Strange booting problem

[Mntsnow]

You mentioned that your are running Win95 Have you installed the AMD patch for processors faster than 300mhz when running win95? If not hit AMD's website and download the patch. If you alread have done that post and let us know what you have tried and want didnt work and we will try and help you more.

Mntsnow

[Axel]

ATX form doesn't say much - who made the mobo? - There should be a distinguishing mark in the middle of the face of the board - not a name, but a model number. - Also, an FCC number would be real helpful.

What I'm looking for is to see if your board has a sleep feature or an auto-shut off that needs either jumper settings or a software load to work correctly. You checked the BIOS settings, but did you check for a new BIOS load that you can flash the BIOS with? Such a thing would be on the mobo manu homepage.

Lastly, did you buy a high-end power supply with jumpered or programable features? Some power supplys have a lead that goes on the board for special sleep features.

Did you use an old power supply that might not have enough juice for both the mobo and the monitor? -

[Dezza]

I have a strange problem when booting my PC from the power switch (reboots from CTL, ALT, DEL or restart computer from windows is fine).
First attempt - PC starts but no signal to monitor, after 20/30 seconds PC shuts down on it's own.
Second attempt - PC starts OK but windows complains about display settings, although it accepts the settings if I click OK.
After this PC works fine, even reboots OK with no complaints. W95 system properties show no problems.

System is ATX form.
K6-2 450 processor
AGP graphic card
128m memory
Gigabyte MB.

Bios is set to use AGP for graphics, all other settings look OK.

Any advise would be appreciated.

[Dezza]

OK, Sorry about being so vague.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-5AX (Rev 4) 100 mhz mainboard with Ali Aladdin V agpset.
Case is new ATX so power shouldn't be a problem. There is a lead from the power switch to the mainboard and this is connected correctly.

I have installed AMD fix for W95 running fast processors. As I say, W95 runs fine once I get the PC booted.

I've tried disabling all power management features of Bios to no effect.

I haven't tried updating the Bios yet. I did have a look at Gigabyte internet site with this in mind, but there is a confusing number of Bios updates for my Bios/chipset and I was unsure which to apply, so thought better of it.

One other strange happening that may have some bearing on the problem is that occassionally when the PC boots with no monitor signal, it doesn't shut down by itself and refuses to allow me to turn it off with the power switch. I eventually have to unplug the PC from the mains to shut it down. It then boots quite happily as usual.

[scotter]

what is your v-core set at for your K6-2-450 chip 2.2 or 2.4 volts ? and how cold is your system when you boot it first ? if your v-core is set to 2.2 change it to 2.4 volts
also check and make sure all conections for the power to every thing is ok no lose conections ? and all cards are inserted in there slots all the way espeacialy your agp card couse I have heard that they have a tendency to work there way loss after time.

I would even say take them all out disconect every thing and blow it all out with compressed air and but it all back togather
just to make sure every thing is the way it should be /forum/smile.gif as it sounds like a bad conection some where as your system gets hotter it starts working right.system cold you have a problem when things get hot they expand and make better contact and every thing starts working right /forum/smile.gif

as for the bios the newest one is the one you want as it will have all the fix's from all the older ones in it /forum/smile.gifso no need to work through them all /forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by scotter (edited 11-03-1999).]

[digital_rat]

why change core voltage on cpu...????
should be 2.2 no???
i wouldnt want to be messing with that

[scotter]

most of the K6-2-450 have a v-core of 2.4 volts not 2.2 like all the other AMD chips
if its a 2.4 v-core chip they dont like running at 2.2 volts and will give you boot problems check the top of the chip for what v-core it runs at.
and set to what it says /forum/smile.gif

[Dezza]

OK, I've updated the BIOS to the latest version to no effect.
Haven't checked the V-core on the chip yet, but the board is set up as specified in the manual for AMD K6-2 450, so that is probably OK (but I will check if all else fails).

Have been doing some experimenting.
Problem definitely seems to be connected to power switch. Tried turning PC off from power switch, rather than shutting down from Windows, power switch had no effect, PC would not turn off. If I then shutdown from windows, I have boot problem described when rebooting.
One occassion whne it did let me power off with power switch, PC restarted OK.

Question: How do I change PC so that I get 'It is now safe to turn off you computer' message instead of auto powering off. Just want to try this to see if it makes any difference.

[Ygor]

Dezza, I've had the same problem with shutdown when I had the bus set too high for my ram.
I saw the discussion about core voltage, but is your bus speed set correctly?
Beginning to think this is a problem with AMD/Socket 7 with a variety of causes.

[ENVY]

The old 450's ran at 2.4v the new ones are supposed to run at 2.2v.
If power mgt is shutoff in bios and the settings in control panel are set to always on your power mgt should be completely disabled.To verify this look in device mgr and see if there is an exclamation next to power mgt under system devices.
Also make sure that agp is set to inital display in bios,make sure that video caching and shadowing are off.
Make double sure that you have the Ali agp chipset drivers for win95 installed.If you do make sure that you have the most current version.
If this is versionb of 95 or higher do not install any of the other drivers,just the agp one.Try these things first,if you still have the problem then let us know and I will hit my Technet resources.

[Volker]

Maybe you guys will think this is lame, but before going nuts with bios updates, voltage changes and so on I would set the bios to the lowest possible settings. That means sleep mode off, cables disabled, no high speed boot up etc etc
Then I would take out all but video card and see what happens...
First the easy stuff...then the fun stuff!

[Dezza]

Thanks Guys, I'll try these suggestions and let you know how I get on.

Am I right in assuming this problem has nothing to do with Win 95 as it's happening at initial boot, long before Win95 is loaded?

[Dezza]

Still not fixed!

More info though. When I power on the PC for the first time (the one that doesn't work) the PC gives one long BEEEEEEP immediately, is this significant?

The second time I power on (which works OK) it just gives a short beep after about 10 seconds.

Someone out there must know what's going on!!!

[Wiz]

did you do anything to the computer before the boot problem?

[Dezza]

No, the computer has had the problem ever since I built it.