Wierd problem- R8500 AGP works, PCI card works, R9700pro won't run POST, on A7N8X-E

[Ken Maltby]

Why would which AGP card I insert matter to the POST?

I can get the initial display that lists the current BIOS number,
but then no memory check or anything. It won't let me go to
the BIOS pages. It appears to be locked up. Too shut it down
I have to hold the power button for the full time-out.

It appears to run OK with the R8500 or an old PCI card.

I want to use it as a HTPC media player on my LAN, so
the R8500 may be all I need. It has a DVI-I output which
my projector can use. (But I wanted to try some gaming on
a 120" screen)

Any guesses as to what is going on would help me track
this odd behavior down.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. This is on a ASUS A7N8X-E MB

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

Why would which AGP card I insert matter to the POST?

I can get the initial display that lists the current BIOS number,
but then no memory check or anything. It won't let me go to
the BIOS pages. It appears to be locked up. Too shut it down
I have to hold the power button for the full time-out.

It appears to run OK with the R8500 or an old PCI card.

I want to use it as a HTPC media player on my LAN, so
the R8500 may be all I need. It has a DVI-I output which
my projector can use. (But I wanted to try some gaming on
a 120" screen)

Any guesses as to what is going on would help me track
this odd behavior down.

It may be a power problem. Either your power supply can not provide
enough power for the board or the 4-pin floppy power connector was not
attached to the video card. If you are going to be using the 9700 Pro
in a smaller case make sure that you have adequate cooling as the board
runs much hotter than the 8500.

 

[Ken Maltby]

It may be a power problem. Either your power supply can not provide
enough power for the board or the 4-pin floppy power connector was not
attached to the video card. If you are going to be using the 9700 Pro in
a smaller case make sure that you have adequate cooling as the board runs
much hotter than the 8500.

I had the 4 pin connector on, if you don't you can't
get to the first display with the BIOS name and number.
(You get two red bars across the screen telling you to
connect the power and a lot of beeping.)

I do wonder if the 4 pin adapter is just good enough
to avoid that response but not good enough to allow
the POST.

I just don't know any conditions, on the AGP card,
that can/would lockup the system at that point.

Luck;
Ken

 

[kony]

I had the 4 pin connector on, if you don't you can't
get to the first display with the BIOS name and number.
(You get two red bars across the screen telling you to
connect the power and a lot of beeping.)

I do wonder if the 4 pin adapter is just good enough
to avoid that response but not good enough to allow
the POST.

I just don't know any conditions, on the AGP card,
that can/would lockup the system at that point.

It's probably not the adapter, but you could pull it off,
examine the pins to be sure they're making good contact. If
you're good with a multimeter and can pull the board you
might measure voltages on-card, to determine if the 5V & 12V
levels are staying high enough (it is expected they'd drop a
bit, but not much, maybe a couple %.

As the prior poster suggested, it could be a weak system
power supply. You might also try clearing CMOS. You might
seek a bios update for the motherboard, and change some bios
settings though changing settings is a bad situation to be
in if the defaults don't work properly, as then IF the CMOS
ever needed cleared, you would then have to swap in another
card again to gain stability to rechange the settings.

Are you sure the 9700 works properly? Even if it did you
might recheck it, since random things like a crack in the
PCB, then handling may further damage to it, or if there was
ESD it could have effected the card bios... so as a last
resort you could try reflashing the 9700's bios but it's not
as likely to be the problem in the first place.

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

I had the 4 pin connector on, if you don't you can't
get to the first display with the BIOS name and number.
(You get two red bars across the screen telling you to
connect the power and a lot of beeping.)

I do wonder if the 4 pin adapter is just good enough
to avoid that response but not good enough to allow
the POST.

Just out of curiosity is the power cable you are using only used for the
video card? Sometimes problems with the 9700 can be fixed by giving it
it's own power cable. I only have my 9700 Pro and a couple of case fans
on one power cable.

 

[Ken Maltby]

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 05:15:27 -0600, "Ken Maltby"


It's probably not the adapter, but you could pull it off,
examine the pins to be sure they're making good contact. If
you're good with a multimeter and can pull the board you
might measure voltages on-card, to determine if the 5V & 12V
levels are staying high enough (it is expected they'd drop a
bit, but not much, maybe a couple %.

As the prior poster suggested, it could be a weak system
power supply. You might also try clearing CMOS. You might
seek a bios update for the motherboard, and change some bios
settings though changing settings is a bad situation to be
in if the defaults don't work properly, as then IF the CMOS
ever needed cleared, you would then have to swap in another
card again to gain stability to rechange the settings.

No problem there I keep a PCI card around for such
purposes, and it is working fine on the board in question.

Are you sure the 9700 works properly? Even if it did you
might recheck it, since random things like a crack in the
PCB, then handling may further damage to it, or if there was
ESD it could have effected the card bios... so as a last
resort you could try reflashing the 9700's bios but it's not
as likely to be the problem in the first place.

That could be the problem, something broken on the
R9700Pro, but it does display the text for the first paragraph
of the start-up, right till where the memory check would have
started. The memory check and the rest of the POST are all
just VGA text display the same as that first paragraph.

Normally, I would think this means the problem would be
with the memory or the controller on the MB, but there is not
this problem with a different AGP card. So it seems to lead
back to the R9700, but what on the card could cause such
a response during what should be just VGA text display,
beats me.

Well, my thanks to all responders, and I'd still like to hear
of any ideas as to what this might be, but I'll see how the
R8500 works out for now. Using it for a media player on
my LAN shouldn't be too demanding anyway.

Thanks again.

Luck;
Ken

 

[Ken Maltby]

Why would which AGP card I insert matter to the POST?

I can get the initial display that lists the current BIOS number,
but then no memory check or anything. It won't let me go to
the BIOS pages. It appears to be locked up. Too shut it down
I have to hold the power button for the full time-out.

It appears to run OK with the R8500 or an old PCI card.

I want to use it as a HTPC media player on my LAN, so
the R8500 may be all I need. It has a DVI-I output which
my projector can use. (But I wanted to try some gaming on
a 120" screen)

Any guesses as to what is going on would help me track
this odd behavior down.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. This is on a ASUS A7N8X-E MB

If anyone is following this thread; I think the problem
is a known issue that was addressed in the 1011 BIOS.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that I've flashed this same
model MB several times in the past, I can't seem to get
this board to take a new flash. I can't get it off the 1008
BIOS.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. This sorta thing doesn't normally happen to me, it's
very rare that anything of a technical nature proves to be
so stubborn. I think this setup is possessed, I had it up and
running well with the R8500 but as soon as I had my
projector setup exactly as I wanted, the projector died.

 

[kony]

If anyone is following this thread; I think the problem
is a known issue that was addressed in the 1011 BIOS.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that I've flashed this same
model MB several times in the past, I can't seem to get
this board to take a new flash. I can't get it off the 1008
BIOS.

Luck;
Ken

P.S. This sorta thing doesn't normally happen to me, it's
very rare that anything of a technical nature proves to be
so stubborn. I think this setup is possessed, I had it up and
running well with the R8500 but as soon as I had my
projector setup exactly as I wanted, the projector died.

What happens when you try to flash the newer bios? Are you
using AWDFLASH or the asus specific flasher? Is the bios
write-protected in the bios menu or by jumper?

 

[Ken Maltby]

What happens when you try to flash the newer bios? Are you
using AWDFLASH or the asus specific flasher? Is the bios
write-protected in the bios menu or by jumper?

I've used the latest version of AWDFLASH downloaded
off the ASUS download site and listed for this MB. I also
used a floppy that I had used to flash another A7N8X-E, to
C18E1011.bin. I'll check the BIOS pages for any write
protection setting, but I don't remember seeing one. There
are no jumpers involved. (I did clear the bios settings with
the battery removed and the MB 20pin power connector
unplugged, using a jumper.)

What happens is that when I push the "Y" to have it flash
the BIOS, the "Press "y" to flash ..." message disappears but
nothing else happens. No more messages or little blocks
getting processed, nothing. (Actually that is a good thing in
that the CMOS appears not to be effected by the failed flash.)

Luck;
Ken