3 motherboards with the same fault ?

[Pussywillow]

I have 3 motherboards all exactly the same. Thought I'd test them, using my test rigs components that I know work.

Motherboards : Gigabyte 7NF-RZ Socket A (AMD) X 3

400WPSU
ATI 3D Rage PCI card
Athon XP 1700 with Thermaltake heatsink/fan
Samsung 40GB HDD
2 x 128mb DDR RAM
Front panel kit (switches etc)

I am doing the old out of the case test with PSU, CPU, mobo, Graphics card, HDD and RAM. I know all of the above (bar the mobo of course) are sound.

Power on looks promising.

I get a beep from the front panel speaker switch, keyboard flash, HDD LED light and the ATI logo followed by memory test (which can be skipped by pressing escape) and the usual invitation to press delete for SetUp/Q-Flash or F9 for Xpress Recovery (whatever that is). It shows the mobo model number, the CPU : AMD Athlon @ 1250mhz (wrongly) and the CPU ID : 0662.

However nothing happens. It just hangs there. Until I power off.

I have tried pressing delete on power up all it does is the same thing except it says 'Prepare to enter setup'. And just hangs at that point. I turn it off.

My conclusion is that the BIOS is shot.

But on 3 identical motherboards ? Surely not ?

Am I doing something wrong on my test ?

Could the learned folk in here please let me know if I am doing something wrong here?

Thanks, any help appreciated as always..

[mjc]

Reset the CMOS...jumper and battery pull. While you are at it, replace said battery.

[Pussywillow]

Thanks mjc I'll try that, but have a suspision they are all faulty. Gigabyte seem to have a poor track record of reliability on boards.

[squarenuts]

If you can enter the BIOS, see what is set as your first boot is set to.

[Pussywillow]

If you can enter the BIOS, see what is set as your first boot is set to.

Ah if only it would get that far.

I think it's the memory. There was a note in the manual that said that 400mhz RAM would only work after BIOS adjustment.

Going to order another stick of PC2100 and see if it likes that.

[Pussywillow]

Ah if only it would get that far.

I think it's the memory. There was a note in the manual that said that 400mhz RAM would only work after BIOS adjustment.

Going to order another stick of PC2100 and see if it likes that.

I was right, it was the stick of memory I had in there. Thanks to all who helped with this.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

In your first post you did not mention the speed of your RAM. I assumed the RAM was OK and compatible at some point by the way you described the situation.

Had we known the speed of the RAM we may have noticed, because for one, I also have an ASUS with the same BIOS update needs to be able to utilize DDR400 RAM. I am using pc2700 (DDR333) in it instead of pc3200 which is the DDR400 because at the time of purchase it was cheaper.

You got it fixed though, and that's all that matters :)