Biostar IDEQ 200N won't boot

[Ian]

I recently purchased a Biostar IDEQ 200N Barebones System and am having
problems building the system. Hopefully someone can offer me some advice.
The
components I bought were:

Crucial 256MB DDR PC3200 CAS3 (CT3264Z40B) (MY-023-CR)
AMD Sempron 2200+ 1.50GHz (Socket A) CPU - OEM (CP-100-AM)
Biostar IDEQ 200N Barebones System (FS-002-BS)

As per the manual I did the following :
Installed the CPU
Installed the Memory in the first memory bank (furthest from the CPU)
Installed Harddrive (Jumper set to master)
Installed CD (Jumper set to master, on differennt channel to hd)

Switched system on. The fans power up, the cd light and keyboard lights
came on and went off and there was one beep but the screen remained blank
and nothing else happened.

I checked all the jumper settings, cables, reseated the memory and CPU etc.
and still no luck.

I removed the memory and put it in another machine and the memory tested OK.

I tried an Athlon XP 2500 "Barton" chip from another machine and it booted!
but.... after a couple of boots it went back to not booting. I swapped the
CPU's back into
my old box and it booted up so the CPU was fine.

I have also tried installing a graphics card, resetting the CMOS using the
jumpers, setting the jumpers to safe mode (200 fsb) but nothing. I took all
the usual precautions regarding static, heat compound etc. and have built
machines in the past but this has got me stumped!

Can you think of anything else I can try or does it sound like there is a
problem with the system ?

Any help would be much appriciated... I've spent quite a long time trying to
get this working without success now.

I thinking of getting a PCI diagnostics card, I they read port 80h, anyone
got any experience with these ?, would they help me sort out the above
problem ?

Many Thanks,
Ian.

 

[kony]

I recently purchased a Biostar IDEQ 200N Barebones System and am having
problems building the system. Hopefully someone can offer me some advice.
The
components I bought were:

Crucial 256MB DDR PC3200 CAS3 (CT3264Z40B) (MY-023-CR)
AMD Sempron 2200+ 1.50GHz (Socket A) CPU - OEM (CP-100-AM)
Biostar IDEQ 200N Barebones System (FS-002-BS)

As per the manual I did the following :
Installed the CPU
Installed the Memory in the first memory bank (furthest from the CPU)
Installed Harddrive (Jumper set to master)
Installed CD (Jumper set to master, on differennt channel to hd)

Switched system on. The fans power up, the cd light and keyboard lights
came on and went off and there was one beep but the screen remained blank
and nothing else happened.

I checked all the jumper settings, cables, reseated the memory and CPU etc.
and still no luck.

I removed the memory and put it in another machine and the memory tested OK.

I tried an Athlon XP 2500 "Barton" chip from another machine and it booted!
but.... after a couple of boots it went back to not booting. I swapped the
CPU's back into
my old box and it booted up so the CPU was fine.

I have also tried installing a graphics card, resetting the CMOS using the
jumpers, setting the jumpers to safe mode (200 fsb) but nothing. I took all
the usual precautions regarding static, heat compound etc. and have built
machines in the past but this has got me stumped!

Can you think of anything else I can try or does it sound like there is a
problem with the system ?

Any help would be much appriciated... I've spent quite a long time trying to
get this working without success now.

I thinking of getting a PCI diagnostics card, I they read port 80h, anyone
got any experience with these ?, would they help me sort out the above
problem ?

Many Thanks,
Ian.

Go ahead and request an RMA from seller... you can keep
trying to get it working but the sooner you get RMA the
easier it might be, depending on seller.

You've already covered the basics, if the box doesn't
support the Sempron with original bios you could try
upgrading the bios but only if you can be sure system is
stable to do so.

After the system had POSTed with the Barton, then failed to,
did you then try clearing CMOS?

Is it possible the board is improperly installed in the case
and shorting out somehow?

You might take voltage readings with a multimeter if
possible. If system POSTs again try entering the BIOS
hardware monitor/health page and leave it sitting there,
noting any potential problem readings. Is it possible the
heatsink isn't seating properly?

Try stripping system down to minimal parts, no drives or
keyboard, mouse, etc. Only CPU, heatsink/fan, memory (&
video if you aren't using integrated video) should be
installed. Beyond that there isn't a lot that should be
done to a barebones, since it needs be returned "whole".
Personally I try to avoid Biostar in general unless price
is so good it's worth some potential hassles, if you had
another (different) barebones alternative it might be better
to seek refund rather than exchange for same.

 

[Ian]

Thanks for your response.

I've tried the bare minimum but it does the same. I don't think the BIOS
supports the Sempron CPU but I can't upgrade the BIOS because I can't access
it..... In these situation would you normally have to put a supported CPU
in and then upgrade the BIOS and then change the CPU ?, do you know what the
minimum requirements are generally to access the BIOS ?

I reinstalled the heat sink several times so I'm pretty sure it's not that,
I will check the motherboard screws to make sure none are missing other than
that I think it's a return job.

When you get one beep does that not indicate the posting is sucessfull ?, my
understanding is that you should get a sequence of beeps to indicate what
the problem is.... I guess this is one of the trade offs when buying a cheap
machine.

I may ask to change for an MSI system but I doubt they will change it. The
biostar got great reviews and the case seems well designed and looks pretty
good quality, having said that I have another machine with an MSI
motherboard and I found the documentation so much better and the board comes
with a diagnostics card so any posting problems are reported via a sequence
of LED's

Thanks again for your advice,
Ian.

 

[Hamman]

Thanks for your response.

I've tried the bare minimum but it does the same. I don't think the BIOS
supports the Sempron CPU but I can't upgrade the BIOS because I can't
access
it.....

The majority of BIOS updates for the sempron are only the names of the
chips, to stop the 'unknown CPU' message on boot up.

Semprons are internally identical to tbredb CPU's, but with a defualt FSB of
333 instead of the old 266.

I'm more inclined to think the motherboard is screwed

hamman

 

[kony]

Thanks for your response.

I've tried the bare minimum but it does the same. I don't think the BIOS
supports the Sempron CPU but I can't upgrade the BIOS because I can't access
it..... In these situation would you normally have to put a supported CPU
in and then upgrade the BIOS and then change the CPU ?, do you know what the
minimum requirements are generally to access the BIOS ?

I'd try a different CPU if one were available, which can
sometimes work if bios is buggy but there is no guarantee.
There aren't really any "minimum requirements", just that
system works properly. Underclocking would maximize the
potential for proper operation but otherwise you can only
try different parts like memory and power supply, IF you
want to keep working on this instead of getting an RMA.

I reinstalled the heat sink several times so I'm pretty sure it's not that,
I will check the motherboard screws to make sure none are missing other than
that I think it's a return job.

When you get one beep does that not indicate the posting is sucessfull ?, my
understanding is that you should get a sequence of beeps to indicate what
the problem is.... I guess this is one of the trade offs when buying a cheap
machine.

It'd beep after it's posted, finished, if successfull.
There might be a sequence of beeps to indicate a problem or
the POST process might not get that far along, fail prior to
producing beep codes or produce a generic code (like if you
pull out the memory).

I may ask to change for an MSI system but I doubt they will change it. The
biostar got great reviews and the case seems well designed and looks pretty
good quality, having said that I have another machine with an MSI
motherboard and I found the documentation so much better and the board comes
with a diagnostics card so any posting problems are reported via a sequence
of LED's

It would probably be easier to get a refund than exchange
for different hardware, though I suppose it could depend on
the seller.

 

[Shai Schwan]

sounds like a flaky powersupply, you may need a higher wattage power
supply.
I had problems along these lines when I built my first socket a
system. I installed a new 400 watt powersupply and all was well.

 

[kony]

I'd try a different CPU if one were available, which can
sometimes work if bios is buggy but there is no guarantee.

Note that i'm not suggesting there would likely be anything
wrong with current CPU, just that sometimes a bios bug will
competely prevent system from POST even after clearing CMOS,
until a different CPU is tried. THEN, if system POSTs with
different CPU, you might be able to reinstall prior CPU
again and it would work. This is an odd behavoir that I
have no explanation for, yet have seen it happen on
ECS/PCChips boards... unfortunately don't remember the
models at the moment.