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Okay, I haven't had a computer for about six months now. I bought a bunch of parts in the mail and what I got is pretty tight.

Motherboard: MSI P965 Platinum
Processor: Core 2 Duo

Okay, so I set everything up, I have this dealie thing that tells me where the computer's getting "stuck" if it's having trouble booting (which it is). I turn it on. Fans/heatsinks go on, a couple of little clicks from within the hard drives I think I hear, I also think I hear the optical drives doing a quick search, but I get no picture on screen, and my dealie thing has four LEDs that tell me what's going on. The manual translates the current LEDs to this:

Initializing hard drive controller. THis will initialize IDE drive and controller.

Okay, what does this mean? I know the controller is on the motherboard, and the drives are what the IDE cable is plugged into (do the SATA cables have a separate controller?), but what does it mean when the computer is stuck here??? Why do I have no image on the monitor? (video card's heatsink is working and everything). What could be wrong?

I've posted this at a computer forum too, but it's slow go while people actually read the thread through (the first post is a previous problem since solved). I thought I'd try here cause we have so many great people .

I guess it's important to mention that everything except my hard drives and optical drives are brand new and as far as I've checked completely compatible, though everything else came off an inferior computer so I figured this should be backward compatible just fine you know?...

Spaced Out - A Stoner Odyssey (five minute sneak peek)

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A few ideas spring to mind:
Have you connected the power (molex plug from the PS) to the drives as well as the IDE cable?
How many drives, how many IDE channels and have you got the master/slave configuration correct?
Isolate the drive causing the problem; start by connecting one hard drive first, if the computer boots, turn off and add another drive until it fails to boot up.

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1) That's the way to go on the drives. You might have more than one problem, of course. (Do It Yourself is ever so much fun. )


2) Yes, SATA and IDE need separate controllers. (Unless someone came up with a dual controller) I haven't done SATA, yet, but I wouldn't think they'd have the same connectors. (If they do, then it would be an obvious ploy to make tech support rich. ). Check your manual for a built-in SATA controller on the motherboard.


3) You've got one of those boot analyzer dealiebobbers that plug into a slot? It may not be 100% accurate, in all cases. I wish I had one, though.


4) The video is what bothers me. The video card's bios info should pop onto the screen before the computer bios info, and both should happen before the drives are paid any attention to. (Drives may spin up, maybe click, as soon as the power comes on, but they won't get accessed before the screen lights up, assuming the video is right).

5) But you don't mention the bios beeping. If the video card isn't seated, then you should get beeping early in the boot.

6) See if your dinky little case speaker is connected to the motherboard - its a good diagnostic tool. You need to hear any BIOS beeps.

7) The video card's fan has no relation, whatsoever, to the video card's functionality. They are separate in every way. Sorry, that wasn't supposed to sound harsh.

8) Does the board have a built-in video? If so, try running off of that. Also check your manual. And, in that case, see if you have to change a jumper in order to go from built-in to a video card (I'd think it'd be automatic, but ya never know). You might need to go into "CMOS" (BIOS) setup to change video. Which would be hard to do if you have no video. In that case you'd boot to the hypothetical built-in, go into setup, and change).

9) If you don't have a built-in video, then try another video card.

10) Are you sure your monitor didn't pick that moment to die - just to eff with you?


11) What's your Power Supply? A P4, and all but the oldest Athlons take a lot of juice. Plus, those CPUs load the +12V line - they used to run on the +5 line, and power supplies are still built off of the old design that pumps out a lot of +5. So you need a mofo of a Power Supply to run a modern CPU, more than one hard drive, and a decent video card. A Dual-Core CPU probably draws close to twice as much...

So you may be starved for power.

I'm seeing 550W~600W recommendations. Keep in mind that it ain't the total wattage of the PS, it's the amps it'll deliver on the +12V.


12) Going to one hard drive at a time & built-in video would be the best way to start, for diagnostic and power-supply reasons. In fact, if you leave off the hard drive & boot to floppy, to see if you get video... Also yank the sound card, and any other fluff.

13) Note: If you have a Western Digital, make sure to jumper it for Single, if you run it by itself. Most/all other brands use one jumper setting for single or master.

14) If you can get video, and can get into the BIOS Setup screen, then see if it'll show you voltages. You want +/- 5% on all lines. If you don't get that at any stage up to fully loaded, then look for another power supply.

One day I found... 10 years had got behind me. Next day was worse.

 

Download  shows from Cable DVR (Updated! Yes, it needs a rewrite, but it's worth slogging through, anyway).

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Of course, if the boot is freezing when the BIOS is checking the controller circuitry (long before it checks the drives), then maybe it could happen before the video bios announces itself... (I dunno). In that case it could be, for example, a bad motherboard, low power, or the wrong thing connected to the controller.

Anyway, you've got a lot of stuff to check. Might hit it on our first round of suggestions.

One day I found... 10 years had got behind me. Next day was worse.

 

Download  shows from Cable DVR (Updated! Yes, it needs a rewrite, but it's worth slogging through, anyway).

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Excellent, already going a million times better than at the computer forum. I'll get check some of these suggestions tonight, here's what I can answer so far:

How many drives, how many IDE channels and have you got the master/slave configuration correct?

There are three hard drives, one SATA and two IDE with SATA adapters slapped on the back of them (instructions for the adapter say set jumpers to master), the two IDEs have data on them, so I'm don't know if just plugging them in alone would--actually I don't know what I'm afraid of.

5) But you don't mention the bios beeping. If the video card isn't seated, then you should get beeping early in the boot.

I remember there were no beeps from the BIOS when I plugged in a little speaker. I was told this could mean something devastating...wait a minute

6) See if your dinky little case speaker is connected to the motherboard - its a good diagnostic tool. You need to hear any BIOS beeps.


I just hooked up a speaker to the sound card. I'll make sure the case speaker was hooked up.

11) What's your Power Supply? A P4, and all but the oldest Athlons take a lot of juice. Plus, those CPUs load the +12V line - they used to run on the +5 line, and power supplies are still built off of the old design that pumps out a lot of +5. So you need a mofo of a Power Supply to run a modern CPU, more than one hard drive, and a decent video card. A Dual-Core CPU probably draws close to twice as much...


The power supply, thought I can't remember (nothing's in front of me at the moment ), from my understanding, is a real babe, but you're suggesting 500-600 watt power, and if I remember it's only like 400 so maybe it is starved for power, but the guy who found it for me was real proud of it (yeah, didn't do my own shopping , but my go-to guy's good with this)

Wow this is a tremendous step up from where I was, thank you and I'll update progress tonight.

Spaced Out - A Stoner Odyssey (five minute sneak peek)

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This stuff is fun for me (unless its my machine, then I'm frustrated, going in). Hope it helps.

Computer-related forums (or newsgroups, which aren't as as useful, for it, as they used to be) can be wierd. It's hard to predict when they'll just ingore you, or why. Don't wanna tack your problem to the end of a solved thread, though - your problem is gonna be different, and they've already finished with the thread anyway. But, yeah, sometimes you won't get helped, no matter what, and meanwhile they'll swarm all over the guy next to you.


What you want is a single bios beep, right at the beginning. No beep means the motherboard ain't working (might not be permenant). Multiple beeps mean something is up, but you can probably fix it. Helps if you can google up a chart for that BIOS's beeps.


Since you're in the troubleshooting phase, it's best (data safety) to leave the drives-with-data out of the loop (unless all the data is backed up). On the other hand, if you fix a problem elsewhere, you could put everything together and just try it.


A SATA->IDE adapter, that makes sense. But it's also a potential point-of-failure, so that's another reason to leave the IDE's off for now. Also, that buisness about setting the IDE drives to master - manufacturer's like to give simple, non-threatening instructions that sound like no-compromise, but which may or may not have a hard reason behind them. If you dug into their faqs, you might find there's a lot of leeway, and it depends on the partiiculars. In any case, if you have a WD alone on its cable, you have to set it as single, or things will get screwy - and the adapter is probably fine with having a single set as single.

I don't normally buy hardware for people, so I'm not that kind of go-to guy. But us go-to guys have a tough time keeping up. Things get past us. So no reflection on him. A single-core would be in heaven with a 400W.

One day I found... 10 years had got behind me. Next day was worse.

 

Download  shows from Cable DVR (Updated! Yes, it needs a rewrite, but it's worth slogging through, anyway).