Home built system not working

[donagustin]

I tried posting this message just a minute ago and my system crashed in the process. So if this appears more than once I apologize.

I've put together a system.
DFI AK-76 SN motherboard--Athlon T-Bird 1.13 266--512MB of Crucial RAM 2100 registered--ATI All-in-Wonder 32MB--Seagate 80GB 7200 HDD--generic FDD--Powermax 300W P/S. This is all that I have attached at the time. Here's the problem:
When I power up to begin loading WIN XP. The system seems to recognize the CPU, RAM, and the HDD. However when it detects the FDD, the it's activity light stays on and then I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner. Nothing else happens. It won't recognize the boot up disk. I have tried exchanging the FDD, the FDD cable, and even the P/S. I tried reseting the CMOS jumper, disabling the FDD in the BIOS, and removing and re-seating the Video card and the RAM. I don't get it. My fear is that the motherboard is bad. All the components are new.
Can anyone offer any advice? Thank You

[Jimstep]

Two things I can think of. 1) the cable might be backwards. 2) try disabling 'floppy seek at boot' in the bios.

[donagustin]

Yeah, I tried both of those possibilities. Nothing. After disabling the FDD in the BIOS, it just skipped onto the blinking cursoe on the black screen.

[namrak]

Heck, you don't even really need the floppy drive hooked up to see if you boot. I would completely leave it unattached (power cord and cabling). Disable the floppy in BIOS and see if it boots. I'm curious, is your floppy cable rounded? If so, maybe the integrity of the floppy cable is suspect.

[SOL]

A short time ago, I went round and round with a DFI motherboard, granted it wasn't XP I was installing.

But, the system would post fine, but upon trying to install Win98 I would get errors, mind you, not the same errror each time.

Finally I started swapping RAM, wound up being a stick that the DFI didn't like, All the ram worked fine in other systems, but the DFI one just wouldn't take it.


SOL

[psychoactive1]

Don't laugh, but try reflashing the BIOS with the latest version available from the mb's manufacturer. Just remember that you cannot make MS-DOS system boot disks under XP. You need to format a floppy under win98, copy system files, and then copy your flash utility and the BIOS .bin file. If it does not boot from the floppy, check the CMOS setting and make the floppy drive the first boot device.

If it comes down to it, and the system keeps booting into XP, try disconnecting/disabling the hard drive units and see if you can force a boot from a floppy disk.

And the gentleman who mentioned the bad memory stick, you might follow up on his suggestion. I've encountered that before, and that might be part of the problem.

Good luck on your debugging...

chiefgeek@theasylum

[cavill]

hi
if the fdd light is on all the time when you turn the pc on then the cable is on the wrong way round, (common mistake, as there are no markings),
if the floppy boot disk was in the fdd when you turned the pc on there is a very good chance the disk is ruined

try either making a new boot disk from the pc you are using now to try to install xp.

or you can change your pc`s first boot option to the cdrom (go into the bios and look for boot options)

i found the easiest way for me was to use a 98 or me boot disk to fdisk and format the hardrive then instal xp after the format.

good luck

[donagustin]

I am using a rounded cable for the FDD. I have tried conecting the cable both ways. Nothing. It doesn't matter what disk I put in the FDD. Boot disk, bios upgrade disk, the system won't read it. Upgrading the bios right now is not an option, I tried. I have swapped out both the floppy and the cable in a different system and both work fine.

I haven't actually tried loading XP, because I can't get that far. I have tried disabling the floppy in the bios. Tried to set it up so that it completely ignored, but in the end, all I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor.

Could it be a bad motherboard, or incompatability with the video card, the HDD, FDD, RAM, CPU....?

More suggestions please. Thank you and thanks for trying

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Go to the Mobo's website and ask them what the order of the post is.What I mean is what order the bios recongnizes the dif. periphials.This will allow you to Identify which is the one it stops on and then that is your bad device!Since disableing the floppy in bios and removeing it physically doesnt change the prob. it seems to me that it is whatever come next in boot process that is hanging it up.The floppy will seem to hang(light stays on) due to the fact that the next thing in bios is hanging it,and it never gets to read the floppy as it just started the access to it when other part of post failed.I think it might be a bad mobo personally.Or maybe some other device that the sys. dont like.I don't think the floppy or ribbon is the issue here.It's gotta be bigger than that!

[evildead]

I would consider taking everything out of the mobo like the cards except the video obvisouly and one stick of memory and 1 hard drive. Unplug the unused ATA cable and the Floppy cable from the mobo. Remember to be careful to double check all cables and connections when you pull things in and out often. If you still have the problem, my guess is that you have an incompatible or bad memory stick or the mobo is bad. If u have 2 memory sticks try the other one. If they both have problems and are different brands, the mobo is probably bad. Otherwise if the memory sticks are same brand it could still be compatibility issue or the mobo is bad.

Good Luck

[psychoactive1]

I have seen/experienced this before. Try changing your ATI graphics card to any other card available. See if it boots and posts. It's a long story; I'll tell you about it if this works.

Trust me on this one, let me know how it comes out. It's a Rage 128, right?

chiefgeek@theasylum

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by psychoactive1
I have seen/experienced this before. Try changing your ATI graphics card to any other card available. See if it boots and posts. It's a long story; I'll tell you about it if this works.

Trust me on this one, let me know how it comes out. It's a Rage 128, right?

chiefgeek@theasylum

He might be right!I had a xpert98 do the same to me not too long ago-come to think of it.Put in a Voodoo3 and it booted just fine.Try any other card.I know ATI says not to assign Irq to vga in bios!Did you check this?Typically it is the opposite so you may have overlooked it.Anyhow it would be one of the last drivers(standerd vga)post would initialize-so I would give it a whirl if it was me.

[BipolarBozo]

disconnect the floppy and clear nvram. trust pippo