Asus Motherboard Issues

[legacy2k]

iv just got my hands on a Asus A7V-E motherboard

im trying to put together a pc that i can use practically for experimenting with while i do my course but iv come across a problem

while in POST it will detect the CPU, Ram etc then move onto the HDD's/CD rom all is fine....

then i starts the other screen (the one with all the info on about your ram/cpu speed/hdd's etc etc) where it attempts to boot from what ever device you've told it to, from here it shows all the info you expect but just wont boot regardless of what device you try, it just sits there with the little blinking dot like in DOS. iv tried unplugging all the drives, leaving some drives, different disks, clearing the CMOS, all sorts yet still nothing?

i tried it with no drives & also all the drives so its not a jumper issue?

i am running a 2600+ Athlon XP in this motherboard but its an oldish board and had SD ram therefor the FSB is at 100mhz and the CPU is running at 1100Mhz, could this be the problem? as thats a big drop for a CPU made to run at 166Mhz/333Mhz (DDR) at 2088Mhz

Specs:

Athlon XP 2600+ (with a barton core i think)

160MB SD Ram (PC100)

20GB HDD

CD Rom Drive

GF4 MX400 AGP

350Watt PSU

Asus A7V-E Motherboard

any ideas?

 

[Toxcity]

Does it have anything to boot to?

Operating system? Windows, Linux?

 

[legacy2k]

its trying to boot windows XP pro SP2 as its a new system and im trying to install XP on it

iv set it to boot from cd but theres no drive activity it just sits there witha blinking cursor

 

[Toxcity]

Tap/press F8 at start up.

It should come up with the boot menu, choose what drive you want to boot from and it should work first time. So in your case choose the CD drive.

Then it will come up with "Press any key to boot from CD".

You should know what you are doing from then on.

 

[legacy2k]

im not quite getting to that point, heres a video to explain exactly whats going on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oet8ULPCTrY

 

[Toxcity]

While it is posting press F8 for the bios's boot menu.

Then choose the CD drive.

 

[legacy2k]

it just carrys on like it does in the video ??

this is really odd

 

[RollerCam540]

I did not watch your video. Did you solve your problem?

If not then "get your hands on the board's manual" because (a) you'll need to ensure that the board's jumpers are set appropriately, (b) that you have an adequate power supply, (c) that there are no lose power connections, ie. things like the 12v ATX connector are securely fastened, (d) you've connected the bare necessities, ie. something like disconnecting a PSU cable from its fan header can sometimes solve a problem, (e) that the BIOS has been reset to its factory settings and flashed to the latest version.

If you've read this post correctly then you've ensured that all jumpers are correctly set. You have not connected any wires from the chassis other the proper combination of wires to power the system on (you cannot see HD activity because you haven't connected those wires, you cannot use the front USBs because you haven't connected those wires, etc..., nothing but the POWER ON shall be connected). The only components connected to the motherboard should be a processor and its heatsink, one stick of ram, the essential PSU cables, and an external video card if required. From there, you've reset the the BIOS to factory settings, then flashed the BIOS, the reset the BIOS to factory settings or configured it appropriately (depending on which you can know to be more appropriate).

From here, without having a HARD DRIVE connected, after the system POSTs it should boot to a screen that reads something along the lines of "cannot load NTLDR" and halt. Without the hard drive installed, run windows setup from CD, you should get through the initial portion before it realizes no disk has been detected and forces you to cancel -- all good signs. When you get this far, come back, and we'll discuss what to do next. Obviously, if it doesn't work then we have a better idea of what is and is not the source of error.

 

[AdamR79]

reads something along the lines of "cannot load NTLDR" and halt.

It shoudlnt do, as the bios knows nothing of ntldr, thats the job of the MBR

If anything, if you have a floppy plugged in and enabled, it'll say insert disk or invalid disk, depending on config.

 

[RollerCam540]

It shoudlnt do, as the bios knows nothing of ntldr, thats the job of the MBR

If anything, if you have a floppy plugged in and enabled, it'll say insert disk or invalid disk, depending on config.

Hence the phrase, "something along the lines of... ."

A valid point, nonetheless.