One for the hardware experts...

[Mdd]

I'm having a hell of a time trying to put together a new computer. I've tried two different motherboards and two different video cards and still can't get it to boot.

Hardware:

* Fong Kai FK-603 w/ HEC-300GR power supply
* OEM K7(ATHLON)-1GHZ PGA ThunderBird W/ 256K CACHE
* 256MB PC-133 SDRAM
* KT7-RAID and Soyo KVTA Motherboards
* Western Digital Caviar 40gb 7200rpm-ata/100
* Creative Labs 3d Blaster Annihilator 2 and ATI PCI (known good)

It won't even post unless I power it off and let it sit for a few minutes. When I can get into the BIOS, usually it locks up before I can finish updating the settings. Sometimes, the screen fills with garbage. If I do try to save the settings, the screen goes blank and I have to power cycle.

The Abit board has an eval version of the BIOS but locks up when ever I try to flash it. The Soyo board has the latest BIOS.

With the Abit board, twice I was able to get it to boot off a floppy. With the Soyo board, it locks when it tries to read the floppy.

Both boards detect and report the hard drive and CD-ROM, floppy drive, memory, and processor correctly.

I've read the manuals (written by someone that doesn't speak English as a primary language), the FAQs, searched news groups and this forum. No help.

Any idea what could be causing it? A bad CPU? Faulty memory? Karma? Appreciate any suggestions...

Michael

 

[MCS]

If you've tried two motherboards and two video cards then you can pretty much rule out those.

The chances of the CPU being faulty are very unlikely. Is the HS/fan installed and working properly? The chip might be rapidly overheating and locking up.

What type of memory is it? Generic are brand?

Could also be your PSU - is it Athlon compliant?

 

[Czar]

Something that many people forget, did you use the little ring isolators when you screwed the motherboard in the case?

But I say that it is very likely the memory, try to get a chip borrowed from a friend to try it out.

 

[Mdd]

I got the memory from Neutronusa.com. It's listed as "industry standard, certified PC133, Compatibility Guranteed [SIC] Grade " Life-time warranty. My life or theirs, I don't know.

The BIOS of both boards report what seem to be reasonable CPU temps < 150F. The CPU fan is plugged into FAN1 (that took me a while to figure out with the Abit board and all fans are spinning...

The power supply is not listed on AMD's list (other HeroIchi 300w models are), but the vendor (Directron.com) sells it as Athlon certified.

 

[MCS]

Yep - I think memory and PSU are main suspects here (in that order).

See if you can borrow some from a friend.

 

[tmcm]

have you tried it without the ATI card.
i know the card is good(if any ATI card can be) but i have a friend that has a similar situation. He had a A7V and the ATI PCI worked fine with his GF2. But now he got a ABIT KTA-RAID and he has everything the same but it wouldn't post with the ATI card. As soon as he pulls that thing out it runs like a charm. BTW are you using windows 2000(you should be) because ATI's drivers arent exactly good much less in windows 2000.

also you might want to move the pci cards around a little bit because it can be a irq conflict.

my first try though: take out the ATI card and see if it works (if it does you can get a tnt pci for around $50). if it doesn't you can go from there.

good luck

 

[miken]

Kepp everything out of PCI slot 5, Use GOOD RAM. It sounds like your CPU is bad however, can you have access to another Tbird or Duron?