my new computer is not working. i'm happily at work right now of course. I have an ASUS A7M266 w/ xp1800+ 1.53 ghz, 1024 RAM, GeForce 3, case(400w) and mouse that i bought...and then from my old HP i am bringing over my 40 gig hd, dvd, cd-rw, and floppy.

It works all the way up until it would normally tell me 'Starting Windows '98... but never gets that far. It will list PCI details and that's it. totally freezes..can't even toggle num lock. I can edit bios if i please, however that's not doing me much good right now, and nothing seems to work. I've disconnected all the HP parts and borrowed a hard drive and a different floppy and nothing changes. every single possible permutation of hardware, how they are connected..alas, it's acting like it possibly wants to become a coffee table or something instead, but it's too expensive for that..someone help me. there shouldn't be anything wrong with the IRQs, it finishes that part, but stops before it should start windows..and win98SE might be my problem later it isn't now because once i unplug the HD, nothing changes. after bios the floppy is recognized, but i can't get to a prompt.

Did you set your HD as the First Boot Devive in the BIOS?

quote:Originally posted by H@rdw@reXpert:
Did you set your HD as the First Boot Devive in the BIOS?

yup. i have my hd, which didn't work.. a friends that didn't work..and unplugged it, also didn't work. after the pci details are listed is when it takes a preverbial shit.

I have a similar problem where my current computer won't boot 2 out of three times, and locks up booting. Even when it does boot, it restarts. Anyway, what type of RAM do you have? I think my problem is my RAM, but I am looking for second opinions. Can you try other RAM?

Athlon XP 1700
MSI K7T266 Pro2
Cheap Ass Kingston "Value Ram" 256X2
2X40 GB IBM HD
All In Wonder

i have 2 sticks of 512 ddr ram. i've taken them out one at a time, swapped, put a little man juice on it and still no workors. they pass the mem test so i don't think that's my bag. oh lol i just looked they are not kingston i'm sure of that.. :]

Are you just taking a hard drive from another computer and putting it in?!? cos that wont work well at all. Do a fresh install onto a formatted drive and report back

Also, Im not sure if the A7M supports the XP chip...perhaps it does, can anyone confirm? I thought I saw that the latest BIOS update provided support for it (rev.1005).

Can you boot off of a floppy disk?
If you can, can you access stuff on the harddrive?
If you can, run scandisk. Your boot sector may have become corrupted. Scandisk may be able to fix it, or at least tell you that you have to reinstall.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mille933:
[B]i have 2 sticks of 512 ddr ram. i've taken them out one at a time, swapped, put a little man juice on it and still no workors. they pass the mem test so i don't think that's my bag. oh lol i just looked they are not kingston i'm sure of that.. :]

I have read in many posts (while looking for a fix for my problems) that 512 MB sticks have problems with many mother boards. Not sure why, though. If you can try smaller memory sticks, that might be helpful.

i'm returning this. there is a problem with the motherboard, since it can't get to the boot, the hard drive theory won't even work because even if i don't plug one in it won't get that far.

mille933--

to the best of my knowledge, this is what you have to do to get the xp to work on the A7M266....

go here and d/l the latest bios (1005):
ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/asus/mb/socka/amd760/a7m266/am261005.zip and either flash it the old fashioned way or use the asus utility that allows you to do it in windows (preferred method).

Next, go into the bios. The new bios adds a new setting that allows you to use the XP on the A7M. Go to Advanced->Chip Configuration->S2K slew rate control and set the value to '1' (required for XP). By default I think it is set to '3'(required for Athlon). That should do it...

good luck and let me know if that worked. I got that tip from the amdmb.com forums as I too was wondering about the XP's compatibility with the A7M266.

JL1252

well i'm still pretty dumbstricken here...i can't figure out if this is ONLY this particular mobo crapping out...or micropro selling motherboard combos that do not work...which seems a little strange to me.

i think i have the money, so i'm gonna get a new a7m266 and a different one. it really is a stacked mobo..this was just all too frustrating and made absolutely no sense in the end.

again to answer your suggestion..there was a floppy in my hand with the new bios on it, trust me.. :] but like i said in this instance it doesn't make it that far booting. it stops right before it should try to do that. if anyone else has an xp 1800+ chip with a good motherboard..please tell.

ummmm, how did u install windows if the mobo doesnt work? Also, the a7m266 is capable of handling 512meg sticks due to the fact that it can support up to 2gigs.

quote:Originally posted by jl1252:
mille933--
go here and d/l the latest bios (1005):
ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/asus/mb/socka/amd760/a7m266/am261005.zip and either flash it the old fashioned way or use the asus utility that allows you to do it in windows (preferred method).

Next, go into the bios. The new bios adds a new setting that allows you to use the XP on the A7M. Go to Advanced->Chip Configuration->S2K slew rate control and set the value to '1' (required for XP). By default I think it is set to '3'(required for Athlon). That should do it...

JL1252

I tried both an XP and a regular 1.4 with the same instability problems. The funny thing is, when the XP was installed, it seemed to get worse every time I booted it. Then I installed the 1.4, and it seemed to work, for like 5 minutes, then began exhibiting the same crappy behavior. I did the bios update (successfully), and did not see that setting (maybe I wasn't looking hard enough).

However, the 400W PS I just bought now does not work, although my old 300 works fine.

Must be the board?