A7N8X Deluxe (1.04) - no boot, no beep. Athlon 2400+ and 3200+

[Erik Harris]

I just tried upgrading my Athlon 2400+ to an Athlon 3200+, and I'm
having some pretty crappy luck. I upgraded my BIOS a week or so
ago in anticipation of this upgrade. All went smoothly. I also
upgraded my RAM a few days ago (1GB Corsair PC4000 memory, the TwinX
Pro type). Again, it went perfectly smoothly.

Tonight, I pulled out the 2400+ and dropped in the 3200+ and a new HSF
unit (Vantec Aeroflow). I booted the machine up, and it was fine.
Oddly, the BIOS recognized the CPU as an 1100MHz CPU - 100MHz bus,
correct 11X Multiplier. This didn't alarm me, because it seems that
the A7N8X line of boards often loads up new CPU's at very low speed
and requires you to manually set up the bus speed. I don't know why,
but I had to do it with my 2400+ as well.

I put in the correct 200MHz bus speed, left the multiplier at auto
(11X), and hit "save and exit." Nothing. I rebooted, nothing. I
turned the machine off and back on. Nothing. Now, when I say
"nothing," I mean that there's no video and no beep error code. All
of my fans spin up, the DVD drive powers up (eject button works, light
is on), and my hard drives spin up. Interestingly, if I look at the
indicator lights on my XMS Pro memory, the middle orange light turns
on as the memory tries to initialize, and after about ten seconds, the
lights turn off - first bank one, then bank three. I tried pulling
the RAM out to see if I could get some kind of error beep, but it
apparently doesn't even get far enough to give me the "no RAM" beep
code!

I tried resetting the BIOS twice (pulled plug, pulled battery,
switched CMOS reset jumper, left for 15 minutes, put jumper back in
correct position, reinstalled battery, plugged back in). No change.
I also tried reinstalling my Athlon XP 2400+. No change.

I can't seem to boot this system up at all. I'm running out of ideas,
and don't know what other options to try. Any help (preferably very
soon) would be most greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Erik Harris
(email address is munged. Replace each "-" with an "e", and you can
send me email - though it's a pain for me to check it with my computer
not working).

 

[Blaedmon]

hey dude, hope this helps - but hold down F2 when you turn the machine on,
it should ignore bad bios settings. From there you should be able to get an
idea of whats going on. Lemme know if it works.

 

[Jim Moody]

There's been lengthy discussions in this and other forums concerning what is
referred to as the "BIOS save death" problem. I have had this problem with
my A7N8X (1.04) several times (using Corsair CMX512-3200LLPT memory). It
usually seems to occur when tweaking memory setting or clock speeds to
aggressively. I have found a solution that works every time. I remove the
memory from the motherboard and boot it up. It will beep because there is no
RAM installed. Then I shut it off and install some "lesser" RAM I have from
another computer (256 MB Crucial PC2100). The computer will now boot up
properly. Once it boots up, I go into BIOS and set it up as necessary. Then
I shut it off, remove the Crucial memory, reinstall the Corsair memory and
restart. It comes up every time. There were some early discussions about
issues with some of the Corsair performance memory and this motherboard and
at least in my case, this seems to be true. If you have some other memory
to try, give it a shot.

 

[Paul]

There's been lengthy discussions in this and other forums concerning what is
referred to as the "BIOS save death" problem. I have had this problem with
my A7N8X (1.04) several times (using Corsair CMX512-3200LLPT memory). It
usually seems to occur when tweaking memory setting or clock speeds to
aggressively. I have found a solution that works every time. I remove the
memory from the motherboard and boot it up. It will beep because there is no
RAM installed. Then I shut it off and install some "lesser" RAM I have from
another computer (256 MB Crucial PC2100). The computer will now boot up
properly. Once it boots up, I go into BIOS and set it up as necessary. Then
I shut it off, remove the Crucial memory, reinstall the Corsair memory and
restart. It comes up every time. There were some early discussions about
issues with some of the Corsair performance memory and this motherboard and
at least in my case, this seems to be true. If you have some other memory
to try, give it a shot.

The OP reports he doesn't even get the missing ram Beep.

The problem seems to be related to the BIOS chip being corrupted.
If you can find the BIOS chip from a matching A7N8X Deluxe, then
it might boot again. With boards older than the A7N8X-E Deluxe, it
is a good idea to own a BIOS Savior, which gives you two BIOS
chips to work with, and you can escape this problem by flipping
a switch. You could also have the BIOS chip reprogrammed by
badflash.com or buy a new chip from them with the BIOS version
you want programmed in it (cost versus time tradeoff).

The A7N8X Deluxe 1.04 was known for not being able to run a 200MHz
clock for the processor. One solution was an overvolt mod to the
CM3708 regulator. A solution from Asus was a BIOS update, but
I don't know what percentage of boards that brings up to 200MHz
operation.

When you get a new flash chip, sneak up on 200MHz, rather
than heading there straight away. Say you get to 185Mhz, and
it is crashing in memtest - go into the BIOS and bump up Vcore
a bit. Then, rerun the test.

The immediate purchase of a BIOS Savior (ioss.com.tw), before
you start messing around, would be an excellent idea. It is
around $25 or so. If one BIOS chip gets corrupted, you keep a
second BIOS image in the other chip, to reboot the machine.
Then, flip the switch and reprogram the duff BIOS chip, under
somewhat more stable conditions.

If you love the game of "RMA roulette", you could return the
board under warranty, and hope that you get a later revision
of the board. The best approach for you, will depend on how many
backup computers you've got.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Jim Moody]

I left out one important step. You also need to remove the CPU during the
first attempt at startup (when the Corsair RAM is removed). You should get
the "no CPU installed" error message. If you get this, follow the rest of
the steps and I bet it will work (of course you need to replace the CPU when
you put in the other RAM).

 

[Erik Harris]

hey dude, hope this helps - but hold down F2 when you turn the machine on,
it should ignore bad bios settings. From there you should be able to get an
idea of whats going on. Lemme know if it works.

No luck here, I'm afraid. Holding down DEL doesn't get me into BIOS, Holding
down F2 doesn't do anything either. I've also tried unplugging the computer,
removing the battery, and leaving the reset jumper set for over two hours, on
the advice of someone saying that sometimes it takes up to an hour for some
motherboards' and some components' capacitors to bleed out to empty and
actually reset things. That didn't help, either. Nor did setting the 100MHz
Bus jumper, as another friend suggested.



I've got an A7N8X-E Deluxe on its way to me, just in case this one proves
unfixable, but I'd rather have this taken care of before that arrives on
Thursday or Friday. Worst case, I return the new motherboard and pay a 15%
restocking fee.

 

[Erik Harris]

There's been lengthy discussions in this and other forums concerning what is
referred to as the "BIOS save death" problem. I have had this problem with
my A7N8X (1.04) several times (using Corsair CMX512-3200LLPT memory). It
usually seems to occur when tweaking memory setting or clock speeds to
aggressively. I have found a solution that works every time. I remove the
memory from the motherboard and boot it up. It will beep because there is no
RAM installed.

I tried this, and the machine did NOT beep to indicate that there was no
memory. I was quite surprised that it didn't.

Then I shut it off and install some "lesser" RAM I have from another computer
(256 MB Crucial PC2100). The computer will now boot up properly.

Also, I don't really have any "lesser" RAM. I do, but it's still PC3500,
which is faster than I was clocking this memory at (217/433MHz vs 250/500MHz
doesn't really make a difference when it's being run at 200/400MHz)

But given that even the first step of your solution doesn't seem to do
anything for my board, I suppose my lack of slower RAM isn't really relevant.
:-(

 

[Erik Harris]

I left out one important step. You also need to remove the CPU during the
first attempt at startup (when the Corsair RAM is removed). You should get
the "no CPU installed" error message. If you get this, follow the rest of
the steps and I bet it will work (of course you need to replace the CPU when
you put in the other RAM).

No CPU AND no RAM.... I haven't tried that yet. I still don't really have
any lesser RAM to install (though I can certainly try the OCZ PC3500EL chip,
which has always been a stellar peformer in my machine - unfortunately, it's
no longer available, or I'd have gotten a second one instead of two Corsair
chips).

I'll give this a shot and see if it does anything for me.