My new build did not initiate the HD, CDROW, floppy, moditor, etc., even though the fans were running. I brought to a store for trouble shooting. They could not find anything wrong, tested every thing but still could not solve it. Call Abit, not much help. Then I searched the archive of this forum. Found an old answer given in 2003 to a slightly different problem. The wise guy (or gal) who is getting this credit, said, put a cardboard under the Mobo, etc. He was confident that that was where the problem was. Since I have tried everything else, I decided to do that. I works!! PC boot!!! Got into bios, etc. Of course have to take the Mobo out and re-wire, etc. Found 2 extra standoffs. Remove them. Use all the 10 holes; screw them in. Now, the short circuit is still there. Won't even recognize my bios settings, etc. It freezez after a few seconds. Obviously I cannot re-insert the cardboard under the Mobo as a solution.
Any idea how to solve this problem?
Many thanks.

Take it out of the case and check everything again very carefully. There may be something else causing the problem. Look for little grounding tabs from the I/O shield. Also make sure you have all the cables on the right connectors. Make sure your CPU fan is connect the the correct fan connector on the mobo.

Behind every good computer... is a jumble of wires 'n stuff.

10 screws? There only 9 correct places for screws and standoffs with a full sized ATX motherboard!

Shelly

Ttech,
I am working on your suggestions; found two loose screws!! Not sure I understand about the IO portion. What should I be looking for there?

Shelly, you are ABSOLUTELY right--there are 9!!! Hope you did not colllapse on your chair when you read 10! Any suggestions?

> Not sure I understand about the IO portion. What should I be
>looking for there?

The backplate has "little tabs" if your not careful one will insert itself into, say a usb port, bend them out of the way.


Been there seen it.

Take a look at this picture:


The I/O shield is the separate piece of sheet metal that the motherboard connectors go through. Some, not all, I/O shields have little tabs or fingers on the inside that are meant to contact the metal shells of the motherboard connectors for grounding. Your shield may or may not have these.

Behind every good computer... is a jumble of wires 'n stuff.

thanks to you, ttech and muckshifter.
i want to be sure i was looking at the right thing. did check carefully, there is nothing in any of those "holes".

Ttech, etc.
1. Well, I took it apart again; checked everything, found nothing except for tiny washer-like plastic that goes into the hole, which I put back into one of the holes. And of the standoff was loose, which I tightened.
2. When I boot up, this is what I get:
Memory Frequency DDR400
Delecting IDE drives

At the bottom of the screen:
Press DEL to enter Setup
Press Alt + F2 to enter ADWFlash

It goes no further. Cannot enter Setup.
CD-drive opens but cannot do anything else.
Mobo: Abit NF7-S v2
Processor: AMD xp 2500 Barton
Ram: Crucial 512MB PC3200

Can anyone figure out what the trouble is? Since it works with the cardboard, so parts and wiring, etc., clearly are not an issue here.

One related question:
I did not connect SATA; I use IDE only, for both HDs. Does that make any difference. If I can get it to work, is it workable to use SATA connection for the first HD (Master Primary) and IDE connection for the second HD (Master Slave)?

Thanks.
PS. there are 10 holes on the Mobo.

Make sure your graphics card heat sink is not touching a capacitor or something. Completely remove the I/O shield and try it. Some of the revision 2 of those boards had a faulty BIOS, but I don't think that would be your problem, because you can boot it on the bench.

Here's a link to the Abit forum for that board...

Abit NVIDIA chipset based motherboards forum

Darren,

Thanks. Yes, I did not install IO shield; no, nothing touches the video card. Frustating and puzzled. Appreciate trying to help.

Well if you are seeing the message to entsr thwe BIOS on the screen, the board is working and is probably not shorted Follow the instruction to enter BOIS setup, and install the BIOS defaults. Save and exit.

Shelly

Shelly,
I appreciate your shading some light. There is no shorting; I now screw the board back in; that is obviously not the problem.
The problem is that after the screen gets to: "detecting ide drives," the screen stops; and even though at bottom of screen it says, "Press DEL to enter setup," nothing happens when I press the key. I cannot access the bios.

Darren,
I hold down the Insert Key and boot, etc. After it gets to the above message, I press DEL; still nothing happens.

nForce boards also have a different way of clearing the CMOS if your computer won't boot. Press and hold Insert on your keyboard and boot your computer.

Darrem.
See the above post. Nothing happpens

OK, I now suspect the way you jumpered your drives, or that you missed some pins when you plugged the cables in.

A good way to troubleshoot a balky build is to only connect what is absolutly needed to boot. The CPU and fan, the video card, one memory DIMM and the hard drive that has the OS on it. Once you get it to boot, you can start adding things back one at a time. Alternatively, you could just connect the floppy drive and boot with a startup diskette.

Shelly

Shelly,
I am in the process of go through with your suggestions. I have put a few wiring so far, it has not yet worked.
Let me add a few more facts on the jumpered issued:
HD#1 is Primary Master on IDE 1, jumper set as Master
HD#2 is Primary Slave on IDE 1, jumper set as Cable Select

Floppy Drive does not work!!
(The slice end of the cable to Mobo, with the red stripe toward the power supply side; the other end to the drive, pin 1 to red stripe.)

CD-Rom works! and set as Secondary Master on IDE 2, jumper accordingly
I can open the drive, but it cannot boot from there. won't read my disc. Therefore, it is not working.

HDs, as far as I can, are spinning. But must not be working because it detects IDE drives and then stop at that point.

Other than a video card, I have no other devices: LAN amd Sound are onboard.
The other cables/wires are for front LEDD, front Audio, USB outlets.

Appreciate your help, Shelly.

Shelly,
Many thanks, you are brilliant!! You hunch was right.
After giving you a reply above, I decided to unplug Primary slave (HD#2), but leaving HD#1 connected to the IDE cable as Primary Master. Well, well, it boots a little more. This is the current display, very strange:
Primary Master - None!
Primary Slave - None!
Secondary Master (CD-Rom) is on
CMOS checksum error - default loaded. (what is the meaning of that?)
I am given 2 options:
F1 to continue; DEL to enter Setup.
I don't know how to move here. Any advise?
Thanks a million, we are getting some where.
Can you tell me what is wrong with the cable to the HD?

You can not run a drive as Master, and as second drive as Cable Select on the same header. It must be master and slave.

Shelly

>Shelly,
> I am in the process of go through with your suggestions.
>I have put a few wiring so far, it has not yet worked.
> Let me add a few more facts on the jumpered issued:
> HD#1 is Primary Master on IDE 1, jumper set as Master
> HD#2 is Primary Slave on IDE 1, jumper set as Cable
>Select
>

Try setting HD#2 jumper to slave.

Nightly Reader

You want to get into BIOS Setup if you can. Then make sure detection for all your drives is set to Auto.

Shelly

thank to Nightly Reader. it is adjusted now to primary slave on the same ide cable. Still did not work; I changed the cable; still not working.

Shelly, when I connect IDE cable to HD#1 (Primary Master with seting for Master) and HD#2 (Primary Slave with setting as Slave), it will freeze after posting a few lines and ends with: "detecting IDE drives."
At this point I cannot access Bios. Nothing moves.

When I disconnect HD#2, leaving Hd#1, it will continue to post and ends with: Verifying DMI pool data.
Boot from ATAPI, CD-ROM
Disk boot failure. Insert system disk and press Enter.
So, I insert Windows XP and the setup begins, only to be told that you have No hard drives, so the process must stop.

Alternatively, if I disconnect HD#2, leaving HD#1, when the posting begins, I interrupt it with DEL key and that gives me access to the Bios. I made all the necessary changes, such as, set everything to AUTO.
In the Bios, IDE Primary Master is listed as None; so is the Slave.
When we get to Auto Detection, I press Enter, it says: "Detecting Hard Drives"!!
So I set IDE HDD to auto detection; same for slave
Set to boot floppy first; second, HDD-0; third, CD-Rom
(Question: is HDD-0 correct? or should it be HDD-1?)
Still I am not using SATA connection, I disable SATA Raid Rom in the bios.

Save and Exit. Still it does not work.
It would not boot from A:\

Thanks for helping. It is so near, and yet so far.

If this is solved, my next step is to Partition and Format the drives. It seems to remote right now.

>Floppy Drive does not work!!
(The slice end of the cable to Mobo, with the red stripe toward the power supply side; the other end to the drive, pin 1 to red stripe.)<

The slice end ('7 strand fold over') goes on to the floppy drive (not the mother board), with the red line to pin 1, away from (not next to) the small power input to the drive.

emes

Shelly, when I connect IDE cable to HD#1 (Primary Master with seting for Master) and HD#2 (Primary Slave with setting as Slave), it will freeze after posting a few lines and ends with: "detecting IDE drives."
At this point I cannot access Bios. Nothing moves

You are connecting the dives to the proper end of the cable? and using an 80col cable.

The "black" connector is master the "grey" is slave and "Blue" (its usually blue) connects to the motherboard

What happens if you highlight the Primary Master in the Standard CMOS Features and press enter to auto-detect? If that works do the same for the other channels.

A floppy drive cable connected the wrong way around will stop you booting up.

Best Regards
Ian

...and make the light on the floppy drive stay on constantly.

Thanks to NightRider, Emes, Muchshifter, etc.

I will use NightRider (Steve) nice photo as a reference.
Everything shows up just like your screen (including floppy) EXCEPT for Primary Master and Primary Slave--it says NONE

My CMOS page one more line: IDE Auto Detect--when I press Enter, it says "Detecting Hard Drives"

When I move down highlight, IDE Primary Master (which shows none), I am given the options: none, auto, or manual. I select AUTO
I move down to IDE Primary Slave (which shows none), I select AUTO
Another option: ACCESS Mode - I select AUTO

Below that are lines for capacity, etc (for manual input of data)

As you see Steve, I set to AUTO in the Bios, still it won't work.
Is there anything in the Bios that need to disable? (wondering)

I can get into the Bios ONLY if I disconnect Primary Slave--if I keep the connection to the 2 HDs, I cannot access the Bios. If I disconnect both HD, I can only access the Bios.

Is there some setting somewhere in the Bios or CMOS that have to be removed for the Bios to recognize the hard drives?

Floppy: (For Eames)
Thanks for correction; I check and re-check the diagram, etc. My floppy connectors have slotted feature, so into the Mobo it can only pluck in one way. But check the assignment with pin one. The "slice end" is now connect to floppy drive, also aligned with pin 1.
As you can see from Night Rider's pic, the floppy is recognized and listed in the Bios, but it won't work! I boot with a disc in that it would simply pass it by.

For Muckshifter (on IDE cable)
The cables came with the HD, but I have others. Properly installed, Blk to Master, Blue to Mobo, Grey to Slave. I don't know what you mean by 80 cool. My cable has markings like these:
150v 105 C degree AWM 2678 etc. Since they are different brands, these markings are constantly on all of them.

We may have to concede here that irreparable damage may have been done when the board was first turned on and the “short” was detected.

It could be a faulty board, not unheard of, but thankfully more uncommon than in my day. If this is so then you’ll need to return it for a replacement.

One last suggestion … only connect ONE hard drive, the master, to IDE1 and only connect a CD drive to IDE2, as master … making sure both “jumpers” are set to master. That means using two blue/grey/black cables … by the way if they are “coloured” like this, then they are 80 column (wires) cables, sorry for the confusion.

OK, Set things up the way you say the system will boot, ie one hard drive, just like before. Confirm that it will boot. Now without doing anything else, switch hard drives, making sure the second is jumpered the same as the first one. If it will not boot, I would look at a bad hard drive.

Are these hard drives the same brand? What are they? Have you checked the vendors web site for proper configuration?

Nightly Reader

Nightlyreader has some good comments, I have screwed around with used computers, and gotten myself into situations where two mixed drives simply would NOT work together.


Do you have a second computer where you can temporarily test the drives, together and separately? (Don't try to boot from the hdd's just see if the bios set them)


You ARE connecting the MASTER to the FAR END of the cable and the SLAVE to the MIDDLE of the cable?

Somewhere you mentioned "IDE 0 and IDE 1" Normally, "IDE 0" is the first master device. I have never figured out how the "first" can be a "zero," but that's the deal.

How about the drive cable, have you tried another(s)

About the floppy not working, you do know it has to be set in the bios in the "boot order?"

In order to boot from the floppy drive it must be set to first boot device in the BIOS It should be set floppy, CD ROM, C: Drive, in that order.

Shelly

I think it's not a drive or mobo problem. I believe it's a cable or jumper problem. Jumpers can be EXTREMELy tricky.

Ok...what brand hard drives do you have? We'll fix those jumper settings.

System:
Abit NF7-S v2
HD #1 (80 western digital), #2 160 (western digitinal)
floppy: sonny
video card: ati radeon 9200se
ram: crucial 512mb pc3200
power supply with case, 300W

1. IDE cables have been changed endlessly; I have 7 of them! Different brands but have, among other things, 150v, awm2678 markings; same markings as the one that came with HD
It is properly cabled: b/c of the slotted setup; blue end to Mobo .. the end to HD#1 (master)
2. Floppy cable, too, has been changed.
3. Order in bios for booting is the way Shelly spelled out:
floppy first, cd-rowm second, hd third.
(There is one BIG question here: default is HD0 (zero), not HD-1; I have tried both way with no effect. But I do want to know whether it should be set at HD0 or HD1. There are different choices in Bios)
4. I followed NightRider's suggestion and here are the results:
a) Connect IDE Primary Master to HD#2 and adjust jumper to Master (and left out HD#2)
Results:
It freezes after posting memory frequency. Nothing functions at this point. This is the same result as hooking to BOTH HDs.
Alternatively,
b) Connect IDE Primary Master to HD#1 and adjust jumper to Master (unhooked HD#2),
Results: Post
memory frequency as DDR400
Primary Master: none
Primary Slave: none
Secondary master: LiteOn Combo
CMOS checksum error - defaults loaded
Options: F1 to continue
DEL to Setup (bios)
End of posting.
Comments:
1. Can someone tell me the meaning of "CMOS checksum error--defaults loaded" means? (all default settings are loaded; not what I put into?)
2. I need answer to set hard drive in bios as: HD-0 or HD-1 (in the booting process). HD-0 is listed before HD-1
3. Nothing is hookup right now. Follow Shelly's earlier suggestion by sticking to the minimum. I keep CD-Rom there b/c i works.

Are we at the end of the road?????
(Never like Western; always used Maxtor, but got suck by sales. Never use Abit before; all previous 3 builds I used something else. Probably enough of Abit, too!! Don't let these frustating comments affect your love and affection for Abit and WD!)

HD-0 is ground 0,it is the first HD in the system that will boot first.
Take the jumper off your hard drive and try to boot it as a single hard drive.

I think your second hard drive is bad.

LilJoe

Joe,
Remove jumper from HD#1 and boot a single drive (no HD#2)
Result: it freezes after posting memory frequency. Nothing operates at that point.

Switch to HD#2 and boot it as single drive, jumperless. Results: above.

What can we divine from that?

WD drives are superior to Maxtor. WD drives when they are the only drive on the cable, are not jumpered as master, but as only. This is done by removing the jumper or placing it in a horizontal position, as shown on the label on the top of the drive.

THe BIOS message means that the CMOS backup batery is not saving your settings, The battery, a CR2032 coin lithium battery, is either bad or incorrectly installed in its holder. When you boot it does not find any BIOS settings so it automatically installs the manufacturers default settings for you.

Shelly

Shelly, thanks.
I remove the jumper and as just posted, nothing happens. it freezes.

Clarify for me: do I need to change the battery? Is the problem remotely related to it or not? Or, do I just need to re-seat it? It has happened like that a few times.


thanks.

The 2032 battery is only about 2 dollars and you can get them in the drug stores or Radio Shack.
The battery could have been discharged when your board shorted out.
I would get a new one.

LilJoe

thanks, Joe. will do that tomorrow morning.

Lithium batteries are not rechargeable.

Shelly

change not charge

Thank you, everyone for all your help.

After building and taking it apart a few times, I have had enough.
None work so far.
So, off it went to a computer store this afternoon!! I won't get it back until next week b/c they are booked up.

All of you have been gracious in lending a hand. I am thankful for your effort. The frightening thing is that I promised a friend that I would build him a computer after I finish this one, and now I am a little nervous. I think I am sure, I am going to use different Mobo and Hard Drives (Sorry, Shelly)!

>>The frightening thing is that I promised a friend that I would build him a computer after I finish this one, and now I am a little nervous<<

All that you have learned from this experience can now be put into the next build........that's the way it goes.

It would be useful if you could arrange for a report of the work carried out by the people that you have taken the system to, and then post back letting us know what the problem was, and how it was rectified...........

Thanks

emes

eames,
as you know, the store service is chancy at best. if they are busy, they won't even talk to you!! Also, i pick the finished pc from the sales person, so may not have access to the tech people.
that said, i will make an effort to get the report as to what is wrong, assuming that they can fix it!! the first store i went to, could not do it!!
i will post back if i get the info, in the hope that others may benefit from it too.
thanks for reminding.

Insist they give you a receipt listing the work performed
and/or parts replaced and get the original parts.
Regards, Jack

Finally the PC is back from the store.
I expected the worst, but it is the mundane that causes the problem: both Western Digital HD failed!! (The first store did not find that to be a problem!)
Thanks for helping. Got my confidence back a little.

Past 30 days, so I cannot return the HD to the local store. Will send to WD directly for replacement. I use the 3rd WD's HD and it is working.

"both Western Digital HD failed!"


That is a strange thing to happen.

Not when you consider Motherboar is a she-he pig

LilJoe