MSI K8T Neo Won't POST

[21stHermit]

Just assembled a new system and it hangs on POST. The MSI MB comes with a 4 LED diagnostic light. The MB hangs with all 4 LEDs lit. According to the manual that means bad CPU or improperly installed CPU.

I wore a ground strap the whole time, carefully aligned the CPU in the socket, paid attention to orientation, checked afterwards that the CPU was snug. Installing the CPU and HS/F went "smooth as silk".

Anyone got any ideas?

Details:
Athlon 64 3000+ 939 Retail
MSI K8T Neo2-F, Via Chipset
2 GB PC3200 DDR (2 x 1GB Patriot)
Asus 8X AGP VGA Card, Basic
Thermaltake 420W Purepower
Hitachi 250G SATA

 

[joelslaw]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
According to the manual that means bad CPU

maybe the cpu is bad

the K8t Neo is skt 754, so imma asume you meant K8T Neo2-FIR. If this is your board, you need to flash the BIOS to Version 3.2 for it to support that CPU

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: joelslaw
the K8t Neo is skt 754, so imma asume you meant K8T Neo2-FIR. If this is your board, you need to flash the BIOS to Version 3.2 for it to support that CPU

Thanks for the reply.

Actually the board is a K8T Neo2-F, all those number and letters get jumbled in my head.
How does one flash an updated BIOS if it won't POST?

What are the odds the CPU is bad? Near zero, wouldn't you think.

Tomorrow morning I'll take out one of the DIMMs and strip the MB to minimum to attempt to POST.

 

[joelslaw]

yeah, I highly doubt it is a bad cpu (I was being a smart arse)

usually, there is a setting that is specificly for this. usually you put 1 dim in slot b1 (the third from the socket) but I'm not absolutely sure for this board. N E way, that will let you boot long enough to flash the bios.

 

[mechBgon]

Look on the first couple pages of the manual, does it say what BIOS revision the motherboard shipped with?

 

[21stHermit]

PARTIAL Success :disgust:

Originally posted by: joelslaw
yeah, I highly doubt it is a bad cpu (I was being a smart arse).

Smart arse is okay.

The Good News: I removed one 1GB DIMM and reseated the video board (I think it wasn't tight). The MB now POST every time and recognizes the CD-ROM and PATA HD, but not the SATA HD.

The Bad News: In order to load XP on a single SATA HD, I apparently have to load a VIA driver from an included floppy, See Link (Installing WinXP on SATA). I try never to install a floppy drive anymore, no use for the critters. So I pirated the floppy out of my Win98 box, and no matter how I oriented the connector, the floppy was not recognized in BIOS. I tried another floppy cable . . . same results. Floppy is Enabled in BIOS.

I can't figure a way to have it look to the CD or the PATA HD, I could move the floppy files to either. Any Ideas?

 

[joelslaw]

yeah, same thing happened to me. Wasn't planning on having a floppy at all, but then I ran into this lovely little problem. :roll:

use your other machine to put the files from the cd onto a floppy. I don't think you can use them straight of the cd. (I've never heard of a way)

as far as your new pc not recognizing the floppy, the only thing I can think of is to make ABSOLUTELY sure the connections are right on the drive end and the mobo end of the cable. A lot of times floppy plugs are double keyed, or not keyed at all. (keys are what I call those little notches and grooves on the plugs that are supposed to only let you plug it in one way) And make sure the power is plugged in.

The only other reason I could see it not working is if the drive is bad (hope you didn't plug the power in upside down). But you can test that with your other pc. If it is the drive, guess what? You're gonna be the proud owner of a brand new floppy drive, you didn't want in the first place!!!! (join the club ) Thank you windows XP! :roll:

 

[PClark99]

If you can boot the machine with one DIMM and can get on the internet, install LiveUpdate and flash the bios in Windows. Thats what I did when I put my wife's machine together (3000+ K8T Neo2F) and it worked great for me.

 

[mechBgon]

Also remember that the floppy ribbon cable has that one twisted bit in it? The mobo and the drive have to be on opposite sides of that twist for it to work. And of course you want the cable plugged in so that Pin 1 is connected to the wire that's got the red color-coding. Pics to help with that and more pics, including one of the twist.

 

[21stHermit]

joeslaw and mechBgon, Thanks for the Posts

Here's what I did, see if all correct:
The MB came w/ a floppy cable, one end straight (MB), one end with a twist (floppy). As you correctly stated, the notches allow the floppy end to go in either way. I tried both. One way the green FP floppy light stayed on, the other way nothing. In neither case did the BIOS recognize the floppy, nor were there any of the mechanical sounds a floppy makes on boot. Any clues there?

I also tried the working floppy cable from my Win98 box, same results as above. This leads me to believe the floppy connector on the MB is bad. Tomorrow, I'll reinstall the floppy in the Win98 box to make sure its still good, but I used it last week.

Another possibility, I'm missing something in the BIOS, its an AMI and is current.

BTW, Thanks to both of you for helping me to POST . . . progress.

 

[joelslaw]

the one way you plugged it in and the light stayed on is the wrong way. (that's the quickest way to tell, on all FDD's if the light stays on, it's plugged in the wrong way) but the fact that it isn't making any mechanicl sounds makes me think it's bad. I am confused though. Have you already tried it on another machine, or are you waiting to do that tomorrow? Or do you have 3? If it's doing the same thing on 2 pc's it's almost surely the FDD.

may I suggest (if you decide to buy one) something like this
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=21-104-103&depa=0
you may actually use it more than once. This is what I had to do. Made me feel like the purchase wasn't a complete waste.

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: PClark99
If you can boot the machine with one DIMM and can get on the internet, install LiveUpdate and flash the bios in Windows. Thats what I did when I put my wife's machine together (3000+ K8T Neo2F) and it worked great for me.

I haven't been able to install XP on the SATA HD, XP doesn't see it. Apparently, I need a floppy (Thanks Bill) to load a VIA driver to get XP to see the SATA HD. :disgust:

Trouble is the MB/BIOS can't find my floppy. :disgust:

I may have to load XP on a PATA HD. But, if I do that will an installed XP be able to find the SATA HD?

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: joelslaw
the one way you plugged it in and the light stayed on is the wrong way. (that's the quickest way to tell, on all FDD's if the light stays on, it's plugged in the wrong way)

That's the way I remembered it too. Light ON, Connector Backwards.

I am confused though. Have you already tried it on another machine, or are you waiting to do that tomorrow? Or do you have 3? If it's doing the same thing on 2 pc's it's almost surely the FDD.

I took it from my Win98 box, used it last week. I only have one floppy. I'll double check its still good tomorrow along with the new cable.

may I suggest (if you decide to buy one) something like this
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=21-104-103&depa=0
you may actually use it more than once. This is what I had to do. Made me feel like the purchase wasn't a complete waste.

If I have to I'll buy another, it just takes ~week before its here. I kept my 5.25 around for 5 years, floppies are boat anchors.

If I install XP on a PATA, can I get XP to recognize the SATA w/o a floppy? Say that 3 times fast!!!

 

[joelslaw]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
Say that 3 times fast!!!

If I install XP on a PATA, can I get XP to recognize the SATA w/o a floppy?
If I install XP on a PATA, can I get XP to recognize the SATA w/o a floppy?
If I install XP on a PATA, can I get XP to recognize the SATA w/o a floppy?
Wow, I'm awsome!!!

and no, there is really no way to do that (I also tried when I setup my system) the sata drivers need to be installed on the sata drive, so the closest you can get it to do is boot from ide and see sata as an extra. Hope that makes sense. (it's kind of hard to describe exactly what I mean)

 

[mechBgon]

Is the board's floppy controller enabled in the BIOS?

 

[21stHermit]

SUCCESS at Last!!!! What a pain in the A$$

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Is the board's floppy controller enabled in the BIOS?

Thought I did, the AMI BIOS had me confused. I have an AMI BIOS on my years old Celeron 400MHz, the syntax is vastly different.

The two BIOS's start the same: Std CMOS Features and Advanced BIOS Features.

In the 1st are 5 fields, the 1st four of which are non-changeable reporting fields [Primary/Secondary Master/Slave] the 5th field looks the same and says floppy not installed. Turns out this is a changeable field to activate the floppy and the default was not installed.

In Advanced BIOS Features there was a field: Seek Floppy [Enable/Disable] I thought this field activated the floppy in BIOS. I have no idea now what this field does.

It get better or worse, ie the saga continues:

You cannot have PATA hard drives present while installing windows or the BIOS or Window? will label the 1st PATA HD as C: and Windows will get lost on its many reboots.

Bottom line, SATA will have to wait for Longhorn, just like USB needed XP.

 

[mechBgon]

You are exactly right, the first PATA drive will grab drive letter C: if there is one present when you're setting up Windows on your SATA drive.

Anyway, glad to hear it's coming along better now Thanks for sharing the specifics about the BIOS menus. If you have Seek Floppy enabled, then the board will look in the floppy drive for a boot diskette if it's among the boot-device list, but it sounds like you're planning to take the floppy drive out in the end anyways, so don't sweat it I guess.

 

[joelslaw]

so what are you doing with your sata drive?

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: joelslaw
so what are you doing with your sata drive?

Was this question directed at me or mechBgon?

In my case, I disconnected the PATAs, loaded WinXP on the SATA, reconnected the PATAs and told the BIOS to boot from the RAID device (SATA). The RAID part is a little perplexing, apparently its the VIA RAID driver that allowed WinXP or the BIOS or both to see the SATA so in BIOS the SATA shows up as a RAID device, even if only one drive.

In any case, XP loads fine from the 1st boot device (SATA) and sees all the devices including A:, that punny floppy.

Bigger problem, can't get it to boot with both 1GB DIMMs: New Thread

 

[joelslaw]

sure you have it plugged in to the correct sata slot? if I remember correctly, your board has 4 sata slots. 2 of them are regular sata and 2 are raid sata.

 

[joelslaw]

um, yeah so, about that raid?

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: joelslaw
sure you have it plugged in to the correct sata slot? if I remember correctly, your board has 4 sata slots. 2 of them are regular sata and 2 are raid sata.

The Neo2-F has only 2 SATAs, the -FIR flavor has the extra 2 SATAs on a Promise chip + 1394.

If you reread my prior post, you should be able to decern that I am booting from SATA and seeing all drives (PATA and floppy). If not I'm not writing very clearly. My RAID comment was a small aside, just a reflection on that its an imperfect world and that's okay.

Very much appreciate all the help. :beer:

 

[21stHermit]

Originally posted by: PClark99
If you can boot the machine with one DIMM and can get on the internet, install LiveUpdate and flash the bios in Windows. Thats what I did when I put my wife's machine together (3000+ K8T Neo2F) and it worked great for me.

Too bad I didn't do this as soon as you suggested it. As you suggested, the Live Update process worked great. I just was confused by the version of the AMIBIOS Utility 3.31a, thinking this was the BIOS version. Oh well . . . Live and Learn.

 

[joelslaw]

Originally posted by: 21stHermit
If you reread my prior post, you should be able to decern that I am booting from SATA and seeing all drives (PATA and floppy). If not I'm not writing very clearly.

no, I'm sure you wrote it fine, I just rush sometimes when I read posts

well, I'm glad everything is working for you now. :thumbsup: