Machine won't boot (was: AGP blah blah)

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 1:49 pm

Our cast:

The SK8N.
A new fangled AGP slot?
One long and two short beeps at post

We stuck a card lying around (Geforce MX 2 400) into a new machine configuration (this mobo, some fancy 64 bit Athlon processor). On startup we get 1 long, 2 short beeps, which is apparently a problem with eh video system (AMI bios). It does the same without the GF2 in.

Now, we were going to put a different video card from another machine in, but according to my boss it won't actually fit into the slot, and this is an AGP card as well. Is there something we are missing? If this indeed a different type of AGP slot (I wasn't aware there were physical differences), how do you know what cards will go into it?

And then maybe I answer my own question: the manual says we need to ask for a card with 1.5V specification (I don't see how we were to know this at the purchase of the machine, though).

I don't even know what the difference between 1.5V and 3.3V is. So I guess I just learned something new (and will learn something else new). Browsing casually through newegg, I can't tell where I'm supposedd to note this difference.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:09 pm

Ok, I think I've gleaned that a card that supports 4x has 3 slots automatically. I'm not 100% certain though.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 2:41 pm

The original AGP 1.0 spec was 3.3V and covered AGP and AGP 2x. AGP 2.0 went to 1.5V support and 4x but was also backward compatible with AGP 1.0.

I may not be getting it quite right, so here are some links (also describes/shows the notches in the various AGP slots):

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/AGP

http://www.directron.com/15agpguide.html

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 3:42 pm

Ok, this is a SK8N with an Athlon 64 FX-53 processor, 2 512 mb sticks of PC2700 333 ram (maker: ultra). they are seated in the correct slots (the manual indicates they should bein 1a, 1b). We just slapped in the Geforce MX 4000.

It still won't post, and we get the 1 long, 2 short beep code. The Mobo, ram, processor, and card are all new. Everything appears seated properly. There is a 300W powersupply installed.

What could be wrong?

Giles Habibula · Post by **Giles Habibula** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:25 pm

A really wild guess here, since this goes back a ways:

Does the motherboard by chance have its own built-in video chip? And if so, there should be a jumper to disable it?

Like I say, a wild guess.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:29 pm

I had a similar problem with my shuttle case.

Until we plugged a hard drive in, it wouldn't even POST.

And then when we did get it to post, we had to do some serious tweaking to get it to recognize a video card was in it, and not let it default to the onboard video ports.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:47 pm

It does not have on board video. AFAIK, just onboard sound & networking.

Shockingly, the guy who we purchased this mobo from (I am unsure of the ocmpany) just called us to see if we were having problems (and there have been other reports, apparently).

We've booted a number of ways, from "bare bones" (even trying with no HD, and none of the other drives connecter), to how we'll be running. No love. "beeeeep. . .beep beep" is now ingrained in my memory, like a bad commercial jingle (I swear tonight I will hear it in my dreams).

This article says our power supply maker is "good". It's just one article however. Very informative, but I can't call that a ringing endorsement.

It would appear our powersupply is adequate outside of that. The manual lists our memory requirements as 5v 1a and 12v 8a. We get 30 and 15 respectively. I was apparently reading the listings on the power supply wrong before.

Anyway, the guy we got it from thinks it is the memory. He thinks we have to have ECC registered RAM to do it. We picked up a dual pack of 512 from Ultra, but I have no idea if it is ECC or registered (the packaging doesn't indicate this, and I thought that was SOP). This is the least productive I've been in a very long time.

And we just tried some ECC registered from a server we have to ship back. It worked. Finally.

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:52 pm

Eh, not sure if you resolved the AGP issue, but as I was browsing for mboards, I noticed some boards said "AGP 1.5v only". Checked the pdf manual, and found this:

Image Link

Otherwise, I've never experienced your problem.

EDIT: This pic is off a AMD 64 bit mobo as well.

Fairly sure that Geforce2 MX 400 is not 4x/8x.

gorham09 · Post by **gorham09** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 7:44 pm

Peacedog:

I had the worst time with a board that looks similar to yours. I was convinced I was having the problem with the older versus the newer AGP spec as well since the card simply did not fit in the slot. What I discovered much to my consternation was that, a portion of the AGP slot slid to the left to allow the car to fit in (the best, I can describe it is that the entire top of the slot moved to the left- otherwise the card wouldn't fit, because the notches wouldn't line up. I have been building systems for almost 10 years and while I had come across retaining clips for AGP slots, I had never seen a mechanism like this. It isn't readily apparent on its face, and it was not mentioned anywhere in the manual--- Damn you SOYO!

I am wondering, based on the picture if this board might have a similar mechanism. It took me hours to figure this one out. It may not apply to your situation, but I thought I would at least throw it out there.

[Edit] Nevermind, I looked at the picture of the board and I don't think it would apply here.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 12:40 pm

Fairly sure that Geforce2 MX 400 is not 4x/8x

1x/2x/4x I thought I had read. I also thought I was reading that it should hve worked because it was 4x. It fit into the slot. but that's neither here nor there. . .it wasn't a video card issue as it turned out.

gorham09, that's pretty wild. As I said, this turned out to be memory. And specifically, we apparently needed ECC memory. The ASUS site didn't indicate this, and our retailer failed to notify us of this when we placed our order with him (whoops).

We did encounter another problem. It wouldn't reocgnize his hard drive (already had Win XP installed on it). I forget the explanation offhand, but he found online people with the same mobo having problems with drives that already had an OS installed. He had to reformat the drive and install a fresh OS. Weird.

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:53 pm

Just got my parts today, and had almost same situation. MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum board and AMD64 3500 processor.

System would just beep and beep wihtout posting. I checked Crucial to order some new memory, and their list showed my MB as taking non-parity/ECC, non buffered ram. That's exactly what I had, but DDR2700 insted of 3200. I've got 4 Slots, 2 green, 2 purple. Any combination of ram will work in the greens it seems (running a 512 and 256 dimms right now). If I try to load up all 4 with 256 DIMMs, it doesnt' like it. I'm hoping that the 2 purple slots aren't bad and that it requires exactly the same memory accross the board to work with all 4 slots. Right now, I've got 3 exact 256 DIMMs, but the last one is double sided, which according to the manual makes a difference.

Pain in the ass.