A7N8X-E Deluxe doesn't boot with PCI card...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Cowan
  • Start date Start date
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Dave Cowan

Hi All,

Just replaced the mobo in my system with this board. All I've got
plugged in at the moment is the CPU (Athlon XP 2400), gfx card (Asus
V9520) and 512M Corsair RAM. Everything's fine, POST completes and the
system goes happily through to the BIOS screen.

Now, as soon as I plug in a PCI card into any of the slots, it fails to
boot up. Monitor stays in power down mode, no POST screen, nothing.
I've checked the voltages on the main ATX connector - all up & fine.
I've tried a PCI sound card and a PCI network card in all 5 slots, to no
avail. Yet as soon as I remove the card, it boots up to the BIOS screen
again.

I've updated the BIOS to the latest on the ASUS website (1013). No change.

I suspect I've got a faulty board with an electrical problem on the PCI
bus, but I thought I'd check first to see if anyone's seen similar
behaviour?

TIA,

Dave
 
Hunh...havin' fits meself. Wonderin' if bad batch of a7n8x-e deluxes....?
Anything in bios about pci slots not turned on? I can't even get to bios.
Can these be upgraded with new bios if can't get to bios screen?
Sorry can't be more help. It's perplexing...
 
I suspect I've got a faulty board with an electrical problem on the PCI
bus, but I thought I'd check first to see if anyone's seen similar
behaviour?
Click to expand...

Yes... with a faulty network card. Do you have another PCI card that is
known good (or is this one known to work in another machine), 'cos it
might be busted.
 
Dave Cowan said:
Hi All,

Just replaced the mobo in my system with this board. All I've got
plugged in at the moment is the CPU (Athlon XP 2400), gfx card (Asus
V9520) and 512M Corsair RAM. Everything's fine, POST completes and the
system goes happily through to the BIOS screen.

Now, as soon as I plug in a PCI card into any of the slots, it fails to
boot up. Monitor stays in power down mode, no POST screen, nothing.
I've checked the voltages on the main ATX connector - all up & fine.
I've tried a PCI sound card and a PCI network card in all 5 slots, to no
avail. Yet as soon as I remove the card, it boots up to the BIOS screen
again.

I've updated the BIOS to the latest on the ASUS website (1013). No change.

I suspect I've got a faulty board with an electrical problem on the PCI
bus, but I thought I'd check first to see if anyone's seen similar
behaviour?

TIA,

Dave
Click to expand...

You could also test the motherboard, outside the computer case.
Just to make sure nothing is shorting to the bottom of the board.

If the PCI bus was really busted, onboard peripherals would fail
to work as well. Test the onboard peripherals. If they carry out
their function, there is more to this than meets the eye. Could
be your plugin PCI cards are duff ?

It is possible for a PCI card to stuff up the BIOS. If the BIOS
doesn't understand the info stored in the config space of the
PCI device, it might fail to finish POST (crash). The BIOS wants
that info, in order to assign resources at POST time. Some really
old boards seemed to have problems like that. But since you've
tried two different cards, and they are "easy" types, that is
not likely to be the problem. Listen for any "Vocal POST" error
messages on the Lineout connector - connect amplified speakers
to Lineout and listen for a message at POST. The Vocal POST
error messages come out of the green Lineout connector on the
back of the computer, even if you are using a sound card. The
audio signal is hard-wired to that connector, and that connector
only - the audio voice message signal is not under software's
control and cannot be reassigned to a sound card.

Paul
 
Ah yes! I'd forgotten the PCI bus connects to other devices besides the
five slots.

Great idea running the board outside the case - thanks Paul. When I did
that, it turns out that it boots fine with or without a PCI card. So,
looks like one of the rails was shorting to the chassis and the action
of plugging in a PCI card caused it to short to the PCI card back panel.
Time to dig out my multimeter...

I'll attempt to re-fit the board into its case and report back how it goes.

Cheers,
Dave

ps. Clarity - you getting anywhere yet? It's a real pain when these
things don't work out of the box isn't it?!! I don't suppose it's
exactly the same problem, but maybe it's worth trying your board out of
its chassis as well - gotta be worth a go.
 
This board has 2 onboard network devices. One, 10/100 and one giganet. Is
there any particular reason you would need to use a PCI network card with
these two network devices? If you do, then you have to disable the other two
network devices in the BIOS. The setting is located in the BIOS in the
Advanced\IntergratedPeripherals\OnboardLan(nVidia). The default setting is
"Auto", the Manual setting is "Disabled". Hope this helps.
 
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