE drives refuse to spin up
-No monitor signal (and thus no POST
-no error beeps
-PSU works and fans respond to system

If it does this again I am trashing this board and recapping a Celeron D board.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

*groans*
I left the battery out all night and repeated the procedure to clear the cmos this morning and the system still refused to operate.
I also pulled the ribbon cables with no success there either.

[WNG]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Pentium,
I assume you're well-grounded against static.
Being a talented, but young computer hobbyist, your enthusiasm comes with a nice dose of impatience. This is my observation of young teenagers in general.
This causes oversights, shortcuts, giving up too quickly. Some must learn the hard way like my brother who once left a screwdriver balanced IN a case he powered up to test a new PCI card. Right after I pointed it out and got a "yeah, whatever" response, I return a few minutes later to discover the screwdriver fell onto the motherboard and blew out the motherboard. He was cursing, but it was his own fault.


What you need to do is verify an inventory of 100% functional HW to use to test with.
Don't assume the PSU is working, HDD, RAM, and optical drives can be incompatible.
(ie. Samsung DVDROM won't work with Maxtor HDD on same cable. These were older drives.)
DDR RAM you're using may be incompatible with that board.
Also, benchtest a build on a desk before installing in a case. Simple basic system first...boot from a LiveCD perhaps.
That means no loading up with numerous drives, flash readers, midi HW, SCSI, funky keyboards/mice or KVM interfaces.

CMOS clears within 10 secs.

Any new system that crosses my hands goes through a test/burn-in with MemTest86+ to verify memory settings and compatibility. CPU gets a burn-in for at least 8 hrs.
Optical drives get the LiveCD or WinPE disc run. HDD must pass a disk surface scan and full format.
Then a new WinOS install, service packs, all HW drivers, then another 24-hr. burn-in of CPU and memory bandwidth using Sisoft Sandra (my favorite).

Good luck. I bet it's going to turn out to be something simple being overlooked.
Also, whenever you acquire freebie HW, find out why they are tossing it. Pay attention to the problem stated. It can actually be truly defective and not some simple fix obvious to you and not the original owner.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

I kinda looked over all that when This happened again.
Like mentioned I tried a bare essential boot:
-A PSU
-a good CPU
-one stick of good ram
-the led's and front switches
-speaker
-keyboard
-PCI video card and a monitor

With this system When I am working on it the switch on the PSU is off but the cord remains plugged in. This means I can't power the system on yet still allows for grounding. One I realized i have not yet checked is if the PSU itseld is having troubles.
With ubuntu, you also get a memory tester. All ram passed the test and all hardware was compatible with the board.
I'm just about to grab the multimeter but may I ask a favour?
Anyone got the pinout/schematics for the D-Bracket? I need to see the diagnostic led's.

[kc8adu]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

lose the front switches.
several times i have seen a bum reset switch cause issues.
i keep a known good rebuilt by me psu,tested ram,and tested cpu's just for this type of issue.
1 bad piece of hardware will drive you nuts and cause you to scrap good stuff.

[pentium]

Re: AAAAARG! Don't dare die on me!

Okay, I dumped the led's and reset and left teh speaker and the power switch whick I know is not damaged. Still nothing.
I also finished the checking on the PSU. Once again ecerything was right where it should be and I am not finding any under/over voltage or overloading.
I contacted MSI but with all the problems with badcaps they had I don't know if they still use real service personnel or you are serviced by an automatic mailing system.