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New Computer BIOS/POST problems

TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEONRegistered User regular
edited July 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
So I just put together a new computer: ASUS P5B Deluxe mobo, GeForce 8800GTS 640MB, Core2Duo E6700, Western Digital SATA hard drive, DVD drive.

I booted it up and got in to BIOS; I changed the boot order to Hard Drive then CD drive (I have no floppy). I figured since the hard drive is empty it would just bypass it and move on to the CD drive. Unfortunately, when I booted up again, and every time I've tried it after, it gets to the JMicron RAID Controller Screen and hangs at "Detecting Hard Drives" or something like that. Worse, it won't let me get in to BIOS during POST. I dunno why. I hit DEL a bunch and everything but nothing happens. I know the keyboard works since Numlock, etc. work.

I would probably just pop the CMOS battery for a bit (that resets the BIOS, right?) but to do that I'd have to take out the 8800 (hooray mobo design), and I'm loathe to do that because it wasn't much fun to get that thing inside the computer in the first place.

Any suggestions?

TychoCelchuuu on

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    JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Why not just change the boot order to make the CD go first? Until you get your OS installed, etc.

    More to the point, there is usually an option somewhere in the BIOS to disable RAID detection, you should change that.

    Some motherboards have it on by default.

    Jasconius on
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    TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Like I said, it won't let me get in to the BIOS during POST. I'm not quite sure why. All I know is that I'm unhappy about it.

    TychoCelchuuu on
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    JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Hmm, oh man. Is it detecting your keyboard at all? Can you do anything at all by keypress?

    Jasconius on
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    TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Well, turns out I just had to wait 2-3 minutes. After that, it let me in to the BIOS, where I turned off the stupid RAID controller and set the boot order to hit the CD drive first. And yeah, the keyboard (USB) works fine.

    Unfortunately, now what happens is that, whether or not the XP disc is in, it POSTS and then says "Boot and Select Proper Boot Device: Insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key."

    The XP disc is in there, and I press a key, but it just pauses for a sec and prints the message again. I searched on Google and apparently this has happened to a whole bunch of people for a whole bunch of different reasons, and all the people who have fixed it either don't say what they did or all did something different. Erp?

    TychoCelchuuu on
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    JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Are your drives detecting properly during post?

    I mean, you are right, that error is probably pretty generic, but the best thing to do is search in the context of your motherboard brand.

    Jasconius on
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    TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    It detects the hard drive just fine. It says "Western Digital 500blahblah" which is what it is. It detects the DVD drive as a CD drive; that might be the problem, but the DVD drive is new and I'm hoping it's not busted. Tomorrow I'll take the CDRW out of my old computer and try it.

    And yeah, the error seems to be happening to just about everyone, but I'm seeing a lot of ASUS (which is what I've got) and even a few P5Bs (the same model).

    TychoCelchuuu on
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    TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    Well, swapping in a different CD drive didn't work. This is really irritating. Searching the Internet, people say it's anything from a loose SATA cable to the wrong jumper settings on the CD drive to a busted hard drive to a broken motherboard to unupdated BIOS to anything you can really imagine. Almost everyone who has fixed it doesn't really bother to explain how. I updated my mobo's BIOS to see if it was that, but it still does the same thing. Grr...

    TychoCelchuuu on
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    TetraNitroCubaneTetraNitroCubane The Djinnerator At the bottom of a bottleRegistered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I'm about to put together a new computer myself this morning using an Asus P5K, and in anticipation I've been pouring over their forums to see about any problems I might encounter. It turns out that quite a few people seem to have issues with that jMicron controller. And as you said the solutions are myriad, so that's frustration.

    As distasteful as it sounds, I'd try flashing the BIOS to the latest version first. A lot of posts I've seen say that such an update will allow for smoother operation. Also, I'd disable ACHI on the DVD/CD drive and HDD, if it is set to such. Asus is being exceptionally pigheaded about this, but they stopped supporting it under false pretenses that the Intel Southbridge won't support it. Lastly, check out your manual: Is there anything in there that specifies which SATA ports are jMicron? The P5K has separate jMicron ports, and apparently avoiding those and turning off RAID support solves some of these issues. Not sure if the P5B has the same problem. And as a final ditch effort, I'd look into swapping around the SATA cables and ports. No use in driving yourself insane just because a single cable / port is dead.

    Best of luck with this. I'll be doing it in a few hours, so I hope it works out for you.

    TetraNitroCubane on
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    TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited July 2007
    I've flashed the BIOS to the latest version and disabled the JMicron RAID controller. The hard drive isn't plugged in to the RAID controller ports but either way I'd rather get it to boot to the XP install before I even worry about the hard drive. I'll try turning off RAID, although I think I might have done that. I'll also disable ACHI and see if that works.

    Thanks though.

    TychoCelchuuu on
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