A7V8X-MX installation problem; no video after first boot

[Bill McLaughlin]

Hello all. Unfortunately, a friend's old PC in a micro-ATX case just
died and he asked for my help getting it up and running again, and of
course, for as little $$$ as possible.

Since the original was a micro-ATX with built-in video, I was limited
in my selection of replacement MB's. The Asus A7V8X-MX got some good
reviews so I ordered it (in spite of my problems with every other Asus
product I've ever owned).

The CPU is an Athlon XP2000+ and the memory is PC3200 (1 stick of
256mb).

When I first powered the machine up to test it before the OS install,
I never got a video signal. I tried several times, and finally,
unplugged it, took out the battery and did a CMOS reset. This time,
when I powered it up, I did get a video signal and of course the CMOS
checksum, battery failure, etc. messaged. I was able to go into setup
at this point. After doing a "save and exit", the machine looks like
it is going to reset but then both the HDD and power light stay on for
a minute or so and then the HDD light goes off but nothing happens and
the video never comes back.

The only way to get it to work again is to unplug it and take out the
battery. Unplugging alone doesn't do it. On one try, I disabled the
ACPI in the BIOS just to see if it would make a difference. This time,
the video did come back. However, the machine would just continuously
reboot.

I've tried swapping everything that I have spares of: hard drives,
power supplies, keyboards and mice. Nothing seems to work.

The speaker never beeps but I don't know if it should or not. Oh, one
other odd thing, and I'm not sure whether or not this is expected
behavior-- every time after I do the battery reset, when I hit the
power button the fans start up right away for a couple of seconds;
then they shut off and then restart and the machine goes through the
normal self-test, etc.

The BIOS is the latest from the ASUS website.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Bill McLaughlin
Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[JimBob]

Hi Bill,
The part about when first supply power the fans start and shut off after a
couple of seconds then restart is normal (if you can call it that) for this
board. It will do it the first time you boot after applying power. If the
power plug is left plugged into the power source and you turn off the
computer it will not do the double starting when turning the computer on,
but remove the power altogether and the next time it starts it will happen
again. Asus says it has something to do with the Via chip. As far as the
video problem goes you might check the memory. You say it has 3200 memory
and this board only has FSB max of 333 which would require 2700 memory. I
don't know if this would cause the problem or not, but you might check.

 

[Bill McLaughlin]

Thanks for the info. That's good to know about the processor turning
off and on at the start. The problem turned out to be bad memory. I
pulled a PC2700 out of an other machine (the original was PC2700 also)
and it now works fine. I am now trying to contact PARTSPC.COM to get a
replacement. It is very difficult to contact them.

Just an FYI to others out there, I would definitely stay away from
PARTSPC.COM. I went with them because they were the only place I had
found with this particular motherboard. I had poked around in the
ratings from Pricewatch and a couple of people had complained about
PARTSPC calling them and saying that the original OEM parts were out
of stock but they could upgrade to retail for a little more.

Sure enough, they called my friend a couple of days after I placed the
order and tried to get him to upgrade. After he agreed, they sent the
order but they sent the OEM CPU and memory! I think they realized that
he is not very computer literate and would not know the difference.

Now when I try to contact them, the phone number either rings forever
or I get put on hold for a half hour at a time.

Bill

 

[Bill McLaughlin]

Thanks. One correction here-- I had mentioned PC3200 memory above, but
it was actually PC2700 that I ordered and the memory itself also says
PC2700.

Bill