New A7N8X instal going badly

[ScottH]

System is an ASUS A7N8x mbd (BIOS 1006), Athlon 2700, 512 DDR PC3200 RAM, no
SCSI, one CDROM drive (master on second ID channel), one 80GB Western
Digital hard drive (master on first IDE channel). Also Radeon 9600 video
card.

POST is very slow, IDE detection very slow (though it does show the one hard
drive as master on IDE channel 0, and the one CDROM as the master on IDE
channel 1), DPMI memory pool detection very slow, pressing DEL to access
BIOS very slow to respond (but does after about 30 sec), etc. I cannot run
the utility that comes with the hard drive to partition it - it crashes with
a fatal error of some kind (goes by so fast I cannot read the whole message)

I have memory freq set to 200, single channel mode, CPU freq set to 166Mhz.
Seems ther must be something fundamentally set wrong in the BIOS for all
this sluggish behavior, but cannot figure out what. I have built systems
before and never had this sort trouble.

Any ideas what is goiing wrong here ? What can I do about this ? I cannot
install the OS without a partition defined.

TIA,
Scott

 

[dino]

get memtest86 and check your RAM..and not all RAM is compatible with this
board..it is fussy...alot of OEM style ram will not work...

 

[ScottH]

What slot should a single DIMM go in ? I had it occupying DIMM Rows 0 and
1.

I can't find anywhere that tells me what BIOS 1007 fixes, so I am assuming
it cant hurt and might help. I see on my mbd "Rev 2.00". Does this refer
to PCB version ? I know it makes a difference WRT BIOS flash version.

Scott

 

[Ed]

What slot should a single DIMM go in ? I had it occupying DIMM Rows 0 and
1.

I can't find anywhere that tells me what BIOS 1007 fixes, so I am assuming
it cant hurt and might help. I see on my mbd "Rev 2.00". Does this refer
to PCB version ? I know it makes a difference WRT BIOS flash version.

Scott

Yes the 2.00 printed in between the PCI slots, so stay away from the
1.xx files.

 

[ScottH]

Well, that didn't work either (flashing up to 1007). I used the builtin
AWDFLASH and specified the flash file I got from ASUS for PCB 2.0, and it
gave me an error: The program file's BIOS-lock string does not match with
your system!

I thought I had the standard A7N8X. I can't tell that it is anything else.

Scott

 

[Ed]

Well, that didn't work either (flashing up to 1007). I used the builtin
AWDFLASH and specified the flash file I got from ASUS for PCB 2.0, and it
gave me an error: The program file's BIOS-lock string does not match with
your system!

I thought I had the standard A7N8X. I can't tell that it is anything else.

Scott

One quick way to tell is, if it has 2 LAN ports on the back panel then
it's a Deluxe or a "-E Deluxe", the other 3 A7N8X's only have 1 LAN. I
used a floppy to flash my standard A7N8X 2.00 from 1003 to 1004 about 9
months ago, no problem.

Ed
--
Antec SX-1040BII (Tower/400W)
Asus A7N8X rev2.00 (BIOS 1004)
AMD Barton 2800+ (AQUCA 0307)
Vantec Aeroflow VA4-C7040 w/Artic Silver 3
3 x 256MB Corsair 3200LLPT
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Creative Labs Audigy 2
HDD-0: WD 120GB 8MB PATA100 7200RPM
HDD-1: WD 40GB 2MB PATA100 7200RPM
HDD-2: RICHO 5125A DVD+RW/CDRW 2.4x/12x/32x
HDD-3: AOPEN CDRW 48x12x50x
Alps Floppy 3.5" Disk Drive
MS Multimedia Keyboard (PS2)
MS Optical Wheel Mouse (USB)
MS Sidewinder Precision Pro (USB)
etc,etc.....

 

[ScottH]

It is definitely not the Deluxe, but there seems to be about 7 or 8
variations on this board, according to their site (which happens to be
unavailable right now)

Thanks

 

[Kent_Diego]

... one 80GB Western

Digital hard drive (master on first IDE channel).

POST is very slow, IDE detection very slow (though it does show the one hard
drive as master on IDE channel 0, and the one CDROM as the master on IDE
channel 1),

Do not make harddrive master. It needs to be "single drive", often poorly
documented. Try CS or removing jumper completely.

-Kent

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

one 80GB Western
Digital hard drive (master on first IDE channel)

POST is very slow, IDE detection very slow (though it does show the one hard
drive as master on IDE channel 0,

Western Digital drives can be jumpered as "single", "master" and
"slave". You have the drive jumpered as master with no slave present,
and this is the cause of your slow POST. The drive is timing out
waiting for a non-existent slave drive to come ready.

Re-jumper your drive for "Single drive" and all will be well.

 

[mrdancer]

Western Digital drives can be jumpered as "single", "master" and
"slave". You have the drive jumpered as master with no slave present,
and this is the cause of your slow POST. The drive is timing out
waiting for a non-existent slave drive to come ready.

Re-jumper your drive for "Single drive" and all will be well.

My experience with recent WD HDDs is that "no jumper" seems to work best for
a single drive.

 

[dave AKA vwdoc1]

edited

My experience with recent WD HDDs is that "no jumper" seems to work best for
a single drive.

I just installed a WD 40g and the default is Cable Select and use their
"special" cable.
Make sure that you correctly route that cable too! Only one of the ends is
supposed to be attached to the MB!

BTW Did you use their cable?

just a thought,
dave