What the heck is wrong with this Shuttle?

[badger]

Specs:
Shuttle XP38P2 Pro
Intel E8200
4GB Corsair DDR2
HIS 3870 XT
750GB WD HDD

It starts up and all hardware is detected. Immediately though the DVD drive begins spinning up and down, constantly, like it’s trying to read a disc. It never comes up with 'Boot from CD...' and eventually just continues trying to load from the hard disk after a few minutes.
I initially thought it was the optical drive so I swapped it out for another IDE DVD drive. Same result. I then changed it to a SATA DVD and got exactly the same thing, except that now it does actually say ‘Boot From CD’. Only trouble is it just hangs there, with the drive constantly spinning up and trying to read the disc. I’ve tried different combinations of hard drives and DVD drives and changed the IDE legacy setting, all with exactly the same result. It only does it when there is a disc in the drive, without a disc the drive doesn't make any unusual noises.

With a SATA drive it goes weird after ‘Verifying DMI Pool Data’. If there’s a disc in the drive it does the usual spin-up/spin-down, but if there’s no disc or I remove the disc, it fills the screen with ‘01’.

Have now swapped out every component but the CPU. Temps are normal, processor is detected correctly, I can't see anything that's obviously wrong. I'm totally stumped. Have posted on Sudhian as well, but got no reply yet. Can anyone help?

[Main]

Have you checked the boot priority in the bios? If the optical drive is set higher than the hard drive it's probably checking the discs for boot data.

[badger]

Yeah, the DVD drive is the first boot device, then the hard disk, so I can install Windows.
I tried it the other way and it makes no difference, except that it doesn't hang at the DMI message, just goes straight into booting the hard drive.

The drive starts trying to read the disc and makes that constant chugging noise the moment the disc goes in, even when it shouldn't be trying to access anything.

[Main]

Well all I can say is this seems normal, bar the SATA drive not working properly, that seems like a definate bug. It would be worth looking for other instances, checking the compatability lists or raising the issue with Shuttle.

If you have the optical drive set as the first boot device it will check for a disc and check any disc for boot data every time you boot up, switching it to something other than first device will stop that. If you don't see the message that it's looking for a boot disc then it may just be completing the check quickly. You only really need to set the boot priority like that when you intend to boot off a disc, so you can just set it like that when you need it.

Other than that, pretty much every optical drive out there will do a status check on startup, you might just have noisy models.

[badger]

Yeah I realise that, but the problem is I don't have an OS on there and it's not booting off the disc. I'm putting a Windows CD in there and it doesn't pick it up, it never asks if I want to boot from the CD. Just does the strange chugging thing and tries to boot the hard drive.

[Main]

Oh...that sounds like trouble reading the disc, if it's giving up then that seems to indicate it hasn't found any boot data...do you know if it works in other machines?

[badger]

Yup, for sure. It's an official Windows CD, works just fine in other systems.

[Main]

Well I'm stumped...

Only things I can think of is to the set the bios to defaults, set the boot prioity and see what happens, just in case this is a missed setting somewhere. Other than that try getting your hands on any other bootable CDs/DVDs you have, doesn't really matter what - if you have a CD burner grab memtest86 and try that since it's small so it won't take long to download - if it can't boot anything it looks like RMA time for something

Oh yeah, if you happen to have a usb optical drive available, try that too...

Last ditch effort would be to transplant a pre-installed OS and see if it can boot, but the point is it shouldn't need you to do this if everything works properly.

[badger]

I borrowed a friend's XPC SP35P2 Pro and put my components inside. EXACTLY the same behaviour. No boot from CD option, drive spins up and down constantly. Could it be a faulty CPU?

[Main]

Hmmm...does now sound like at least one of your components is damaged/isn't happy...but it could also be a compatability issue. The only way to really identify a troublemaker would be to swap your components, one at a time, into a system that you know works. Also when you test ram, test sticks individually and in combinations.

[badger]

Now I'm seeing some new behavior - the memory test at POST goes on forever. It counts WAY past 2GB then resets and does it again. Tried several different memory modules.

[dangel]

i had two shuttles die on me - both times the bios just went mental

I've stopped buying them now.

[peterb]

Unlikely to be a faulty CPU, but could be a fault on the memory controller (or even a damaged track on tyhe mobo) as it looks (from what you have said) that the memory isn't being addressed correctly. It could also be a faulty memory stick - have you done any memory tests - either on that machine, or by putting it into another one?

[badger]

But this problem is occurring on two different Shuttles. What are the chances that the mobo is damaged on both? I've now replaced every single part, with no change. Just can't figure it out.

[Grey M@a]

I had this issue with the DVD Drive not picking up on boot and reading through the sudhian forums its down to the bios being set as raid and running a sata dvd drive at the same time.

If you are not running raid and sata dvd drive them I am uncertain as to the problem. I have the same shuttle as you with a 8800GTS512mb card in and the only issue I had with that was the dvi cable not producing an image as startup and causiing the shuttle to hang so went back to vga.

I had to drop the sata to IDE instead of raid and then build the system and create the raid through the intel matrix manager.

Badger, you aren't bananaphone on the sudhian forums by any chance are you as there is a post with the same spec and issue

Give them atleast a week to get round answering the question as they are slow on the reply front on there.

[badger]

No, no RAID, just a single drive and the DVD drive is IDE.

I'm on the verge of selling it all, but I really wanted a PC under the telly!