BIOS settings and alarms!!

[Gerry Wolf]

Can anyone help me with a couple perplexing problems I'm having with a new
system I'm putting together for my son.

I am upgrading the previous system of a ABIT BE6 motherboard running a PIII
500 which recently began giving us a "siren" like warning sound which I have
no idea is. The last time I heard this it was in reference to a heat
problem. But it never shut down the system. Anyway, I figured that it was
time to just upgrade, so I bought a bundle from TigerDirect which consisted
of a ABIT KV7-V motherboard, an AMD Anthlon XP2900+ processor, and 512 mb of
DDR XP32000 400 FSB memory. On top of that, I went out and picked up a
Western Digital 160 GB hard drive and a nVidia geForce 5500 video card with
256 mb onboard mem. So, I was thinking this will be a great system, the case
is a "Ninja" by MGE with a 450 watt p/s.

Now we get interesting. I carefully assemble all these components and double
and recheck all the connections so I don't have to tear it apart again and
again. I want to install Windows XP Home and figured I'd need to boot from a
floppy.

But before I can get to that, I boot up the system and read the BIOS
information and immediately see an error which reads :
"IDE Channel 1 - No 80 conductor cable installed" Now, the components
installed on that channel are the CD and DVD drives which do not need the 80
cable. Do I install these anyway? This message was followed by "Checksum
error, defaults loaded"
Was the cable issue the checksum error?
Also, the POST informs me that the processor is an Anthlon XP running at
990MHZ!!! It's supposed to run at 2.08 minimum. Now here's where it gets
more strange, I went to the AMD site and nowhere is a XP2900 processor
listed!! Why? Anyone know why?

So I head again into the BIOS and it shows the CPU is defaulted to the
following settings:

CPU Operating Speed: <default>
CPU FSB Clock (MHz) : 200 (This is supposed to be able to be changed from
100 to 250, but will only go from 200-250)
Ratio (FSB:AGPCI) : 6:2:1
Multiplier :10 (Cannot be changed at all, no access)

Without touching any of those settings, I now save and exit and when
attempting to reboot, it shuts down and I hear that frigging siren sound
again!! What the hell is it?? Power Supply? I finally booted with the floppy
from Win 98, and partitioned and formatted the hard drive, but at this
point, I feel I'm going to need assistance since each and every time the
machine wants to restart, the siren alarm sounds again, requiring me to turn
off the power and on again.

So..there is where I'm at. I'm going to try a BIOS upgrade, and see what
that brings, but in the meantime if anyone knows what that incessant alarm
is, please let me know, it's not temp as the BIOS warning temp is way higher
than the actual temp.

Please help....This used to be much easier!!

Gerry

 

[drg]

Can anyone help me with a couple perplexing problems I'm having with a new
system I'm putting together for my son.

I am upgrading the previous system of a ABIT BE6 motherboard running a PIII
500 which recently began giving us a "siren" like warning sound which I have
no idea is. The last time I heard this it was in reference to a heat
problem. But it never shut down the system. Anyway, I figured that it was
time to just upgrade, so I bought a bundle from TigerDirect which consisted
of a ABIT KV7-V motherboard, an AMD Anthlon XP2900+ processor, and 512 mb of
DDR XP32000 400 FSB memory. On top of that, I went out and picked up a
Western Digital 160 GB hard drive and a nVidia geForce 5500 video card with
256 mb onboard mem. So, I was thinking this will be a great system, the case
is a "Ninja" by MGE with a 450 watt p/s.

Now we get interesting. I carefully assemble all these components and double
and recheck all the connections so I don't have to tear it apart again and
again. I want to install Windows XP Home and figured I'd need to boot from a
floppy.

But before I can get to that, I boot up the system and read the BIOS
information and immediately see an error which reads :
"IDE Channel 1 - No 80 conductor cable installed" Now, the components
installed on that channel are the CD and DVD drives which do not need the 80
cable. Do I install these anyway? This message was followed by "Checksum
error, defaults loaded"
Was the cable issue the checksum error?
Also, the POST informs me that the processor is an Anthlon XP running at
990MHZ!!! It's supposed to run at 2.08 minimum. Now here's where it gets
more strange, I went to the AMD site and nowhere is a XP2900 processor
listed!! Why? Anyone know why?

So I head again into the BIOS and it shows the CPU is defaulted to the
following settings:

CPU Operating Speed: <default>
CPU FSB Clock (MHz) : 200 (This is supposed to be able to be changed from
100 to 250, but will only go from 200-250)
Ratio (FSB:AGPCI) : 6:2:1
Multiplier :10 (Cannot be changed at all, no access)

Without touching any of those settings, I now save and exit and when
attempting to reboot, it shuts down and I hear that frigging siren sound
again!! What the hell is it?? Power Supply? I finally booted with the floppy
from Win 98, and partitioned and formatted the hard drive, but at this
point, I feel I'm going to need assistance since each and every time the
machine wants to restart, the siren alarm sounds again, requiring me to turn
off the power and on again.

So..there is where I'm at. I'm going to try a BIOS upgrade, and see what
that brings, but in the meantime if anyone knows what that incessant alarm
is, please let me know, it's not temp as the BIOS warning temp is way higher
than the actual temp.

Please help....This used to be much easier!!

Gerry

Sounds like you have a big problem. The siren you are hearing is
probably a beep code. The beep code may be telling you that a 'booting
drive' is not being found -- i.e. your floppy ribbon cables. If your
cables have colored boots be sure that they match-up with the
motherboard and that the red edge is in line with the #1 pin (though the
last tip should not matter because of modern boot design. Make sure all
your drives 'master and slave are jumpered and cabled correctly.

The cheksum error issue is caused when the CMOS values are incorrect.
This issue can occur because of any of the below possibilities.

1. Bad or old CMOS battery.
2. BIOS update.
3. Disconnecting power from computer without shutting down computer.

Hope this helps,
DRG

 

[JAD]

siren = Fan RPM warning? same siren?same case? same PSU?...

The checksum on first boot is semi normal, in this case it wants the 80
conductor cable and the bios is getting too picky and throws the error.

 

[Gerry Wolf]

Interesting...but which fan? And would it shut down the system? I'm going to
check the BIOS and see if I can disable it. Great idea, thanks.

Gerry

 

[dawg]

Something odd. Tiger Direct is the only place to find the so-called XP2900+.
I think there is something fishy about this. I don't trust these guys.Never
did.

 

[David Maynard]

Can anyone help me with a couple perplexing problems I'm having with a new
system I'm putting together for my son.

I am upgrading the previous system of a ABIT BE6 motherboard running a PIII
500 which recently began giving us a "siren" like warning sound which I have
no idea is.

Assuming it really is coming from the motherboard and not some weird sound
caused by something else, it could be a temperature alarm, fan speed alarm,
voltage alarm, or any other motherboard monitoring.

The last time I heard this it was in reference to a heat
problem. But it never shut down the system.

Well, generally one likes to get an alarm before the system is shutdown so
getting an alarm 'but never shut down' isn't terribly strange. Just means
that whatever caused the alarm was out of range but not to the point of
'catastrophic'.

Anyway, I figured that it was
time to just upgrade, so I bought a bundle from TigerDirect which consisted
of a ABIT KV7-V motherboard, an AMD Anthlon XP2900+ processor, and 512 mb of
DDR XP32000 400 FSB memory. On top of that, I went out and picked up a
Western Digital 160 GB hard drive and a nVidia geForce 5500 video card with
256 mb onboard mem. So, I was thinking this will be a great system, the case
is a "Ninja" by MGE with a 450 watt p/s.

Odds are that 450 watt rating is 'peak watts' and not real watts.

Now we get interesting. I carefully assemble all these components and double
and recheck all the connections so I don't have to tear it apart again and
again. I want to install Windows XP Home and figured I'd need to boot from a
floppy.

But before I can get to that, I boot up the system and read the BIOS
information and immediately see an error which reads :
"IDE Channel 1 - No 80 conductor cable installed" Now, the components
installed on that channel are the CD and DVD drives which do not need the 80
cable.

It's just warning you that the cables are not able to handle the full
capacity of the IDE channel.

Do I install these anyway?

Would be a good idea.

This message was followed by "Checksum
error, defaults loaded"

Generally means the battery was low, and parameters lost, or defaults had
never been loaded in the first place. If it doesn't happen again then
forget about it.

Was the cable issue the checksum error?
Unlikely

Also, the POST informs me that the processor is an Anthlon XP running at
990MHZ!!! It's supposed to run at 2.08 minimum. Now here's where it gets
more strange, I went to the AMD site and nowhere is a XP2900 processor
listed!! Why? Anyone know why?

Ah, the 'XP2900'. You have a 'TigerDirect special' (just on general
principle I don't trust companies who sound more like a carnival barker in
front of the bearded lady exhibit than a computer parts dealer).

That processor is a special one made by AMD for some OEM (I forget who, off
hand) so the odds of any normal motherboard being able to identify it is
rather low.

So I head again into the BIOS and it shows the CPU is defaulted to the
following settings:

CPU Operating Speed: <default>
CPU FSB Clock (MHz) : 200 (This is supposed to be able to be changed from
100 to 250, but will only go from 200-250)
Ratio (FSB:AGPCI) : 6:2:1
Multiplier :10 (Cannot be changed at all, no access)

Well, if the FSB is at 200 Mhz with a x10 multiplier then it's running 2 GHz.

TigerDirect's information is just plain wrong (big surprise). It's just not
possible for a 200 Mhz FSB XP to run at "2.08 GHz" as there is no
combination of multipliers than can do it. 200 x 10 is 2 GHz and 200 times
10.5 is 2.1 Ghz. And there's nothing in-between.

2.08GHz (2.0833..., actually) is a 166.6 MHz FSB speed with a 12.5x multiplier.

If I remember correctly that '2900+' is a 2800+, which does run 2.08 GHz on
a 166.6 MHz FSB, that AMD changed the multiplier on, from 12.5 to 10, and
spec'd for 200 MHz FSB, at 2 GHz, and used the 400 vs 333 bus speed
increase to up the speed rating by 100, from 2800+ to 2900+, even though
the core is running 83Mhz slower (a 3000+ runs 2.1GHz at 10.5x 200MHz FSB).

Without touching any of those settings, I now save and exit and when
attempting to reboot, it shuts down and I hear that frigging siren sound
again!! What the hell is it?? Power Supply?

Are you using the old power supply?

I finally booted with the floppy
from Win 98, and partitioned and formatted the hard drive, but at this
point, I feel I'm going to need assistance since each and every time the
machine wants to restart, the siren alarm sounds again, requiring me to turn
off the power and on again.

So..there is where I'm at. I'm going to try a BIOS upgrade, and see what
that brings, but in the meantime if anyone knows what that incessant alarm
is, please let me know, it's not temp as the BIOS warning temp is way higher
than the actual temp.

What heatsink are you using? Fan plugged into the right fan header? Because
a low fan RPM, or no fan RPM, can cause an alarm.

 

[Michael Hawes]

Interesting...but which fan? And would it shut down the system? I'm going to
check the BIOS and see if I can disable it. Great idea, thanks.

Gerry

Alarm is set for CPU fan. What cooler do you have? Are you sure it's
upto the job? In BIOS what is CPU fan speed? What is temp. Are you SURE
cooler isright way round?
Mike.

 

[Gerry Wolf]

Mike, I'm totally ashamed to admit it, but you hit the nail on the head. I
DID have the cooler on the wrong way, and once I disassembled the system and
looked at it I sheepishly corrected it and now the system seems to run
beautifully!
Thank you so much and also all who helped, thanks again!

Gerry