IC7-Max3 Problem

Hi folks. I hope someone in here can help me. I just received an IC7-
Max3 motherboard. I've hooked it all up. I'm running a P4 3.0e (not
overclocked), 1 gig of ram, geforce 6800gt, and a 400gb sata.

I've already flashed it to the latest bios which is 18 I believe and
it fires up fine. However, i get a cpu is unworkable or has changed
error and it won't go away. I haven't changed any of the bios settings
at all and the cpu looks fine from here.

so after i hit f1 to just get through it, i get the windows xp boot
page, a couple of bars go by and then the screen goes blank and
everything stops. no harddrive activity, nothing. so then i reboot, go
into safe mode, see a few files go by as their loaded and then it
grinds to a halt again...

not sure what is going on, but i thought maybe some of you have
encountered such a problem and have a fix for it... thanks for any
help you can give to me...

"Methadras" wrote in message...
Hi folks. I hope someone in here can help me. I just received an
IC7- Max3 motherboard. I've hooked it all up. I'm running a
P4 3.0e (not overclocked), 1 gig of ram, geforce 6800gt, and
a 400gb sata.

I've already flashed it to the latest bios which is 18 I believe
and it fires up fine. However, i get a cpu is unworkable or has
changed error

This is normal after clearing the CMOS (which the flasher does automatically
when updating the BIOS) or removing/re-inserting a CPU.

and it won't go away.

You have to dip into the BIOS, go into the Softmenu, confirm the settings
(even if you are running everything at default speed), save the settings and
exit the BIOS to make this go away. Have you done this?

I haven't changed any of the bios settings at all

You just said you flashed to a new BIOS. As such, you *have* changed the
BIOS settings - the flasher wiped them during the update. You should also
use the CMOS reset jumper to make sure it is fully cleared prior to setting
it up fully again.

and the cpu looks fine from here.

It's a Prescott, which means it's not fine, it's a POS, but I digress...

so after i hit f1 to just get through it, i get the windows xp
boot page, a couple of bars go by and then the screen goes
blank and everything stops. no harddrive activity, nothing.

It is unclear what exactly you have done here. You say you have just
"received" this board. did you receive it along with the hard disk, which
already had Windows installed on it? Or, alternatively, did you already have
the other parts of the system and have just swapped the board in to replace
an old one? Have you already freshly installed Windows on this board, or are
you trying to re-use an existing installation from an older hardware
combination?

If the latter, then you wouldn't expect XP to boot, due to the changes in
hardware breaking the hardware abstraction layer. In this case you need to
go through a partial, or full XP reinstall in order to get the correct HAL
and critical boot device setup.

not sure what is going on,

Neither are we at this point as you haven't given us sufficient information
for us to understand fully what the situation at your end is. However, the
above should give you some pointers going forward.

Follow the process I suggested to clear the "CPU is unworkable..." error and
check this goes away. If it does not, there may be a physical problem with
the hardware somewhere.

When you set the BIOS back up, try setting the vDIMM at 2.6 or 2.7 volts, as
memory in dual channel mode often needs a little more than the default 2.5
to work stably.

From there on, if you are trying to re-use an existing Windows installation
that was originally made for another board, this is likely to explain your
non-boot. As such you will need to conduct either a full or "repair" install
to get it up and running.

If you're still stuck, giving us a little more info on exactly what you have
and what you've done so far would help us to help you.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

On Feb 24, 6:49 pm, "Richard Hopkins" wrote:
"Methadras" wrote in message...
Hi folks. I hope someone in here can help me. I just received an
IC7- Max3 motherboard. I've hooked it all up. I'm running a
P4 3.0e (not overclocked), 1 gig of ram, geforce 6800gt, and
a 400gb sata.

I've already flashed it to the latest bios which is 18 I believe
and it fires up fine. However, i get a cpu is unworkable or has
changed error

This is normal after clearing the CMOS (which the flasher does automatically
when updating the BIOS) or removing/re-inserting a CPU.

and it won't go away.

You have to dip into the BIOS, go into the Softmenu, confirm the settings
(even if you are running everything at default speed), save the settings and
exit the BIOS to make this go away. Have you done this?

I haven't changed any of the bios settings at all

You just said you flashed to a new BIOS. As such, you *have* changed the
BIOS settings - the flasher wiped them during the update. You should also
use the CMOS reset jumper to make sure it is fully cleared prior to setting
it up fully again.

and the cpu looks fine from here.

It's a Prescott, which means it's not fine, it's a POS, but I digress...

so after i hit f1 to just get through it, i get the windows xp
boot page, a couple of bars go by and then the screen goes
blank and everything stops. no harddrive activity, nothing.

It is unclear what exactly you have done here. You say you have just
"received" this board. did you receive it along with the hard disk, which
already had Windows installed on it? Or, alternatively, did you already have
the other parts of the system and have just swapped the board in to replace
an old one? Have you already freshly installed Windows on this board, or are
you trying to re-use an existing installation from an older hardware
combination?

If the latter, then you wouldn't expect XP to boot, due to the changes in
hardware breaking the hardware abstraction layer. In this case you need to
go through a partial, or full XP reinstall in order to get the correct HAL
and critical boot device setup.

not sure what is going on,

Neither are we at this point as you haven't given us sufficient information
for us to understand fully what the situation at your end is. However, the
above should give you some pointers going forward.

Follow the process I suggested to clear the "CPU is unworkable..." error and
check this goes away. If it does not, there may be a physical problem with
the hardware somewhere.

When you set the BIOS back up, try setting the vDIMM at 2.6 or 2.7 volts, as
memory in dual channel mode often needs a little more than the default 2.5
to work stably.

From there on, if you are trying to re-use an existing Windows installation
that was originally made for another board, this is likely to explain your
non-boot. As such you will need to conduct either a full or "repair" install
to get it up and running.

If you're still stuck, giving us a little more info on exactly what you have
and what you've done so far would help us to help you.
--

Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

sorry it took so long to get back to you... i decided to do a little
investigating on what my problem was so i dismantled the whole set up
and started from scratch. When i did that, i found that the cpu had
one bent pin, so i unbent it carefully and put it back, used the video
card, one stick of ram, and one hard drive and fired it up. the cpu is
unworkable message is gone now, but i still can't load windows. It
gets to the bootup screen and then stops. Even if i load a fresh copy
of xp, it still does the same thing. I'm starting to guess that it's
either the AGP slot or the onboard sata controller that is either not
working right or has gone bad. I can see video, but not high res
video, i've tried different cards now and all the same thing. I've
tried straight ide hard drives and still the same stoppage. I think
this board is just bad and i'll see about getting another one, if i
can.

or i can send this board to abit and have them rework it for a fee.
not sure which will be cheaper... i've basically duplicated everything
you've illustrated but to no avail... any other ideas?