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A7V-333 Desperate Help Needed

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Richie

Registered
Joined
Jul 13, 2002
Location
United Kingdom
Just finished putting my new system together and I can't even get into the BIOS.

At the moment i'm temporarily using my old Nvidia TNT2 M64 card and all i get is the BIOS screen for the GFX card, then the system just hangs.

If I power up whilst holding delete then I can get into the BIOS but the system still hangs and I cant adjust any of the BIOS settings. There is a message on the right hand side of the screen saying that because I set the incorrect frequency for the CPU, it caused the system to hang and that it is now running in safe mode.

The problem is not with the GFX card as i'm using it now in another Pentium machine and it's working fine.

The mobo is set to Jumper Free mode. Tried clearing the BIOS but still I get the same proble :(

Can someone please help me out? I really wanted to get Win XP installed tonight.
 
Does it power off allways aroud the same time ? If so then the COP is kicking in. Check that youe CPU & heatsink/fan are cnnected proper;y
 
Mmmm, when does it hang ? Soon as you get into BIOS ?
Try just using a video card and nothing else attached except the keyboard of course.

Do you have anything attached to serial2 ? By default serial2 is the smartcard reader i think and whenever i had an lcd plugged into it it kept on going into cmos
 
The message about the incorrect CPU speed is normal, for the first boot and until you revise the settings. First, I would double check the HSF installation. Remount it, make sure to apply thermal grease properly, and try again. Also, try booting with only the required hardware, namely CPU, RAM, and vid card connected to the mobo. Not sure, but a faulty PSU might be causing problems as well. Try as many of the components in another system as you can; this will help pin point the problem. Good luck
 
Thanks for the replies, all i have connected at the moment is the CPU, RAM and video card. I will try re-seating the CPU/heatsink and see if that helps.

Basically, I switch the PC on, and sometimes I see the BIOS screen for the GFX card and sometimes it goes straight into the Award BIOS but I am unable to change anything.
 
Just a word of caution when you do reset your bios, first unplug power cord, then remove battery then ONLY short the two pins.
I know of people that have destroyed their mobos without doing that.

You never did say what config you had put together. This might shed some light aswell.

Whats the power of the power supply ? Do you have any of the external stuff like 1394/usb1 & usb2 connected ? If so remove those aswell - just in case

Also check that when you mounted your mobo in the case you not shorting the mobo somehow.
 
The system is:

AV7-333
XP1800+
Samsung 256 MB PC2700
Antec SX635 case
Antec 350W PSU

I dont have any external USB stuff connected, I have disconnected absolutely everything now and still no luck. The RAM has also been tried in all 3 sockets.

I made sure the mains power was removed when I reset the BIOS.

I have also removed and reseated the CPU and heatsink.
 
This is perplexing to say the least...........

Did you make any changes to the mobo jumpers ?

Have you got another video card ?

You know i had the wierdest of problems installing win2k and xp on my A7v333. I had to install a 1.44 floppy drive before i got past the very first blue setup screen, i was using an ls-120. Go figure....


Can you go into the BIOS update screen ? When rebooting or powering on their is a message and i think its something like Alt-F2 or something
 
The jumpers are all set to default settings, I haven't changed anything.

I'm not sure if I have got the case LED's/switches connected correctly, do you think this would cause any problems?

Also I have tried with and without the floppy.

I am starting to think the mobo is faulty :(
 
UNlikely about the switches. Just have the power connector connected for now.

Do the fans on the heatsink come on ?

Its possible it could be faulty.
 
The fans are working fine, i'll have another little fiddle but it's getting a bit late now. I'm in the UK and it's 2:20 AM.
 
Richie said:
The jumpers are all set to default settings, I haven't changed anything.

I'm not sure if I have got the case LED's/switches connected correctly, do you think this would cause any problems?

Also I have tried with and without the floppy.

I am starting to think the mobo is faulty :(

the led's being incorrectly set would not cause that prob. i would try some other memory in the board and see what happens. just my two cents.
 
I have now tried an old PCI video card and I am able to change a few BIOS settings but again, it freezes after a short while.
 
Richie said:
This may be a silly question but the Promise IDE connectors are missing from my board? Is this right?

If you have the non-RAID version, then it is normal to have 2 IDE connectors, and 2 missing ones. The RAID version should have all 4.

Considering all the troubleshooting you've done so far, I'm starting to think the board may be faulty.
 
Right, i'm sending the board, CPU and memory back, they were all purchased from the same supplier. Thanks for all the advice everyone :)
 
Drak55 said:
just a question on the IDE raid my new board only has 2 ide slots not 4 whats the difference is it better to have the 4 and why?

The RAID version of the A7V333 has a total of 4 IDE connectors: 2 for the normal IDE channels, and 2 for RAID. If you have a non-RAID version, then the board will have only to 2 connectors. I don't think there is any way that a RAID board could have only 2 IDE connectors. The two RAID connectors can only be used for hard drives, while the others can be used for any IDE device.
 
do this!!!!!

hold down insert and while doing that click power up!!!

it will set all to default and hopefully boot

it worked on a look alike dead mobo for me it just hung before!!!

thx
 
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