Booting problem: help appreciated

I've been trying to overclock my s939 Opteron 144. However, I've been encountering these problems today while trying to reach maximum stability: It started earlier this morning and happened on quite a few different occasions today, and I have not been able to figure out what causes it.

The problem is simply that my computer won't boot. I have a DFI NF4 Ultra-D. What I mean by the computer not booting is: I turn on the computer, 4 onboard diagnostic LED's come up, and 1 goes away, and it is stuck at 3 - indicating CPU not detected (or something similar).

This is when it happened:
-I've found my maximum SP32M CPU overclock at 315HTT. I wanted to overclock my RAM. In doing so, I decided to drop HTT to 258 (which the RAM is capable of doing) and set divider to 1:1, keeping the other settings as they are. Then I enable Memtest. On this reboot, it fails
-The only way for me to fix it is reset the CMOS. On default settings it boots. Then change HTT to 258, ram divider to 1:1, change all the voltage, timings, preamble, MAL, etc etc (all the settigns I spent hours perfecting) and tried booting again. Failed
-I did this several times. Whether or not I enable Memtest didn't make a difference. I had to reset the CMOS every time. When I changed HTT to 315 and ran the RAM on a 5:6 divider, so that the RAM is 258mhz anyway, the computer had no problems booting.
-So I thought it was a BIOS issue. So I cleared the CMOS and tried to flash to the 704-2BTA BIOS. After flashing using Winflash was complete, the computer rebooted. Booting failed this time too.

Does anyone have any idea what may be causing the booting problems? I've never encountered anything like it.

So memtest works? Try it at stock settings (everything) and then change the HTT. Try it once more before adjusting the memory timmings. This should narrow it down a tad.

Define rebooting. Does it post, make it to windows or nothing. I have a DFI board and I have had similar probs. I reset the cmos because a faulty card caused a no boot. It took several times to get it to finally post. Unplug the ps and give it a min. When you power up hold down the insert key. You should be able to get to the bios screen and change your settings......

i had similiar issues. This is where you need to find the correct bios for your system and it's ram. It's pretty particular when it comes to this. I tried th 623-3, no luck...tried 704-3, 704-2bta, and no luck...finally 704-1 has been the best bios for my setup. had no issues with it. i would say you need to clear the CMOS and boot to BIOS...set your RAM timings to stock, making sure there are no "funny" settings in there that would prevent your computer from not booting. Then, reboot and flash to another bios. Immediately flash the CMOS and the enter bios and set everything up. Maybe your ram just doesn't like dividers you are throwing at it.....stick with what works and be happy :þ

No I'm not actually able to get into Memtest. Actually I was able to get into it a few times earlier today, and no errors have come up, but since this boot error started, I have not been able to get into Memtest or Windows other than when I cleared the CMOS and booted at stock settings

What happens is: I press the power switch, and the PSU comes on. Then the diagnostic LED's come on. In a proper boot, the LED's will go off 1 by 1, indicating it has found the CPU, the RAM and the VGA. Then it will go on to POST. However, my system gets to the stage where it gets stuck on 3 LED's, and hangs there, fans still going at full blast, nothing comes up on the screen.

It's very relieving that many of you say you've encountered such problems, but I find it so so strange that these problems would occur under such circumstances - eg after changing settings in BIOS which I know for sure work.

Oh one last thing: where do I get all the beta BIOS's for DFI? THe DFI site only has up to 6-23

u DO know the special press pause to clear cmos on startup right?

-_{MoW}_-Assasi said:

u DO know the special press pause to clear cmos on startup right?

Click to expand...

special pause? no... i know I do the clear cmos jumper, poewr on, then power off, change back, power on and the cmos is cleared

dpgthing said:

http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6369

Click to expand...

thankyou for the link. There are a lot of bios's there! I never imagined there would be 3 704's and 3 702's! What's the difference between all of them?

Each successive BIOS update improves upon the previous one right, so 704 should be better than 702 in every way as long as you avoid the known bugs right?

windwithme said:

1 . Fix sometimes system will hangup during post if dram speed > 200mhz is selected

Click to expand...

heh this may work!

yes, each bios is better, beware of the 700 series as the OVER VID PERCENTAGE 123 and higher are dangerous for your CPU...other than that it is perfectly fine. Goto:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/114/2 for descriptions of changes...

ok, on DFI boards, pressing the Pause button will also reset the cmos, saves ya alota time