upgraded compy won't get past POST/BIOS - Overclock.net

grizz · 03-01-08

I posted this already at fpsbanana.com but was told that i'd probably get more help here. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I just registered today

Alright
well I upgraded my computer, but it's being a little punk and not wanting to work.

First off, the motherboard, which I RMA'd and was repaired, made a high pitched chirping noise. It was coming from this little silver thing next to the chipset. My mobo is a DFI nforce4 sli-m2. So i connected my hard drive to the motherboard and started it up. It bluescreened after getting to the windows load screen. I thought, ok, it's missing a file or something I'll just reinstall. So I did, but my drive names got changed (all my files, which used to be on F:\ is now on C:\ and my OS which used to be named C:\, is now on D:\) I thought that'd be no big deal, I'll just reinstall everything so the path names would be changed.

I then proceeded to install all of my drivers. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly but then my nvidia network access manager refused to install. This forced me to restart several times and for some reason my grace period of 30 days to activate windows got expired in about 20 minutes. So, I formatted D, (where windows was installed) and reinstalled professional. I got the network access manager up and running and activated windows. But then, after getting updated from microsoft (it seemed to be installing two copies of the updates), it subsequently crashed and refused to go to the windows loading screen.

I was getting extremely pissed off at this point. I booted from the CD and had windows repaired. It booted up to the login screen but still prompted me to activate my copy of windows. Since my internet usually only works if I go to command prompt and do ipconfig /renew, I couldn't activate it over the internet. So I called microsoft and got it activated over the phone. Everything was working except I couldn't get to the microsoft update page. i.e. it refused to load. I could load msn.com and google, but update.microsoft.com did not want to work. So I figured after a restart it'd work. So before I did that, I installed my graphics card drivers for my 8800gt. I restarted, and again, it refuses to go to the windows load screen. After POSTing and doing the BIOS crap, it says "verifying DMI Pool Data... K8 NPT Data Change... Update new data to DMI!"
and then 5 seconds pass and it says
"Missing NTLDR, press ctrl alt del to restart"
and everytime I do that now, it gives me that message.

help, please? I've been waiting for three weeks to use my new computer but now it's giving me all this crap to deal with.

Specs:
mobo: DFI Infiinity nforce4 sli-m2
CPU: AMD x2 5000+ black edition 2.6 ghz
Graphics: xfx 8800gt 512mb
RAM: Corsair valueram 2x512 533 mhz
HDD: WDC 250gb

I'm thinking that it's my motherboard cause the BIOS is all sorts of messed up.

To clear some things up:
My motherboard was damaged (static through the power button?) and I had to rma it to DFI. The problem was that the mobo wouldn't POST at all. After repairing it and sending it back, my motherboard would make a high pitched chirping noise which happens when the CMOS battery is plugged in or the motherboard has any power going through it. It's not making the noise right now but it's really aggravating, on top of the entirely too loud fan on my 8800.
My internet works sporadically, even before I upgraded my computer. I would always have to go into the command prompt to renew my ip address because it sometimes wouldn't get one automatically. It might be a router issue or it could be the cable modem, but I'm not entirely too concerned about that right now.

Thanks for reading my way too long post :P
Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated.

**grunion** · 03-01-08

Clear cmos yet?

ian209 · 03-01-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by grizz

I posted this already at fpsbanana.com but was told that i'd probably get more help here. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I just registered today

Alright
well I upgraded my computer, but it's being a little punk and not wanting to work.

First off, the motherboard, which I RMA'd and was repaired, made a high pitched chirping noise. It was coming from this little silver thing next to the chipset. My mobo is a DFI nforce4 sli-m2. So i connected my hard drive to the motherboard and started it up. It bluescreened after getting to the windows load screen. I thought, ok, it's missing a file or something I'll just reinstall. So I did, but my drive names got changed (all my files, which used to be on F: is now on C: and my OS which used to be named C:, is now on D

I thought that'd be no big deal, I'll just reinstall everything so the path names would be changed.

I then proceeded to install all of my drivers. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly but then my nvidia network access manager refused to install. This forced me to restart several times and for some reason my grace period of 30 days to activate windows got expired in about 20 minutes. So, I formatted D, (where windows was installed) and reinstalled professional. I got the network access manager up and running and activated windows. But then, after getting updated from microsoft (it seemed to be installing two copies of the updates), it subsequently crashed and refused to go to the windows loading screen.

I was getting extremely pissed off at this point. I booted from the CD and had windows repaired. It booted up to the login screen but still prompted me to activate my copy of windows. Since my internet usually only works if I go to command prompt and do ipconfig /renew, I couldn't activate it over the internet. So I called microsoft and got it activated over the phone. Everything was working except I couldn't get to the microsoft update page. i.e. it refused to load. I could load msn.com and google, but update.microsoft.com did not want to work. So I figured after a restart it'd work. So before I did that, I installed my graphics card drivers for my 8800gt. I restarted, and again, it refuses to go to the windows load screen. After POSTing and doing the BIOS crap, it says "verifying DMI Pool Data... K8 NPT Data Change... Update new data to DMI!"
and then 5 seconds pass and it says
"Missing NTLDR, press ctrl alt del to restart"
and everytime I do that now, it gives me that message.

help, please? I've been waiting for three weeks to use my new computer but now it's giving me all this crap to deal with.

Specs:
mobo: DFI Infiinity nforce4 sli-m2
CPU: AMD x2 5000+ black edition 2.6 ghz
Graphics: xfx 8800gt 512mb
RAM: Corsair valueram 2x512 533 mhz
HDD: WDC 250gb

I'm thinking that it's my motherboard cause the BIOS is all sorts of messed up.

To clear some things up:
My motherboard was damaged (static through the power button?) and I had to rma it to DFI. The problem was that the mobo wouldn't POST at all. After repairing it and sending it back, my motherboard would make a high pitched chirping noise which happens when the CMOS battery is plugged in or the motherboard has any power going through it. It's not making the noise right now but it's really aggravating, on top of the entirely too loud fan on my 8800.
My internet works sporadically, even before I upgraded my computer. I would always have to go into the command prompt to renew my ip address because it sometimes wouldn't get one automatically. It might be a router issue or it could be the cable modem, but I'm not entirely too concerned about that right now.

Thanks for reading my way too long post :P
Any help or suggestions is very much appreciated.

make sure you're booting from the right Hard Drive (Check in ure bios boot settings). If u're absolutely sure u've got the right HDD, than it's probably a corrupt HDD or u didnt install windows on the HDD. Reinstall windows if that's the case.
ALSO, MAKE SURE (IF youre overclocking) That it is 100% stable. (Use orthos/prime95 to test). Im talking like 12hrs+ of orthos/prime95. And also, run a memtest to see if you're ram is corrupted or not.

battlenut · 03-01-08

the same thing happened to me when I updated vista this last time. Both my desktop and my laptop. first one then the other. Had to do system restore from vista dvd just to get my puters working. Really strange in my opinion.

grizz · 03-01-08

Pretty sure I cleared the CMOS. That was the only thing i could think of at first that would stop that noise from my mobo.
ian209: I've only got one hard drive and I'm pretty sure the boot priority is set to hard drive.
I was also given this site: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm
Any of those look like good things to do? The one where you copy over the ntldr seems to be promising...
I'll check all of these solutions later.

Also
is there any way to rename a hard drive that's labeled as a system drive/boot drive? I wanna rename my files partition to F:\ like i had it before and my boot partition to C:\. Like I said in my first post, they were renamed during my first reinstall of windows.
Could that be an issue? Could the BIOS be looking for boot info in C:\ when it's really in D:\?

Thanks for all the help so far.

grizz · 03-02-08

sorry for the double post but i have an update.

I did a clean reinstall (formatted the partition and installed it) and everything seemed to be going ok.
I installed my nforce drivers without too much issue (the network drivers didn't install at first but on the second try they did) and the display drivers installed with no issue.
I activated windows and went to update.microsoft.com to get all the updates. I got the update software and restarted, no problem. I went back and got the first batch of security updates and whatnot. It told me to restart, and i did, but now it won't get past the POST/BIOS screens, again. Except now, it's not saying it's missing any files. It just says the whole DMI bit.

So would this be an OS issue or a BIOS issue?
I didn't see in the list of updates anything that mentioned any service packs. Would that have been updated after that first batch? My gut feeling is that windows won't start up because it installed updates that were meant for SP2 but it's running XP pro that's out of the box.

What do y'all think?

jameskelsey · 03-02-08

If your MB was damage by something I would run Memtest and get the DOS utility for your HDD and test them.You might want to test your PSU too.Your MB might not been the only thing damaged.

grizz · 03-02-08

How would I go about doing those things?

jameskelsey · 03-02-08

The best way is to run the DOS version on a floppy drive for memtest and HDD
The PSU you would need a multi meter or they sell PSU testers.
Check your voltage readings in the BIOS.

http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=2
http://www.memtest.org/

grizz · 03-02-08

crud
that means i'll have to grab a floppy drive from one of my old computers, and then search my house for a floppy disk :P

		Overclock.net - Overclocking.net > AMD > AMD Motherboards > AMD BIOS
upgraded compy won't get past POST/BIOS

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)