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I'm building a system and having hidious difficulties with the Abit NF7-S motherboard. It starts to produce this ambulance-type siren noise in a seemingly random fashion.
Observe: Just now I booted up from the DVD drive after clearing the CMOS, proceeded to install an OS, and ta-dah, the PC speaker goes off and the mobo shuts the system down. I have to pull out the power cord to make the beeping stop.
One time I managed to fire up Knoppix from a live CD all the way to the window manager, but after I rebooted and tried again, the moment I saw the word "Knoppix" the blasted thing went offline with a screech.
Apparently it's a warning related to either the CPU overheating, or the CPU or PSU fans going on too low RPM readings. Sometimes it starts up right after booting, sometimes if I access the BIOS settings, sometimes it takes quite awhile. I have had few instances of bootup where the siren didn't go off for several minutes, so there might be hope.
The processor, an AXP 2500+, is about 47 celsius on idle with a Glacialtech Silent Breeze 2 installed with some generic silicone grease (not the thermal pad that came with the cooler, I cleaned it off with grease-removal alcohol and then wiped it clean with a wet cloth). I believe it is the fan rpm that sets the alarm off, as I was staring at the BIOS temperature readings, and the cpu was around 45 celsius when suddenly the mobo screamed and shut itself down. I had the limit at 75, and above all, I had the shutdown function disabled. I've never had them enabled in the first place, yet they kick in. Mind you, the mobo sensor probably isn't the most fine-tuned one around.
I can't jack the psu cooler to anything other than the mobo. Same with the cpu cooler. The cpu cooler is shown to be at 2300 rpm, if that's any help. PSU and CHA (?) coolers are 0 rpm according to the BIOS, I have nothing plugged in the CHA place since there's no free connector around anywhere that would fit.
I've also experienced random problems with "DMI data pool" when booting, but I twiddled around my 5.25" drives and switched my DVD-ROM and CD-RW around from slave to master and vice versa, and it disappeared.
The memory (2*256 MB) is also identified correctly as DDR400 on a fresh cleared-CMOS boot, but if I switch the system off and restart it the sticks are both identified as DDR333. The mobo also identifies my processor as a 1100 MHz Athlon XP on startup (IOW the FSB drops to 100 from 166), although the BIOS itself identifies it corrently. It's recognised on the startup screen as a 2500+ with a fresh CMOS, however.
I've also flashed my BIOS to the newest version according to Abit, 1.8, and it was supposed to cure all my troubles. The date on the startup screen matches with the date of the BIOS version, so it should be working fine. Curiously, I haven't had the problem where the 2500+ is identified as a 3200+ a single time.
I'm going to try to remove the components and put them all back together again before sending it back to the store to get either a new one or a 25 euro bill. First I'd like to try out anything possible, though. I can't access spare RAM sticks, I have switched my two sticks around in the dimm2 and 3 sockets both one and two at a time but to no avail. I'm simply running out of any ideas other than reinstalling the cooler or sending the mobo back.
I found a myriad of suggestions on the forums of ABIT USA and newsgroups, but everything that's been suggested I've tried, save for reinstalling the cooler in case it is misaligned. The temperatures are so low though that I doubt it'll do anything.
Oh, and I did try out switching the vcore setting from 1.65 volts to anything between 1.525 and 1.625. No dice. I considered upping the memory voltages to 2.7 from 2.6. but IMO the memory's not to blame.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Could someone for instance tell me what sort of memory settings I should have for 256 meg 2.5 cas latency sticks (M-Tec chips with a TwinMoss sticker) for this particular motherboard? Is it enough if the BIOS sets the timings up as "optimal"?
Here's a rundown on the parts I have installed:
Athlon XP 2500+ (11*166), w/ Glacialtech Igloo Silent Breeze II
LG DVD-ROM drive
Sony CD-RW drive
WD Caviar SE hard disk, 8 meg cache, 120 gigs of storage
Sapphire R9600 (128 MB)
Two 256 MB DDR400 sticks by M-Tec
And, of course, an Abit NF7-S motherboard.
Crammed in an Antec Sonata Piano case (that thing gets crowded), connected to an Antec TruePower at 380W.
Edit: Oh, and I get a "CPU not working correctly or has been changed, CPU SOFT MENU" or somesuch message on startup every now and then.
Observe: Just now I booted up from the DVD drive after clearing the CMOS, proceeded to install an OS, and ta-dah, the PC speaker goes off and the mobo shuts the system down. I have to pull out the power cord to make the beeping stop.
One time I managed to fire up Knoppix from a live CD all the way to the window manager, but after I rebooted and tried again, the moment I saw the word "Knoppix" the blasted thing went offline with a screech.
Apparently it's a warning related to either the CPU overheating, or the CPU or PSU fans going on too low RPM readings. Sometimes it starts up right after booting, sometimes if I access the BIOS settings, sometimes it takes quite awhile. I have had few instances of bootup where the siren didn't go off for several minutes, so there might be hope.
The processor, an AXP 2500+, is about 47 celsius on idle with a Glacialtech Silent Breeze 2 installed with some generic silicone grease (not the thermal pad that came with the cooler, I cleaned it off with grease-removal alcohol and then wiped it clean with a wet cloth). I believe it is the fan rpm that sets the alarm off, as I was staring at the BIOS temperature readings, and the cpu was around 45 celsius when suddenly the mobo screamed and shut itself down. I had the limit at 75, and above all, I had the shutdown function disabled. I've never had them enabled in the first place, yet they kick in. Mind you, the mobo sensor probably isn't the most fine-tuned one around.
I can't jack the psu cooler to anything other than the mobo. Same with the cpu cooler. The cpu cooler is shown to be at 2300 rpm, if that's any help. PSU and CHA (?) coolers are 0 rpm according to the BIOS, I have nothing plugged in the CHA place since there's no free connector around anywhere that would fit.
I've also experienced random problems with "DMI data pool" when booting, but I twiddled around my 5.25" drives and switched my DVD-ROM and CD-RW around from slave to master and vice versa, and it disappeared.
The memory (2*256 MB) is also identified correctly as DDR400 on a fresh cleared-CMOS boot, but if I switch the system off and restart it the sticks are both identified as DDR333. The mobo also identifies my processor as a 1100 MHz Athlon XP on startup (IOW the FSB drops to 100 from 166), although the BIOS itself identifies it corrently. It's recognised on the startup screen as a 2500+ with a fresh CMOS, however.
I've also flashed my BIOS to the newest version according to Abit, 1.8, and it was supposed to cure all my troubles. The date on the startup screen matches with the date of the BIOS version, so it should be working fine. Curiously, I haven't had the problem where the 2500+ is identified as a 3200+ a single time.
I'm going to try to remove the components and put them all back together again before sending it back to the store to get either a new one or a 25 euro bill. First I'd like to try out anything possible, though. I can't access spare RAM sticks, I have switched my two sticks around in the dimm2 and 3 sockets both one and two at a time but to no avail. I'm simply running out of any ideas other than reinstalling the cooler or sending the mobo back.
I found a myriad of suggestions on the forums of ABIT USA and newsgroups, but everything that's been suggested I've tried, save for reinstalling the cooler in case it is misaligned. The temperatures are so low though that I doubt it'll do anything.
Oh, and I did try out switching the vcore setting from 1.65 volts to anything between 1.525 and 1.625. No dice. I considered upping the memory voltages to 2.7 from 2.6. but IMO the memory's not to blame.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Could someone for instance tell me what sort of memory settings I should have for 256 meg 2.5 cas latency sticks (M-Tec chips with a TwinMoss sticker) for this particular motherboard? Is it enough if the BIOS sets the timings up as "optimal"?
Here's a rundown on the parts I have installed:
Athlon XP 2500+ (11*166), w/ Glacialtech Igloo Silent Breeze II
LG DVD-ROM drive
Sony CD-RW drive
WD Caviar SE hard disk, 8 meg cache, 120 gigs of storage
Sapphire R9600 (128 MB)
Two 256 MB DDR400 sticks by M-Tec
And, of course, an Abit NF7-S motherboard.
Crammed in an Antec Sonata Piano case (that thing gets crowded), connected to an Antec TruePower at 380W.
Edit: Oh, and I get a "CPU not working correctly or has been changed, CPU SOFT MENU" or somesuch message on startup every now and then.
Have you tried to find out exactly what the beeps etc mean? After a quick read of 
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