System intermittently won't boot - Setting in bios need changing?

Copied from Expert Exchange - I know there is a greater chance of getting a fix from them, but I thought I'd give our few geeks a go

I recently (2 months ago) purchased an Abit IP35 Pro motherboard from Scan.

I've been living with the problem (lazy) - but after spending most of this weekend playing with settings I wondered if anyone could suggest anything else I could try to fix my problem.

When I power the system up, quite often I don't get a picture & the fans in the system spin on full blast. I then remove the power from the PSU sometimes for 30 seconds, sometimes for a couple of minutes and then it usually powers up fine.

I believe it may be a setting to do with the memory in the bios that I need to change.

I have 2x 1024mb DDR2 800MHz Corsair CM2X1024-6400C4DHX which has the frequency 4-4-4-12.

I have the latest bios (Ver. 17) & have applied all the settings that Scan's helpful customer services team suggested. These settings being - I've set it in uguru for the RAM to receive 2.100 volts, and to run at the frequency 4-4-4-12.

As for the full spec of the system I have:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz E6600 Processor

Abit IP35 Pro Motherboard

2x 1GB CM2X1024-6400C4DHX Corsair 800MHz 4-4-4-12 XMS2-6400

Zalman cnps9700 led Processor Fan

Nvidia 8800GTS 640MB Graphics Card

Nvidia 7200GS 256MB Graphics Card

2x Seagate 500GB hdds (ST3500630AS)

1x Western Digital 250GB hdd (WD2500AAKS-00SBA)

3x DVDRW drives (2x ATAPI DH20A, 1x TSST Corp TS-H)

Corsair HX 620W Power Supply

The processor is overclocked to 3.0Ghz, however I have tried resetting the bios to defaults & I still have the same issue.

I've also tried unplugging the optical drives & HDD's, but this hasn't helped either.

I have changed the setting in the bios which originally said the RAM was running at 667 (668 =S ?) Mhz - I believe I've now changed it to 800Mhz but this has made no difference. Based on something I read yesterday it looks like by changing this setting my system will 5% faster.

Your help would be much appreciated

Edit: Also worth mentioning that I have tried for a short period of time 2x 1GB 667Mhz Standard Samsung RAM which appeared to work fine. I unfortunately didn't test this for as long as I would have liked so can't definitely say that this solved the problem.

Have you tried another PSU?

Yup.

I bought a new PSU (listed above) to replace my old PSU (some 800W EZ Cool) as I thought it might be causing the problem.

If I don't fix it this week I'm going to send the motherboard back to Scan AGAIN.

If it turns out to be the mobo then that's a shame because (imho) - Abit are the best boards around...or rather 'used' to be. I believe they were taken over/bought out some time ago & since then they seem to have lost their way somewhat. A few years ago I ran a very nice system for years using a faithful old Abit NF7 mobo. It was truly superb - and as time went by - other components failed or just died - but my Abit NF7 ran & ran & ran faultlessly! Infact - it is still alive & working superbly in a pc I made for the missus! Not bad at all. I know this doesn't help your particular problem thesaint sfc - but just thought I'd sing their praises as a big fan of Abit personally.

If it turns out to be the mobo then that's a shame because (imho) - Abit are the best boards around...or rather 'used' to be. I believe they were taken over/bought out some time ago & since then they seem to have lost their way somewhat. A few years ago I ran a very nice system for years using a faithful old Abit NF7 mobo. It was truly superb - and as time went by - other components failed or just died - but my Abit NF7 ran & ran & ran faultlessly! Infact - it is still alive & working superbly in a pc I made for the missus! Not bad at all. I know this doesn't help your particular problem thesaint sfc - but just thought I'd sing their praises as a big fan of Abit personally.

Funnily enough, I'm at a relative's house at present and looking at this via the very same board, which I donated a few years back.

Funnily enough, I'm at a relative's house at present and looking at this via the very same board, which I donated a few years back.

As you know my good friend - I recently self-built a cracking system for myself with bells & whistles...well - more than capable for what I need it for. I really wanted an Abit board for it - but their AM2 boards weren't that good at the time & didn't have what I needed. I opted for the excellent (but stupidly named) Foxconn C51XEM2AA mobo instead. I needed it to run XP Pro 64-bit edition, more than 4 gigs of memory, Sli, etc, etc. But if Abit had an equivalent or better board - I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I gather they are on the up again though...

As a wildish guess I would say its a ram compatabilty issue. Is the RAM your using on ABITs compatibilty list?

Can you source some different ram to test?

As a wildish guess I would say its a ram compatabilty issue. Is the RAM your using on ABITs compatibilty list?

 

Can you source some different ram to test?

It is indeedy

I need to try some different RAM but having overclocked it, it's a bloody pain having to reset everything.

I guess I'll have to do that before I send it back.

I've been through 4 motherboards in 2 years so I guess I should be used to it. I'm very tempted to send my processor back to Intel and get that swapped as that's the only thing that has been carried across to each system.

 

I've been through 4 motherboards in 2 years so I guess I should be used to it.

Cause your an overclocker hoar per chance?? lol

I'm just about to build myslef a quad core box sli/crossfire that sort of thing. Hope I dont run into the same trouble.

When you are able to boot up, what kind of temps are you getting? That's quite an overclock with air cooling.

Bah temps are fine. I've checked all of that. I've had it going at 3.5GHz before with no problems. I've reset the bios and run it for a couple of weeks standard and I still get the same.

Good to see some people coming up with stuff that Expert Exchange members didn't pick on though

I'll have a play around with some RAM this evening with the defaults loaded in the bios. Then, everything will have been tested and all it can be is the board or processor.

Cause your an overclocker hoar per chance?? lol

 

I'm just about to build myslef a quad core box sli/crossfire that sort of thing. Hope I dont run into the same trouble.

hehe.

What board are you buying?