Think a new MB is bad...?? or something bad wrong

[karlrschneider]

Upgrading my friend's machine with a new motherboard. Chaintech socket A, AMD Sempron 2300+, 512MB DDR, no cards installed yet but onboard video working okay. Problem(s): Takes about 3 1/2 minutes to get past the BIOS screen during which it correctly identifies the IDE drive which I know is good and have tried 2 others just to be sure but it cannot boot to the HD. I can boot to a DOS floppy and FDISK says "error reading from drive" So it can't see the partition info or anything. I've loaded Optimum BIOS defaults and disable onboard peripherals except the video, all the caches are enabled...bla bla. It's as if the thing is running at about 5 MHZ instead of 1400. (the 2300+ is a model number not the CPU speed) Damn thing driving me crazy...any ideas?
:eyes:

[HamstersFromHell]

1. Sounds bad to me...

but try one more thing first. Substitute a different power supply and see if the same problem continues. A marginal power supply can cause problems like this, but it sounds on like the motherboard chipset is flaky. Have you tried re-flashing the BIOS to make sure it's not corrupt?

[karlrschneider]

4. You might have something, I found out after I posted, a BIOS setting for

"pc-health" that displays CPU temp, fan speed and voltages. The 5V supply is down around 4.76 VDC. I only have 1 extra ATX supply right now and it's a 300 watt...but that ought to be enough with just the one IDE hooked in. Thanks for the suggestion.
edit: I'll try re-flashing it too
;-)

[jayfish]

7. I Wouldn't Go That Route Just Yet.

You may void your friends warranty if you flash the BIOS and run into trouble. the 5V reading may be within an acceptable range too. I think that if it were a real problem you would be having stability problems, not speed problems. Look elsewhere first.

Jay

[bemildred]

2. Check the IDE cable too. nt

[RoyGBiv]

3. Jumpers

Also check the jumpers on the drive itself.

If you took the drive out of a different machine, it may have had jumper settings specific to that motherboard.

I had similar problem with a drive I transferred from one system to another. The drive as the master on both systems. However, on the old system, it had an extra jumper in place for some puporse related to that mobo. The drive would be detected, after a delay, on startup, but the OS would never load. I removed that jumper, and everything worked fine.

If that or the cable is not the problem, you may have a mobo problem.

[karlrschneider]

5. That's what I suspected at first but didn't seem to be the prob, tried

other IDE cables too.....sigh. thanks...

[jayfish]

6. Do You Have SMART Enabled...

in the BIOS? If there is a problem with the drive, during POST, SMART will usually catch it. Also does the board detect the CPU correctly? The board should detect the chip just as it's named, as in "AMD Sempron 2300+".

Jay

[karlrschneider]

8. Yes, SMART is now enabled, it wasn't at first but I turned it on

didn't make any difference. Yep it ID's the CPU correctly and the HD too when doing the detecting (I've left it on 'auto', didn't want to pull it out to look up C/H/S figures)...but tried 2 other known good HDs, no difference. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just set them all at NONE and boot to the FD see if that does anything. Thanks for the suggestions.

[jayfish]

9. Now Your On...

to something. Just cut to the chase though. Disable your IDE controller from the BIOS and disconnect your HDD's data cables. If the speed issue isn't improved I'd replace the board first. Ditch that Chaintech and go with something like this.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-130-475&depa=1

I use one now and it's a beaut for that CPU.

Jay

[karlrschneider]

10. Argh, don't know why I wrote Chaintech, It's a "Mach Speed", my friend

bought it not sure where from (he's out of town right now)it was a mobo/cpu bundle... will let you know what happens per your idea, thanks.
:0

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

11. Try a different memory chip

A bad chip can have some unexpected side effects, including a propensity to misread hard drives. It will also cause a Windows install to fail, not always for the same reason.

You may also try reseating the chip and/or switching the chip to a different slot.

[karlrschneider]

12. I didn't have any extra DDR memory but I found the darn problem

see my other post about an hour ago...got the IDE cables mucked up,
with Masters & slaves (4 drives)...jeez I should have paid more attention! Makes me feel like a moran. :D

What had me looking in the wrong place was that the BIOS actually DID "properly identify" all the drives during POST but then wasn't able to actually talk to them. Yikes. Thanks for the help!
:-)