9800Se AIW Probs

[Lexeus]

Hi,
I recieved my 9800Se AIW from evesham today. I fitted it, forgot the PSU connector, powered it up and got a constant beep and message saying you forgotten to connect your 9800 power connector. So I powered it down and connected the connector. But now the system wont boot. When i press the power button it just goes on and off stright away, just enough time for the power LED to flash.
I thought what you are probably thinking, overloaded the PSU, need a new one. I do have 10 fans in the case as well as 2 Hdd and a combo drive.
I know i only have a ebuyer 400W PSU, but it has been fine in the past But then I tried disconnecting everything else in the computer, including the 4 pin mobo connector, and still same thing. I even tried connecting the floppy PSU connector from another comp with a 300w PSU and powering them up togethor, but still same thing happened.
After I try and power it and it does its thing, I then usualy have to atleast switch PSU off at the back, and back on, to get it to power on and off again, or replug the PSU.

Any ideas guys ? willing to try anything, I really dont want to have to buy a new PSU, expecially if that isn't the problem .... and no I dont have any higher rated or other branded 400W PSU

[luke313]

You tried unplugging the 9800se and putting in whatever you had before that back in?? Then you'll know that its definately a problem associated with the 9800se.

[Lexeus]

do i have to ????
I just been on the floor for a couple of hours
I will if I can face it, im pretty sure it will work the same as before though, as I can still get the 'you have not connected the 9800 power connector' message if i dont connect it.

[Austin]

As said try putting your previous (old) gfx card in just to check it can boot. If all is good then it's something to do with the gfx card ... demanding too much current? Perhaps compatibility probs with mobo? A fault with the card itself? Try reseating the 9800SE, try using a different power lead, try pluggin it in another PC if you can. What's the rest of your setup?

[Lexeus]

my system is in the sig
As i said i already tried reseating the card
I am pretty sure it will still boot with the old card, and I will try the 9800SE in my other comp with a K7S5A mobo (would really piss me off if it worked with that and not my nforce2)
I will try the old one too in a min, just had my dinner so haven't tried yet, will tell you what happens soon, brb

EDIT: oh and one thing, this 9800SE AIW i got from evesham just came with all the AIW stuff and leads, no retail box, just a foam box, but what suprised me was that it had no power connector with it ? I thought that was standard ? or is it added by the manufacturers ? I had to use my one floppy connector on it, but only use my fdd for bios restore disks, there isn't anything on the adapter though is there ? its just a standard 4 pin molex connector to fdd connector right ?

[Lexeus]

something else i just thought of. Even though I have always considered my ebuyer 400W PSU decent enough the one thing I noticed was that even though the lower volt rails were fine and were always atleast above the rated values, the 12v rail usually rested around 11.5V could that be a problem ? It has never caused any probs in the past, and it could even just be the MSI software reporting it as that.... ?

[Lexeus]

ok....... thecard bootsfinein my old Asus a7v133-c mobo with cheap generic 300w PSU ......

[luke313]

Hmmmmm...you using the 3.8 cats??? If so I would try to delete them with you 9000pro in and replace them with an older version. A lot of people have had problems with the 3.8's so that may be what is causing it.

[Lexeus]

Cats are windows drivers .... they have no impact on what happens when you power on the system.

UPDATE: Ok I tried updating to the latest BIOS which they released about 10 days ago. No luck.

As I said it booted fine in my old system, so I tried the 300W PSU in my system and this time it stayed powered on but then just hung after the mem check and i couldn't get any further ?
Could that be because I had no 4 pin power conncetor connected to the mobo as the 300W doesn't have it ? Or lack of power ?

I then tried another generic 265W PSU i have and that just did the same thing as the first 400W PSU did.

So then i tried the 400W PSU in my old system with the card, and it booted fine.

What people think ?

Is it an incompatibility with the mobo ? was the 300W just able to get past the power on and get to the mem check but then the incompatibility caused it to hang, and the other PSU's just wouldnt work ... ?

Or is it the PSU ? and the 300 is just no good or is under powered and was just lucky to get further than the others ?

appreciate any responses

[Austin]

Maybe try BIOS settings at safer values, at least to see if it helps complete POST. Forcing AGP4x, disablingshadows & spectrum (always good anyway), ensuring IRQ is assigned, setting Aperture to 64MB, boot AGP first, resetting PnP etc. Rem to record any changes so you can revert back when necessary. If your PC happily boots up with the other gfx card in then you know you can discount things like RAM developing a fault or a card coming loose in your PC. That would mean it is something to do with your card whether it's power related, an incompatibility or something else.

TBH it is most likely your PSU, Wattage counts for little with generic PSUs, they are often 'optimistic' and make no assurances they can run a given wattage reliably in a long term situation. Unless you are on a very tight budget or the insides of your PC are worth little it makes a LOT of sense to protect your PC with a decent brand of PSU preferably with a decent Wattage. I'd point you to Scan who do CWT 350W (£25ish) and 450W (£35ish) as the best of the cheap alternatives. Other good brands are Antec, Enermax, ThermalTake, ToPower, S.Flower (TTGI) and Sparkle. A good branded 300-350W is surely better than all the PSUs you currently have even the '400W' one. It may not solve your problem but IS a good idea and helps you to eliminate the PSU from any problems present or future.

[Lexeus]

Where is the cheapest price to buy PSU's ?
I was looking at this one ...:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=43172
but its £45 without postage ... and I dont really want to spend more than £40.
The ideal solution would be to swap my Radeon 9000Pro for a £40 PSU any takers ?

[Austin]

Originally posted by Austin
I'd point you to Scan who do CWT 350W (£25ish) and 450W (£35ish) as the best of the cheap alternatives.

www.scan.co.uk . The CWT are believed to be rebadged Antecs, even if they aren't people have certainly found them great PSUs for a very cheap price. 450W is £35 so that's £43 inc P&P. Anything else you want from Scan? You could still sell your gfx card to help recoup most of the cost.

[Lexeus]

that looks like the best plan , hmm ...

[bertie]

I just got a QTEC 550W from ebuyer as i thought my 9800se needed more power, runs pretty quiet with 2 fans.

[Lexeus]

Have you had any probs with your 9800Se Bertie ? What mobo you using, Nf7-S ?
Becuase at the moment since it wont work at all in my K7N2 I am running it in my old A7v133-C, and now i have all the drivers installed the monitor goes on standby straight after the windows loading screen.

[Lexeus]

OK, things are just getting worse ...
I had one more suitable PSU i could try in my system, a 235W Sparkle PSU. It booted up as it did with the 300W generic, just hanging during the boot. So I thought i better check that the system was still working with my 400W PSU and original graphics cad, i stuck them all in, and it is hanging during boot as it does with the other PSU's with either of the graphics cards ...... oh dea. Is it just me or does it look like my mobo has been screwed whilst i have been trying different PSU's ?

According to the MSI D-panel the boot hangs on ' Assign Resources to all ISA' what exaclty is that ? At first it was hanging on 'Testing Base and Extended memory - Testing base memory from 240k to 640k and extended memory above 1mb using various patterns', but I reseated the RAM and it changed to the othe error. It alwys gives the other error now. Even if I dont put any graphics cad in it still hangs on the ' Assign resources to all ISA' .

Can anyone help ?