Having just a few problems with the AA8XE.

Okay, so to start off, I have the regular AA8XE motherboard, a P4 640, 1GB (2x512MB) of Crucial Ballistix DDR-5300, and a Vantec 400watt PSU. So, I plug in my SATA HDD, I boot, and I get stuck at 7F on the GURU motherboard P.O.S.T. light thing. I'm gonna update my BIOS and see if that helps. Also, it won't boot off my IDE drive for some reason ether. It just loads the BIOS screen that shows the Abit logo and the Intel EE logo, then the screen goes black except for a little purple logo in the upper left-hand corner. What in the heck could the problem be? The BIOS recongizes my DVD-burner as the master and the IDE HDD as the slave which is perfectly fine with me. Now, if only I could get it to load Windows.

I think the IDE HDD needs to be the master if you are trying to boot from that IDE drive. You will probably have to physically change jumpers on the HDD and DVD-burner to make the HDD the master and the DVD drive the slave. Also, they need to be connected correctly on the IDE cable too. The master drive should be connected to the black end connector.

But, if you are wanting to boot from the SATA drive, then that shouldn't matter. Go into the BIOS and make sure the SATA controller is enabled (I just use the "auto" setting I think). As long as the BIOS lists the DVD drive as a boot drive after the HDD, then you should be able to install Windows if you have the install CD in the drive as you boot.

Thanks. I'll try that. My "real" video card arrived today so as soon as I pop 'er in. I'll give it a boot.

ghost_recon88 said:

Thanks. I'll try that. My "real" video card arrived today so as soon as I pop 'er in. I'll give it a boot.

Click to expand...

then lets me see your score on 3dmark05

Sorry, but I disagree. The AA8XE runs fine with DDR2-667 RAM and is quite stable using the 3:4 ratio. So, why not run a 640 CPU at 4 gig or 250 FSB using the 3:4 ratio for DDR2-667 and have the RAM in spec? Makes for some nice memory bandwidth. I've got a screenshot of DDR2-800 using the AA8XE and my Kingston HyperX PC2-5400 RAM.

And i also disagree. (agree with batboy)
I haven't had any problem running DDR2-667 and above that spec. *points to sig*
Wish i could afford some nice DDR2-800's to test this board further but, now i have gotten my WC parts so the AA8XE will be replaced by the AW8-Max.

//Christian