.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 Ok, I figured that some of you (ahem, Beaver..) are computer gurus who know everything about computers. I have encountered a problem (the first in a long time) with my pc. I had a desktop lying around with everything minus CPU and motherboard. I got these from my brother (second hand) from my brother yesterday. I plugged everything in hooked up my gfx card/SATA drive/wires/everything else that needed hooking up and I got some problems.. 80GB Maxtor SATA hard drive 512 mb DDR ram CD-writer/dvd drive 600W power supply XFX Nvidia Geforce 5200, 256MB ATX case Wires for pretty much everything ASUS A7V600 AMD Athlon XP 2500+ BOOT DISK FAILURE PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM INSTALL DISC I unplugged it and checked all of the connections. Now there is a different problem. I sorted a friend's PC out when it had this problem simply by putting the windows XP install disc into the cd drive. This did not work this time. I put it in, then it did that blue-screen scan for devices, etc. By the time it actually got to the main part of the setup it told me that I did not have any hard drives installed. After I turned it off and removed the cd. It now starts up, then there is a black screen with white text that flashes and is visible every 2 seconds. I see: Award Medallion BIOS v6.0 An Energy Star Ally Copyright Award Software, Inc ASUS A7V600-X ACPI Revision 1008 AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Memory Test: 524288K OK Award Plug and Play BIOS Extension v1.0A Initialize Plug and Play Cards... PMP Init completed Detecting primary Master ... none Detecting primary slave ... _NEC CD-RW NR-9100A Detecting secondary Master ... none Detecting secondary slave ... none Then after a while it goes on to another screen which flashes: VIA Technologies, Inc Serial ATA RAID BIOS Setting Utility V2.31 Copyright © VIA Technology, Inc All Right reserved. Scan devices please wait... Press key into user window! I have messed around with the Award BUIS Setup Utility (press DEL at start up) with the Plug & Play O/S and tried to set Boot devices. It seems that I have 4 boot slots. I can choose: 1. a Removable device (Legacy Floppy, LS120, ZIP, ATAPI MO, USB FDD, USB ZIP) 2. IDE Hard Drive (can only choose none or disabled.) 3. ATAPI CD-ROM (_NEC CD-RW NR-9100A) 4. Other Boot Device (SCSI/Onboard ATA Boot Device or INT18 Device (network)) I set it to the first option. Any of you guys got any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cpt.Waller Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 The problem you are experiencing is probably down to the jump settings of the hard disk itself. When you purchase a new hard disk, there are a set of pins on the disk that need to be arranged according to how you will use the disk in your machine. The common configurations are Slave, Master or Cable Select. Seeing as the spec you listed only has one hard disk, i'm assuming you plan on using only one hard disk in the machine. If this is the case, take a look at the following site, and follow the instructions to set the disk as Master. http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/jumper_settings/style_a1.htm The diagram shows an ATA disk, but i'm sure the jumper pattern is the same for the SATA versions. Ensure that the SATA disk is connected to the moterboard at the socket labelled SATA0 (or the lowest possible SATA socket). Now in the BIOS, make sure that the four channels in the IDE configuration are not disabled. Now when you boot the machine, it should pick up the hard disk, but may give you the 'Invalid boot disk' message. This is ok, it usually just says this when there is no operationg system on the drive. Stick in the XP CD, make sure the BIOS is set to boot the CD-ROM drive before any hard disks, Restart, and the XP setup should start. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any probs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 Also there should be say 4 connectors for the sata drive to motherboard, try another one as you might not have the one its connected to now enabled or maybe it has come loose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 um I am looking at the jumper settings of the drive and it is in position j4(partial) According to this site : http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/sata_install_tshoot.html "Serial ATA interface disc drives are designed for easy installation. It is not necessary to set any jumpers, terminators, or other settings on this drive for proper operation. The jumper block adjacent to the SATA interface connector is for factory use only. With a Serial ATA interface, each disc drive has its own cable that connects directly to a Serial ATA host adapter or a Serial ATA port on your motherboard. Unlike Parallel ATA, there is no master-slave relationship between drives that use a Serial ATA interface." So I don't quite know how the jumper settings could help and also, the jumper settings worked on another motherboard by Asus and it was the sole drive connected to the motherboard. JJUK I looked at the drive and there are four connectors but how would I change it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 JJUK I looked at the drive and there are four connectors but how would I change it? no the motherboard mate where you connect the red lead from the drive to the motherboard there should be multiple sata connectors. http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.madshrimps.be/articles/MSIK9APlatinumsupportsnewAM2usingATICros-jmke-12476.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.madshrimps.be/gotoartik.php%3FarticID%3D455&h=450&w=650&sz=70&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=WZlJUanwrsAU-M:&tbnh=95&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmotherboards%2Bwith%2Bsata%2Bconnections%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D see the orange connectors. also on your original post you said # 2. ide drives does the board support sata drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 i was gonna reccomend there http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=19968 but you are there already, have you tried the original drive again just to make sure its not a connection or lead issue. you need to go over the procees slow so you dont miss anything could be something stupid go to the bios and enable sata connection ect ect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 hmm. Well I do not have the original drive. I am going to try some other SATA cables cause I have 3 of them. I did not find any section of the BIOS that had an option to enable SATA. Argh this is annoying.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 Right i just went into my bios i goto then goto press enter and in there you can see if your sata is diasbled should be say Sata 1-4 or similar. Mine is the phoneix Award Bios. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 My laptop uses Pheonix Award BIOS but I am not sure about which one the desktop uses. When I turn it on I see a full screen ASUS logo with: TAB to show post screen; Alt+F2 to enter EZ Flash utility. If I press DEL here I acces the BIOS setup utility however I do not see any Genie BIOS settings. The Flash utility is useful for updating BIOS however I don't know what I should do in this situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 26, 2006 Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 there should be something there to enable or to see if the sata is enabled go through the bios slowley it might be under another heading but should be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 I found it it was under advanced/ I/O device cnfiguration. Yes it was already enabled. I was looking at the motherboard manual and I saw that it supports up to 150mb/s data transfer rate SATA hard disks, so I am guessing that the 300mb/s hard disk that I am using is too fast for it? Does this mean that I cannot use it? :'( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 26, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 26, 2006 I sorted that problem out (force150 jumper.) but it still wont work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 27, 2006 Report Share Posted December 27, 2006 I sorted that problem out (force150 jumper.) but it still wont work. sorted as in what does it now show the hard drive up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 27, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 27, 2006 Well no. But I figured that it will be solved as soon as install the SATA drivers. The real problem it turns out is that I cannot boot from ANYTHING at all. I cannot boot from CD/Floppy or hard drive. I tried booting from an IDE hard drive that was successfully recognised and placed in the boot line-up but that did not work either. I have managed to use a bootable floppy to update the BIOS to revision 1009 (from revision 1008) but there is not a problem with the version. Could the problem be due to anything else? This flashing, white text every 2 seconds is giving me a headache. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 27, 2006 Report Share Posted December 27, 2006 maybe beaver will know more matey when hes back. is there a forum for the board you have ie i have a DFI lanparty motherboard and there have been issues with that that i resolved on the DFI forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2006 Well. It turns out that I will be ordering a whole load of new parts over the course of the next few days so i will probably not use this (socket A) motherboard. Watch out GRAW/R6:Vegas guys, I will be coming to play with you guys !!!! JJ, I have been told that you are very good at GRAW, you will have to teach me. here are the parts I will order: CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ GFX SAPPHIRE Radeon X1900GT 100189L VIVO HDCP Video Card Motherboard DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D ATX AMD Motherboard RAM OCZ S.O.E 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Desktop Memory Model OCZ2SOE6671G Cooling Zalman CNPS 9700 LED (copper) Thermal paste Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM Screen SAMSUNG 740N-BK Black 17" 8ms LCD Monitor - Retail This is just a rough idea. I will probably get a better processor and a 19" screen. I am not sure yet. I will be ordering via newegg.com (i know they don't ship to Europe.) The price for this all together will be ?564 ($740.) ~?300-350 will come from my parents. ~?200-250 will be my own savings. What do you guys think about these parts? Apart from these I also have 600W power supply, floppy drive, an 80GB HD and a midi-tower (ATX.) So I have pretty much everything once I order the parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.Skeeta Posted December 28, 2006 Report Share Posted December 28, 2006 Overall looks good to me. I would try to get a faster CPU (4400 or the 4600) and possibly a Nvidia card as they will run Vegas and GRAW better than an ATi card - both those games have been optimised for Nvidia. I would think twice about the monitor as well, 8ms refresh time is getting a little high, I would aim for something at about 4ms which shouldnt cost you much more. And lastly your power supply. The motherboard power may be different (I was going to do the same as you when I went to PCIe and had to buy a new power supply because of this) so check! It could be fine but may not be. Cheers, Skeet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 28, 2006 Report Share Posted December 28, 2006 yes the new core duo will beat these boards now mate i have just built this. 1 xAntec NEO HE550GB 550W Modular PSU With 80mm Low Speed/noise Fan 18db99138 1 xAsus Nvidia 7600GT 256MB DDR3 TV out DVI PCI-E111198 1 xWestern Digital 300GB SATAII 7200RPM 8MB Cache - OEM108823 1 xCore 2 Duo E6300 1.86ghz - Skt775 Fsb1066 2mb Cache Boxed In112704 1 xASUS P5B Pentium 4/Celeron/Pentium D/PentiumEE/65nm dual-core/Core2Duo/Core2EE113965 1 xAntec SLK3000B Black Super Mid Tower Case - No PSU83044 1 xCorsair (TWIN2X1024-6400C4) XMS2-6400 1024MB 4-4-4-12 2X240 DIMM Black XMS2115841 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.DaveAlmighty Posted December 28, 2006 Report Share Posted December 28, 2006 Well. It turns out that I will be ordering a whole load of new parts over the course of the next few days so i will probably not use this (socket A) motherboard. Watch out GRAW/R6:Vegas guys, I will be coming to play with you guys !!!! So will I! See you on the battlefield:biggrin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 28, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 28, 2006 the monitor, I found some cheap 4ms ones as well. What do you guys think of this one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824163115 I was considering getting an nVidia 7600GT (XFX- and consequently I would have gotten a DFI mobo) but the x1900GT is quite a bit better if i understand correctly. I don't think that there will be any problems running GRAW or R6 Vegas as the benchmarks in them show that it can more than handle it very well. As for the CPU, I was going to get a temporary 3800+ crappy CPU until I could get a better one, but as I am not getting the DFI mobo I have upgraded it to a 4200+ X2 so it will give me more time to save up for a better one. I was looking at the intel CPUs but I just can't bring myself to buy one. They are quite pricey too. I have a limited budget otherwise I would have much better hardware than my list. The power supply is compatible with my motherboard. (EDIT: The DFI mobo listed below is not the one that is meant to be there, the one that is:MSI K9A Platinum Socket AM2 ATI CrossFire Radeon Xpress 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.JJUK Posted December 29, 2006 Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 The comp i posted was for my son it cost ?600 and runs graw fine, you can go up further and get a higher spec one for more money, i have a ati 1900 xt card with dual core amd athlon 4800 and 2046 mem matched which runs graw and vegas great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.DaveAlmighty Posted December 29, 2006 Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 I want an 8800 GT... and quad-core Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA4600CUBOX - OEM $188 GFX SAPPHIRE Radeon X1900GT 100189L VIVO HDCP Video Card - Retail 256 MB $150 Motherboard MSI K9A Platinum Socket AM2 ATI CrossFire Radeon Xpress 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard $129 RAM G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Standard System Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-1GBNQ - Retail $115 Cooling Zalman CNPS 9700 LED $58 Thermal paste Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM $6 This is an updated list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.DaveAlmighty Posted December 29, 2006 Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model ADA4600CUBOX - OEM $188GFX SAPPHIRE Radeon X1900GT 100189L VIVO HDCP Video Card - Retail 256 MB $150 Motherboard MSI K9A Platinum Socket AM2 ATI CrossFire Radeon Xpress 3200 ATX AMD Motherboard $129 RAM G.SKILL 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Standard System Memory Model F2-6400CL5S-1GBNQ - Retail $115 Cooling Zalman CNPS 9700 LED $58 Thermal paste Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM $6 This is an updated list. Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter $26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.TuG.h0 Posted December 29, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 29, 2006 hahaha but of course. So Skeet, post all the bits n pieces you want to sell me I might start off with a worse processor and upgrade that at a later date. Not sure yet, the 4600+ is so tempting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now