DOA Northwood? :(

[Johnny Ray]

Before I go through the hassle of getting an RMA, do any of you have any ideas?

I just bought a retail 2 GHz Northwood P4, retail Asus P4T-E, 512 MB Kingston RIMM (life-time warranty), and a PCPower and Cooling 400 watt silencer power supply. Everything else is from my old, reliable system. I have put togethter quite a few systems (the first one I built was a 486), so I have some experience. What's funny is this is the one that I took the most time with. In fact, I was proceeding at such a leisurely pace and so optimistic, I put the whole thing together, hoping to just flip it on and be on my way.

I plug in the power supply with the case open to make sure all the fans work and no funny business. It powers up for a couple seconds, then goes off. I figured this was something to do with the ATX switch or something, so no big deal. Push the power button on the front, system powers up - power light on, fans on and green light on motherboard is on...........and nothing. No beeps, no output to the monitor, etc. I proceed to strip the system down to a GeForce3 graphics card, keyboard, memory, and CPU. Still nothing. Try a PCI graphics card....still nothing. Try no graphics card (hey, I'm desperate), hoping for any beep. Nothing. Try no memory. Still nothing.

I took the CPU out and re-seated it. Nothing funny. Still no indication of life. I'm really out of ideas. Maybe I'm missing something obvious? Here's the obvious things I didn't over look:

1) power supply is set to 115v

2) ATX power cable is connected correctly to MB.

3) P4 12 V connector is attached correctly.

4) Power switch, power light, reset switch, ect. are connected correctly.

5) Rambus mem appears to be installed correctly, if I understand the manual correctly: 256 MB in RIMMA1 C-RIMM in RIMMA2, 256 MB in RIMMB1, C-RIMM in RIMMB2. All fit nice and snug.

6) Of all the systems I've put together, this one went the smoothest (no hammers, saws, screwdrivers across the motherboard, etc.).

As I said, all the lights, fans, etc are on. I do hear a continuous click about 3 seconds apart through the speaker.....not a beep, but a click.


Sorry for the long post, but I'm a bit bummed out about this (I've never had a problem with any system I've put together), and am not sure what to do. Is there any way to test if it's the MB or CPU that's the problem without a different MB or CPU?

Thanks for any suggestions.


John

[Johnny Ray]

Okay, after more work, I'm leaning towards a bad MB. For the heck of it, I cleared the CMOS (no jumper on this board, you have to short to VERY small leads...I also played it safe and took the battery out). Now when I plug in the power, no brief start up. Push on button, and it powers up, but still nothing. I also learned that a MB will give an error warning even with no CPU (didn't know this). Tested on my trusty Asus P3B-F. Power it up, and after a bit, it will start sounding an alarm like a Euro cop car. Damn loud too! The P4T-E does absolutely nothing but the very weak click at 3 sec intervals. Also considering Intel's quality control, it's hard to believe they'd ship a bad retail CPU.

Any thoughts? Thanks,

John

[Guru]

The mobo needs a BIOS updat before it suports the Northwood CPU. Take it back to the shop where you bought it from and have them update it!

[Paulr]

Just to confirm what Guru has said - being a P4T-E owner myself.
Most boards are shipping with the 1003 BIOS.
A few of the very latest are coming through with the 1004 BIOS pre-installed.

The problem is, the final specs on the Northwood were ever so slightly different from the samples the likes of ASUS had during the development of the boards/BIOS's.
Only the BIOS revision 1005 supports the Northwood CPU's.
ABit were lucky and their BIOS revisions are fine with the Northwood.

Problem is you need a normal P4 CPU to flash the BIOS, so it's either borrow a CPU from a friend time or back to your vendor and get them to flash it for you.
Another option of course is to swap the ASUS board for an ABit one - can't recommend that as the ASUS P4T-E just oozes quality from the moment you take it out of the box.

[Johnny Ray]

Thanks for the help.

I thought BIOS support might be a problem, but I figured it would be like when the Coppermines first came out. My P3B-F needed a BIOS upgrade for them, but it booted and such, it ust didn't recognize the CPU as a Coppermine and run at the right speed. I guess that's not the case here.

Unfortunately I don't know anyone around here with a P4, let alone a socket 478 P4. I bought the MB and CPU from mail-order, so this should be fun.

Thanks again.


John

[Paulr]

Give them a call and explain the problem.
You are right, it's quite rare for systems to refuse to post when a BIOS update is required, they usually boot enough to allow you to actually make that update.
Did you buy both the motherboard & CPU from the same vendor?
If so, then you are actually doing them a favour flagging up this problem and they should be bending over backwards to help you.
Most mail-order companies I deal with are usually quite helpful (with the exception of www.scan.co.uk - I'm sure lots of UK people will confirm how bad they are!!) other than that most are happy to help as they want your return trade - they help you out now and I'm guessing you'll check out their site in the future should you want to buy anything else.

[Johnny Ray]

All fixed. I got a hold of a P4 1.5 GHz socket 478. The BIOS that shipped with the board was 1004. Flashed it with no problems to v1005. It was a little strange getting it up and going (didn't like ANY video card!), but now it's all fine. The 2 GHz is running at 2.2 GHz without even really pushing it. Even went ahead and installed XPpro.

Thanks again for the help.

John

[Paulr]

Excellent!
Really pleased to hear you are up and running with one of those cool (but expensive ) Northwood CPU's.
Now, go get some 3DMark2001 scores on it.