Got a free pc wanna fix Dfi Lanparty NF4 - logo then black screen

gday from australia

got a hand me down pc (excited because i have something to do/fix) I have delt with a few mobos in my time but this one takes the cake

firstly it had no os, so I installed xp64 via usb ,no problems everything installed and ran ok (bit laggy but hey its a work in progress)

so then i decided lets go win 7 64 and wallah installed like a dream, then i go into bios to change boot order etc

I undid all the wires/cables and reseated all components, tied up the cables nice and neat, screwed back the side of the case (once this is done youd think wahoo finished..... ahm no) yes i didnt stuff up anything doing these steps (well maybe)

boot back on and booooooo all i get is the splash logo and then black screen

boots up with 4 red lights then 3 , 2 and gets stuck on one..

very frustating as i dont think i did anything malice to cause it to hate me

i search for a few hours on here and I saw a few similar problems but saw heaps of lanparty dfi stuff but nothing as random as this. seems like this is one of those mobos that was created in a garage or something lol


Things ive tried thanks to these forums

- i tried to clear cmos (not for 8 hours) without success
- plugged in 1 ram chip in dimm 1 and once in dimm 2
- unplugged all except cpu gpu

all without any success

one note to take into consideration i have noticed the onboard speaker doesnt beep and sorta looks like its had it (i changed the jumper to on without hearing no beeps so maybe i dunno)

I know its a piece of crud motherboard but fixing it equals WIN

I want to win

cheers

any help is appreciated in advance



oh specs

dfi nf4 sli mobo
amd 64 dual 3800+
2 x 400 1g ram
2 ide drives
n6500 video card


oh and feel free to nail me on my grammar or spelling

It's actually one of the best 939 boards ever made.

What PSU?
and re-check all the wire connections. It worked before you un-wired it.

It's the best 939 board ... if it's working There were many issues with all of DFI 939/754 LanParty boards to the point that many distributors stopped to sell them. I made RMA 4 or 5 times for 939 and 2 or 3 for 754. After last one support said they won't replace the board ( they couldn't fix it ) as they don't want additional costs and gave me money back.

Depends from BIOS they may hate Samsung or Winbond memory. Right now I have one of these boards with working 2 memory slots but it's not booting on Winbond memory at all ( BH5, BH6, CH5 ).

You can check orange slots starting from the first from CPU side but it doesn't look like memory error when board is passing memory check.
I don't remember what mean these leds but first was for memory/cpu or something and last one is probably something with booting or additional devices. As Mr.Scott said, check the connections as it should work when it was working before.

If 'MY' memory is still accurate...

...Diagnostic LEDs. Countdown to booting.
4 LEDs on = Power applied
3 LEDs on = CPU has been detected OK
2 LEDs on = RAM has been detected OK
1 LED. on = VGA has been detected OK
0 LEDs on = System has booted to the Operating System.

RGone...

Mr.Scott said:

It's actually one of the best 939 boards ever made.

What PSU?
and re-check all the wire connections. It worked before you un-wired it.

Click to expand...

its a 430w psu with 20pin + 4pin to fit the board with an extra 2 x 4pin where one is used and the other one doesnt fit anywhere, i have read that this mobo needs 4 power ins, the only other one i put in is the same as the hd power plugs.... ok thats confused me now lol

- - - Updated - - -

RGone said:

.
1 LED. on = VGA has been detected OK
0 LEDs on = System has booted to the Operating System.

RGone...

Click to expand...

So if its stuck on one that does mean the vga is detected and is ok and it cant then boot or is it the vga is gone and it doesnt want to continue to boot?


cheers

Like I said if my memory is acting straight by me and none of my notes are with me...it is a countdown for/of diagnostic LEDs.

SO >
Countdown to booting.
4 LEDs on = Power applied 4 LEDS come on and one goes out > Power applied Ok

3 LEDs on = CPU has been detected OK Four LEDs were on and one went out then a Second goes out. Cpu was detected as Good when Second LED goes out.

2 LEDs on = RAM has been detected OK Four LEDs were on and two have gone out and now a third LED goes out. Ram detected and OK.

1 LED. on = VGA has been detected OK Four LEDs were on and LED 1, 2, 3 and now the Last LED goes out. VGA has been detected as OK. AS the countdown progresses only After LED has gone out is the specific system considered as good.

0 LEDs on = System has booted to the Operating System. And of course if the countdown has turned OFF four LEDs one after the other...in theory it should be booting unless there is some kind of crazy bios setting that NOW stops the boot process with ALL LEDs off and a blinking cursor in the top left of monitor screen. Have seen that also. To remove any crazy bios setting the CMOS jumper must be placed on the CLEAR pins position and battery removed. ALWAYS REinsert battery BEfore jumpering CMOS jumper back to the normal RUN/USE pin position.

Been about 7 years since I had any issue with one of those boards and my memory is getting a little hazy and all my Tips that I had written up over the years regarding specifics of DFI boards are getting fuzzy in my mind. But I am pretty certain that is the way I had to write up the CountDown LEDs long ago.

RGone...ster.

EDIT:
PRIMARY Ram slot for use with that DFI socket 939 board is the second memory slot from the cpu. NOT the memory slot closest the cpu. So for single stick testing the Ram slot to be used is the SECOND one from the cpu. Then if two sticks...Second slot from CPU and fourth Ram slot from CPU.
END EDIT.

All of this info ^^^ is correct.
Rgone hasn't lost anything, it just takes us old guys a little longer to think about it.

cheers for the history lesson nice work sirs

so it flashes all 4 when powered up then counts down 3 2 and stops at one, that stays on.

so im thinking the vga card is maybe gone. shouldnt be..

Doing all that unhooking and reseating and tying up may have left something like the video card not seated well or if it has to have power to it, that cable might be loose.

All that said it is at this juncture in troubleshooting that most of us would remove the board from the case and do a minimum build outside case on n0n-conductive surface to try and eliminate board pushed into shorted condition or such and whatever else might happen during tidy up. Just what we do at this point as a matter of course.

RGone...

is that the mobos last rights from there ??

I guess honestly...

...removing an installed mobo to troubleshoot what maybe a physical problem...well it could be considered last rights since the board comes out of the case to see if some handling or whatever has created the problem and if the board does not recover, then yes it is out of the case for burial.

RGone...

Try this first.

The proper Clear CMOS recovery. Not to be confused with a Normal CMOS Clear.


You can not use a USB keyboard for this procedure. You must use a PS2 keyboard.


You will need your manual to find the jumpers that must be changed.


If you skip or miss any step you must start again since the results will not be valid.
Remove power from the rig by pulling the plug or switching the PSU off.


Move the PC Speaker jumper to the ON position.


Remove the Battery.


Move the CMOS jumper to CLEAR.


Press the Start Button on the case or motherboard to drain the capacitors.


You may leave the board in this condition for as long as it takes to clear the CMOS. If a short 30 second clear or a 15 minute clear doesn't work, try an 8 hour clear.


Plug in a PS2 Keyboard.


Put one stick of RAM in the slot marked DIMM2.


Move the CMOS jumper to Normal.


Replace the Battery.


Press and hold the Insert Key on the Keyboard.


Apply power to the rig by plugging the power in or using the switch on the PSU.


Press the Start Button to power the rig up.


When you hear the BEEP, release the Insert Key and press the Delete Key on the Keyboard.


Once you enter the BIOS set the DATE and TIME then Load Optimized Defaults.


Save and Exit.


Enter the BIOS again and set it up the way you want for your particular rig.

Click to expand...

That sounds...

...sounds like Mike from the Gulf Coasts writing but it has been a long time since have heard anything from or about him.

RGone...

RGone said:

...sounds like Mike from the Gulf Coasts writing but it has been a long time since have heard anything from or about him.

RGone...

Click to expand...

It is, and neither have I.
Blast from the past my old friend.

Guess I'm still kind of wondering which NF4 SLI board it is.

There were the NF4 SLI-D, NF4 SLI-DR, NF4 SLI-DR Expert, and NF4 SLI-DR Venus. Plus a few others besides that weren't SLI models.

RGone is correct. (I looked it up in my DFI SLI-DR manual.)

4 LED's for power sounds right
3 LED's is for the CPU
2 LED's is definitely for RAM/Memory (I've seen that error LED more times than I can remember)
1 LED is for VGA
0 LED's is normal system boot-up

My suggestion is to remove your case's back panel to make sure none of your cables are being pinched, and re-seat your graphics card. Plus just make sure all cables are seated/connected normally.

Bios issue. I've toyed with the DFI lanparty boards a lot and this happened often. There were tons of iffy bios out there for the Lanparty. Flash it to the original bios.

Theflaminroids said:

Bios issue. I've toyed with the DFI lanparty boards a lot and this happened often. There were tons of iffy bios out there for the Lanparty. Flash it to the original bios.

Click to expand...

Nahhh... What you really want to do is Ask kindly Mr. Scotty for a bios for this board. The original bios where crap, that's why so many people went with modded bios.

Great boards though. Lots of fun.

I'll throw in sometimes you can get a board to boot without a BIOS clearing IF it's just a configuration setting causing the problem - BTW this method isn't just for DFI's.

The method I use is to "Trick" the board into loading it's defaults by simply pressing and holding the power button until it cuts back off.

This makes the board register a failed boot and it normally indicates a failed boot when it does recover such as "Overclocking failed" with my Sabo or CHV-Z as an example of this - Sometimes you have to switch off the PSU and let all the LEDs go out before it will try to boot again after cycling it this way. Normally it needs to be done more than once (2 or 3 times) but this normally works.
If that fails then I'll start it and switch off the PSU about a second or so after pressing the power button, letting the LEDs go out then try it again.

Of course removing the battery will reset everything and you'd have to set everything back up like you'd want it to be, I normally do this to keep from having to do all of that but sometimes you have to anyway.