New Build.... Reboot Issue...hecksum error & no keyboard.

[KarenMarie]

This will be a longwinded post, but I want to be clear and thorough in the problem. Please bear with me and I apologize in advance for the length.

I have been building a new system that has me pulling my hair out. I have been over everything about a dozen times, and cannot figure out what is wrong. The system would not reboot. It would POST just fine, but when trying to reset BIOS, I hit F10 and the powers goes off and on, then no reboot. There is no post or anything. All the fans are spinning and everything seems to power up, then NOTHING! The hard drive is brand new and when I try to load an OS, it gets as far as "your system will restart to continue installation" and then just does nothing. no post, nothing. OS has never been fully installed and system has never been fully up and running.

I figured I would upgrade the BIOS, and now I have NO mouse, NO Keyboard and when the system starts, it posts and runs thru detection and now gives me a checksum error and tells me to hit F1, which I cannot do without a keyboard.

Here is the system

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (brand new)
Linksys wireless router, and NIC and Linksys cable modem (brand new)
Sky7hawk 420W power supply (working pull)


Gigabyte GA-7nnxp (brand new)
http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...ts_GA-7NNXP.htm

Western Digital 120GB Hard Drive (brand new)
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=27

Kingston 512 DDR400 (two) (brand new)
http://www.valueram.com/config/part...VR400X64C25/512

PNY GeForceFX 5200 Ultra graphics card (working pull)
http://www.pny.com/products/verto/g...x/5200ultra.asp

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX (working pull)
http://www.americas.creative.com/pr...asp?product=132

Floppy, DVD, CD RW (all working pulls)

I have carefuly checked, and there are no broken or bent pins anywhere and all cable, ribbons and jumpers are correct. I have checked and rechecked... well everything seems to be fine. The system posts and all info on graphics card, RAM, HD, CD, DVD.. etc. I showing on the screen. But the system would 'halt on reboot', and I had to manually turn the system off and back on... which prohibited me from changing the advanced BIOS settings, and installing an OS. I am thinking there is a 'halt on' setting in the BIOS that is keeping it from rebooting properly, but now I cannot change the settings.

Bcuz after upgrading the BIOS ... well, now I have NO mouse or Keyboard.

Please help.....

Thanks in advance,
KarenMarie

[KarenMarie]

sThis will be a longwinded post, but I want to be clear and thorough in the problem. Please bear with me and I apologize in advance for the length.

I have been building a new system that has me pulling my hair out. I have been over everything about a dozen times, and cannot figure out what is wrong. The system would not reboot. It would POST just fine, but when trying to reset BIOS, I hit F10 and the powers goes off and on, then no reboot. There is no post or anything. All the fans are spinning and everything seems to power up, then NOTHING! The hard drive is brand new and when I try to load an OS, it gets as far as having to restart and then just does nothing. no post, nothing. OS has never been fully installed and system has never been fully up and running.

I figured I would upgrade the BIOS, and now I have NO mouse, NO Keyboard and when the system starts, it posts and runs thru detection and now gives me a checksum error and tells me to hit F1, which I cannot do without a keyboard.

Here is the system

AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (brand new)
Linksys wireless router, and NIC and Linksys cable modem (brand new)
Sky7hawk 420W power supply (working pull)


Gigabyte GA-7nnxp (brand new)
http://tw.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard...ts_GA-7NNXP.htm

Western Digital 120GB Hard Drive (brand new)
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?DriveID=27

Kingston 512 DDR400 (two) (brand new)
http://www.valueram.com/config/part...VR400X64C25/512

PNY GeForceFX 5200 Ultra graphics card (working pull)
http://www.pny.com/products/verto/g...x/5200ultra.asp

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum EX (working pull)
http://www.americas.creative.com/pr...asp?product=132

Floppy, DVD, CD RW (all working pulls)

I have carefuly checked, and there are no broken or bent pins anywhere and all cable, ribbons and jumpers are correct. I have checked and rechecked... well everything seems to be fine. The system posts and all info on graphics card, RAM, HD, CD, DVD.. etc. I showing on the screen. But the system would 'halt on reboot', and I had to manually turn the system off and back on... which prohibited me from changing the advanced BIOS settings, and installing an OS. I am thinking there is a 'halt on' setting in the BIOS that is keeping it from rebooting properly, but now I cannot change the settings.

Bcuz I upgraded the BIOS, and.... well, now I have NO mouse or Keyboard.

Please help.....

Thanks in advance,
KarenMarie

[SiliconJon]

I hate when this happens. It sounds like either your mouse and/or keyboard is toast, or your PS/2 ports have fried. Beg/Borrow/[cough]steal a pair or two [mouse/keyboard] from someone to try and get one of them to work. Also try plugging in one at a time (mouse/keyboard). If switching these around does not get any recognition, it would sound like your PS/2 ports are toast. If you can get a USB keyboard or USB/PS2 adapter, you can try getting it to recognize, as you may get lucky and the CMOS was set to recognize legacy through your USB ports. If you know your USB ports didn't have Legacy support enabled, you can save yourself the time by not trying a USB keyboard or mouse. [looking at the manual for that board, the default setting for legacy-mouse-keyboard USB support is disabled, so unless you changed it, you're not likely to get that to work]

As for the Halt-On settings, those won't keep your board from posting or soft rebooting, but what they will do is stop your boot on it's first screen and show you the error on the bottom of the screen as to why it stopped booting. This is for non-fatal errors, and it sounds like yours is either fatal or a cmos configuration.

You could also try resetting the CMOS, though it has been reset as when you flash the BIOS, the CMOS is set to the defaults of the new BIOS. But, it's worth a shot since it's easy to do.

If none of this remedies the problem, you could do the ultra-fun task of removing all the non-essential components and try booting. It may also be possible there's an IRQ conflict, though you would usually get an error message upon booting if that were the case (though it doesn't always tell you). Removing devices such as your sound card, NIC, and changing your video card can change/free designated IRQ's that your new bios may have mismanaged.

[KarenMarie]

I do not have the sound card, or NIC card or any non essential parts in the system. I am going with RAM, Graphics Cards, Floppy, DVD, CD. the POST reconizes all of these without a problem.

I have built a dozen or so systems before this, and have spare parts everywhere. I have tried a different PS/2 keyboard and that did not work either. The only USB keyboards I have are wireless, so they will not work until I get the drivers for them loaded. Since I canot get passed the Checksum error without a keyboard, I will try to get a hold of an adapter.

thanks so much for taking the time to try to help me.

[SiliconJon]

Doesn't sound good for the PS2 port. I did forget to mention you shouldn't hot swap PS2 devices. Change them when the PC is not on. I know, I had done this many of times without a problem, and you can get away with it many times before it bites you. But one day I did it on an old P2 machine, and wouldn't ya know it, the ports blew...no more mouse & keyboard, had to swap the motherboard because I couldn't enable legacy support without a keyboard! DOH!

PS, the more longwinded the technical support post, the better

[KarenMarie]

siliconjon,

thans for letting me know. i will just send it back. It is less that 10 days old, and I already got a a RMA number from GoogleGear.com wher eI bought it. They want 5-10 business days just to test it before trying to make repairs or replace it. I was hoping Iwould get it fixed before then.

I am a BIG kid and was very excited about this system so was hoping (against my better common sense) that there was a magic fix that someone knew about so I did not have to wait longer.

The board will go back tomorrow.

I will say however....

this is the nicest board Ihave ever posted to. Everyone was so nice and helpful. I appreciate it very much.

KarenMarie

[SPEEDO]

If you did upgrade the bios and that is what messed it up they may catch it.

Welcome to TIMO KarenMarie......................

That name sounds familiar for some reason.................

[KarenMarie]

HA! I have been on the internet for over a dozen years. The Superhighway was only two lanes back then..

I have had this nick since then... one FreeTel, ICQ, mIRC, PowWow and a few others. But with the growth and popularity of the internet, the name is sometimes taken by the time I get around to signing up for something. Then you will see me as KarenMarie1963.

thanks so much for the warm welcome.

Hey... I think I like this place!!

[SiliconJon]

Yes, welcome aboard KarenMarie!

After you get that machine running for a while, review your parts in the review section here!

http://www.techimo.com/reviews/

and also be sure to rate googlegear [aka ZipZoomFly] at TechIMO's other half: http://resellerratings.com/