ABIT AV8 Problem

[henrichs_1]

I bought an Athlon 64 4000 OEM CPU from Newegg and the ABIT AV8
motherboard from Ebay. The Ebay dealer claimed the board was a
refurbed. That could have been bad news from the beginning. I tried
installing the board with everything plugged in. That included:

CD-RW drive
DVD-RW drive
3 ATA HDDs (160gb, 120gb, and 250gb)


(I know that may seem like overkill. I could bring that down to 2
HDD, if I do some house cleaning with my files.)

Nvidia 7600
Sound Blaster X-FI
ATI TV PCI card
PCI card with 2 ATA ports
512meg DDR3200-PNY
512meg DDR3200-Ultra
1gb DDR2700
512meg DDR2700-Kingston
Ultra 500 W Power Supply


I would get the 83-9C-9E-9F post codes. Then it would shut down. I've
seen all the posts about beeps, but I don't think I heard any. I
tried everything under the sun to overcome all those post codes. I
tried different configurations of the memory sticks and got nothing.
I tried an Ultra 400 W Power Supply that came with my new case, and
that didn't work. I tried a Nvidia 6600 card and even a Radeon All in
Wonder AGP card. Neither of them worked. I pulled the CMOS battery
out, and put it back in. Nothing there. I tried taking the board out
of the case and I tried powering it up out of the case with just a
stick of ram and the Radeon card. Still nothing. I pulled the CPU,
and reinserted it. That didn't work. The memory can't be bad,
because I put all 4 sticks (3 at a time) in an MSI board, and used the
400 W power supply. I could get that old board to boot with no
problems. I even tested the 400 W power supply on an old Gigabyte
board, and the power supply worked on that board.


That leaves me with 3 conclusions. The CPU, motherboard, or both are
shot. I'm contacting Newegg about the CPU. I may have to send it
back for a refund or replacement. I doubt I can get a refund or
replacement on the board. I don't have another 939 board to try the
CPU on. I don't feel like buying a new 939 board only to find out
that CPU won't work on that one. I've seen posts that maybe the Abit
board only works with the lower end Athlon 64 cpus, and that you need
to flash the bios to get it working with the 4000 CPUs or the X2
CPUs. I hope that isn't the case here, because I have no way in heck
in flashing the bios to work with 4000 CPUs. The only other thing I
could do is go to those sites that have those menus for selecting the
correct memory for motherboards, and seeing if those sticks will
work. Crucial has a site where you can select AV8 from a menu, and it
gives you list of sticks that should work on the board. I could do
that, but getting memory that way can be kind of expensive, and I
don't need another 1-4 sticks that won't work on my board. Is there
anything else I can do, or am I at the mercy of Newegg in getting a
refund or replacement for my CPU. I would appreciate any replies.
Thanks.


Craig Henrichs

 

[old man]

Remove all hw from the mobo, excepting cd,single hd,single ram stick(PNY)
and graphics - mouse/keybd/monitor obviously
Clear cmos, set bios to defaults and retry

PS Branded memory guaranteed to be compatible with your mobo is not much
more expensive than oem, at least this side of the pond

 

[henrichs_1]

Remove all hw from the mobo, excepting cd,single hd,single ram stick(PNY)
and graphics - mouse/keybd/monitor obviously
Clear cmos, set bios to defaults and retry

PS Branded memory guaranteed to be compatible with your mobo is not much
more expensive than oem, at least this side of the pond












- Show quoted text -

I bought a marked down Gigabyte 939 board that had an AGP slot from a
local store.
If that board doesn't work, I should be able to return it unlike the
Abit board. That board didn't work either. All I put on it was just
the CPU, 512meg of ram, and a video card. The fans on the CPU and the
video card would run, but nothing would show up on the screen. I had
to turn it off, by turning off the power supply. I gave up trying to
get either board to work. I took the boards to the local store where
I got the Gigabyte board. I told them I bought the Gigabyte board
from your store, because I couldn't get the CPU to work with my Abit.
I also needed another board to see if maybe the CPU was bad, because
it couldn't work on 2 different boards. If the CPU is good, maybe
there is something in the board's bios that is keeping the boards from
working. I tried pulling the batteries, but that didn't work.
They're going to take a look at both boards, and see if they can
either one to work. The sheet that they had me signed stated that
they won't charge me to look at both boards, but that could change. I
don't want to spend too much money trying to get either board to
work. If I didn't have a Nvidia 7600 512 meg AGP card and I had a PCI
express card, I would have gotten a brand new board that had a PCI
Express slot. I also told them that Newegg would only exchange my CPU
for another 64 4000 CPU. That wouldn't help if there is something in
the board's bios that is hanging them up.

Maybe I should have gotten a cheap Sempron 64 cpu for my Abit instead
of getting a Gigabyte board. If I could get the Sempron to work on
the Abit then maybe I could have gotten the AMD 64 4000 working
through a bios flash.

I didn't feel like getting an AM2 board, because that would have
required more expensive DDR2 memory along with a PCI express card. I
thought AM2 cpus still cost at least $100+. I only found one AM2
board that had an AGP, but it was micro ATX board.