Darren Kitchen Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 Ok guys, this is the first time I've posted in here with hardware troubles and I see these posts around here frequently so hopefully you guys can help me out as well. On our most recent appearance of the Computer America show co-host Carey Holzman pledged to Hak5 an Athlon 64 3400+ and Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard. I've got a spare 320 GB HDD from the freeNAS segment and 2 GB RAM isn't too expensive (I can write it off too). I've also got the ATI Radeon x850 XT Platinum AGP that Jenn Cutter sold me cheap. Add it all up and it'd be a killer rendering/gaming machine. So I picked up a stock 939pin compatible AMD cooler from a friend with a computer shop and slapped it together with the 320 Gigger and a spare set of 2x256 PC3400 DDR. Booted up and the most interesting thing happened. I've seriously never seen this, but again it's a Deluxe motherboard. Video doesn't initialize, and out of the speakers plays a female voice saying "System failed CPU test". I reseated the CPU (the corner was lined up) and consulted the manual. The troubleshooting seciton says to reseat the CPU and if that doesn't work to call ASUS. I've called ASUS twice and both times they told me they were uber busy and asked for my name and number so that they could call me back. I haven't heard back from them. Unfortunately I don't have another 939 pin motherboard to test the CPU, or an Athlon 64 or FX to test the motherboard. I know that doesn't leave a lot of troubleshooting room but maybe there's something that I havent thought about or havent had the experience with on these new 64 bit systems. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I need to send Carey Holzman a thank-you letter and I'd rather not say "It's either DOA or I'm a NOOB". Thanks in advance, Darren (That guy that's always hurt on the show) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 Woah, it actually talks to you? That's some deluxe mobo... :| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted September 21, 2006 Author Share Posted September 21, 2006 Woah, it actually talks to you? That's some deluxe mobo... :| Yeah, not just that but you can also, using a utility, customize them with your own audio files, so that you could have it say "Hey noob, maybe I'll boot if you feed me some RAM first!" Oh, and it even lets you customize the bootup image. Sounds like the perfect motherboard for system-builders like voodoo/falcon northwest/alien ware/mom 'n pop's PC's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobotChild Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 I hate that voice! Happens on a friends box as well. Everyday, "No floppy disk detected. Press Enter to boot to Operating System". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari6502 Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 This seems to match your situation, Darren. http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=31392 Hope it helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted September 21, 2006 Author Share Posted September 21, 2006 This seems to match your situation, Darren.http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=31392 Hope it helps. Thanks! That looks like it should solve my problem. I'll try it after work tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaveMan Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 i want a talking computer... all mine DID was buzz and fry... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jalada Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 I'll just add that I had to use ezflash recently on a friends motherboard (it was reporting a uCode error because it didn't understand the Core Duo E6700), and it's easy as pie :D BIOS flashing at it's easiest methinks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 All I can say is that try and find someone nearby that you can test mobo+cpu out with if that link doesn't help. The voice feature on Asus motherboards gets very annoying as it stops booting to play the voice so it adds on to the boot length. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy© Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 Well looks like Asus have been shipping some faulty goods recently :( From across the net I've seen a fair few cases of 'Received email from Asus updated bios still poo, RMA'ed back to Asus and now it works fine' - people mentioning bad solder joints or them melting after a few months of useage :( Also lots of cases of PSU not upto the job :( If the bios was an issue I would of thought that they would of updated it in more recent productions... 2 years ago, but its worth a shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcvoid Posted September 21, 2006 Share Posted September 21, 2006 Hmm... I remember seeing this exact same thing when my army buddy was building his new computer - He thought that it was DOA and the Asus support was very pooey. I'll let him know about this and see if he got it to work. Maybe you'll actually be able to play Jenn in that BF2 game she proposed once (if?) you get this thing up and running! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted September 26, 2006 Author Share Posted September 26, 2006 Just wanted to say thank you to Atari6502, your suggestion fixed my problem and I'm very happy with the new box now. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts