K8N Neo Platinum strange problems

[CougarsLair]

System:

MSI K8N Neo Platinum socket 754 nforce3-250 mboard
AMD 64bit 3000 cpu
1 Gb Geil RAM
Hercules 128MB 6800SE AIW gfx
DVDRW
CDRW
Four IDE hard drives, various sizes/makes. Two on primary IDE and two on a RAID PCI card (NOT used as RAID just extra IDE ports).
PSU - was 400W GoldenPower - swapped with same make but now 480W.

Problem:

Began a week ago when system suddenly lost power and no longer switched on. Tried swapping PSU but no difference (Both PSUs checked with a tester and they worked okay). K8N Neo mboard, CPU and RAM bought at same time and less than 2 months old. Prior to this had been working fine (temps 45 to 55 ish).

RMAd the board - installed new board yesterday.

System now powers up - BIOS detects all drives, RAID card detects drives correctly.

However when it tried to boot from the hard drive I got (and still get) a
TRAP 00000005 =========== EXCEPTION=================
tr=0028 cr0=80000011 cr2=00000000 cr3 =00039000
gdt limit=03ff base=0003f000 idt limit=07ff base =0003f400

cs:eip=0008:0041e977 ss:esp=0010:00060e50 errcode=0000
flags=00010086 NoCy NoZr InitDis Down TrapDis
eax=FFFFFFFF ebx=00000000 ecx=FFFFFFFF edx=0000204A ds=0010 es=0010
edi=00437EC8 esi=00000000 ebp=00060ECC cr0=800000011 fs=0030 gs=0000

and the system freezes.

Tried to boot from XP PRO CD to try repair but this gets as far as Setup is inspecting your system and the screen then blanks and nothing else happens - hard drive led is on, screen power is on but otherwise no signs of life and the system sits there doing nothing. Tried other copies of CD with same effect.

If I try to use the Recovery Console (I can get to the boot menu from my hardrive which has this as an option) it again locks up with a Please Wait message.

I cannot load ANY kind of OS from CD - a windows 98 CDROM locks up as soon as I choose any startup option (from ANY optical drive).

I can run as simple dos startup disk to an A: prompt but that is all. I cannot get any startup disk with the ramdrive options to work (locks up) and so cannot flash the bios to a later version.

have tried a NTFSfloppy disk to try to read drives - this also blanks as it loads.

I have tried:

removing the PCI RAID card,
using only a single hard drive - and combinations of same
no hard drives!
only one optical drive
different IDE cables
failsafe bios settings

I cannot flash the bios to a later version (as stated before) as I had a vague hope this might help.

Have I just got another duff motherboard, could the CPU be at fault (could it have been affected when the first motherbaord failed????).

i have never come across anything like it before.

TRAP exception error messages - I can find nothing of use about them - the only microsoft reference I can find is to trap 000006 (which Ive also had) which it states is due to a corrupt ntldr. If its only that then why cant I load xp setup from cd or 98 for that matter???

Im at my wits end - am I back to rma'ing this board again (plus its a bank holiday weekend in UK so cannot get any help from supplier until then).

HELP PLEASE.......

 

[boomerang]

Have you got some different RAM to try? When you can't get a boot disk to load a ramdrive that gets me thinking you've got RAM problems. Two bum boards seems unlikely.

 

[CougarsLair]

I dont have any more ram to try.

If its the ram why wont setup of either 98 or xp run?? Seems odd to me.

actually when I think about I did try an ME boot disk I downloaded from bootdisk.com and it DID load up the ramdrive but it kept asking me what batch file I wanted to run and wouldnt let me do anything.... Odd?!

 

[boomerang]

I don't know all the particulars of how setup disks so their thing for different OS's. But to my way of thinking a ramdrive is just what it sounds like. A virtual drive created within RAM that contains the files necessary to start an OS installation.

Proabaly oversimplified I'm sure and perhaps someone will jump in and explain further or set me straight.

I do know that RAM plays a vital part in any OS install and it seems to be the only piece of hardware you haven't changed out or experimented with.

All I can offer!

 

[mechBgon]

Add up the dollar value of your system's insides, and tell me why you're running it on anything but a top-quality PSU. Eh? Enermax, Fortron, PC Power & Cooling, Antec... yeah. "GoldenPower?"

~ uhhh...

Yeah, I know, you tested them with a little tester. Can't play Doom III on a PSU tester, though

OK, now that I'm done being a smart aleck try raising your memory voltage to 2.7 volts. If problems remain, try running Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com. You can boot from floppy to run its diagnostics. If it shows memory errors, then try some other RAM if you have some.

 

[CougarsLair]

erm, okay my psu's may not be the most expensive in the world but theyre better than the stock 350w unit that was in the system before I upgraded. So heres a question - why did my system work fine with the first mboard with the 400w psu?? AND are u saying its a power supply problem possibly??

Anyway, tried ur suggestions

changing volatge had no effect

when floppy with memtest is loaded i get a very brief flicker of some kind of screen and the system then reboots!! Cant do owt with it - its just bleedin knackered me thinks - jeez Im tired and naffed off.


Can anyone tell me just what these trap exceptions are all about????? Surely they tell somebody something???