New build problems

John mac

Help!
a few weeks ago I took the plunge and ordered a new system.
abit ic7g mobo (komplett)
pentium 4 3.2 (komplett)
antec psu 430w (overclockers)
512mb ddr ram (shop4memory.com)
pioneer dvr ao7 (overclockers)
powercolor radon 9600 (komplett)

Had to get a new case from maplin (the new psu wouldnt fit the Gateway case)
I have an ibm hard drive 10 gig and a 120gb western digtal, currently running win me. this is an upgrade to win 98.
I put everything together and booted up. the ME splash screen appeared and then an error message appeared:- xxxhas caused exception fault in the kernell bla bla bla.
this appeared several times for differing things until the blue screen of death appeared.
I shut down and rebooted, the screen then reads "Award boot bios v1.0 c2000 award software.inc

---

Detecting floppy drive a media...
insert system disc and press enter.

---

on inserting the boot disk and pressing enter the message comes up

---

Drive media is 1.4 mb
automatic load Awdflash.exe
Error Awdflash.exe not found!!

---

from this screen nothing i do (including resetting ) does anything so shut doun is the only option.
when a i restart all i get is the detecting floppy drive message.
(clearing the cmos seams to allow the setup screen to appear again)

What should happen when starting a system for the first time?
Am i doing anything wrong. Or am i missing a simple step??
How do i get the thing to work?????
What can i do????
please help.
Thanks in advance

John

duridian

John, something is seriously wrong here, that sounds like the motherboard is trying to autorun a bios flasher program from the floppy drive. This is not normal at all, DO NOT press any keys at startup which refer to BIOS flashing or you could overwrite your bios chip and wind up with a totally dead motherboard!!!
Normally with Award bios you would have the option to press the Delete key a few seconds after powering on the PC to get into the BIOS setup menu, refer to your motherboard manual for info on settings in here. There are so many possibililties to try that I don't really know where to start but a good plan would be to unplug the data cables from your hard disks for the moment and try ro get the system booting properly from just a floppy boot disk(in case you corrupt your hard disks). Also check that you had the data cables for all the drives turned the right way, red stripe = pin 1. If you can get into the BIOS setup, load failsafe (default) settings and try booting with those settings first. Basically what I am trying to say to you is simplify your system as much as possible. Start with just the graphics card in the slots and just the floppy connected for a drive. If you can get it to boot normally from the floppy then try adding a cd/dvd drive, repeat adding one component at a time leaving things like modems and other pci cards till last. If you have any techy mates it might be a good idea to get them in on this as well. There is only so far someone like me can help you online when we can't see the system and the mention of Awdflash.exe is worrying.

Col_Loki

Re-install your Operating system. Chances are you had a pretty old system if it was using 98 or ME so it will have drivers for this loaded and they arent compatible with your IC7 (obviously). (either use the 120gb or format the 10gb model)

Pop on a fresh install, is there no way you can get 2000 or XP? I hate ME .....

[edit] Ohh and PS you were pressing Alt and F2 or something to flash the BIOS thats pretty crazy, dont be doing that if you dont need to

RicardoSmith

First of all dump Windows me. Its the worse OS ever. Either go back to 98 or get Windows XP home. Since that CPU has hyperthreading you'll get a speed improvement with Windows XP.

You shouldn't be seeing that prompt for flashing the bios. Either theres something set on the board to make it do this, or the board is faulty, or something on the OS has caused it to go in to the flashing routine.

You should reinstall the OS when you swap the HD into a completely new machine. You can't run it with the OS that was on there with your original machine. Its a recipe for major problems.

Where are you btw? If you were near me (D.15) I'd pop over and help you fix it.

C Fodder

As duridian has said something is seriously wrong with motherboard startup sequence.
O.K. lets start.
Its probably safe to clear the bios via the jumper (remember to have the power disconnected).
Disconnect all disc drives i.e. floppy HDD and CD/DVD
Switch on PC and see what bios message is
If you can access BIOS load defaults and see if you can boot to no system disk message
connect primary HDD and an optical drive
See if she will boot
and get back to us if errors continue

Win ME is crap! If you can ditch it sometime soon please do, for the sake of all mankind

John mac

Well the general opinion is to get win xp. (thought that would happen)
where is the best place to get it (price wise)?
when i first put it together i was getting a bios checksum error when i started it up.
I couldnt resolve this so the board was sent back to komplett. A month later it arrived back to me with no problems having beeing found.

"You should reinstall the OS when you swap the HD into a completely new machine.
You can't run it with the OS that was on there with your original machine. Its a recipe for major problems" how do i do this?
my location is a bit complicated at the moment Work in Leixlip stay in Westmeath during the week and Mayo at weekends! New mc is in Westmeath old one in Mayo (with hard drives!!)

RicardoSmith

Its going to be a bit hard to sort a problem with a machine if the hard drive is on one side of the country and the rest of the machine is on the other. How are you running it then?

I'm only 10-15 mins from Lexlip. If you wanted to call over after work or at lunchtime mon/tues. I might be able to dig out a HD to get it up and running. Takes about 40 mins to install, and show you what to do.

Windows XP home is only about €100 (OEM version) from OcuK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Microsoft_Windows_20.html

Do install a clean OS you just boot from the CD and it gives you the option to do an upgrade or a clean install. Choose the clean install.

John mac

well the saga continues. I found a hard drive at home 1.6 gig with nothing on it so i stuck it in .
also my copy of win 98 (just to see if anything would happen)
well the first time i started it up i got straight to the win 98 setup screen.
after about 5 min of windows loading a system error appeared. and restarted .
on the restart i got the message reading from floppy media insert disk and press any key.
with no disk to put in (boot disk hadn't been made for win 98)
i tried just pressing enter : no luck
I tried putting the boot disk for win me in but i got the request to put in awdflash disk!!
if i tried to turn off at the front it wouldn't respond
( reset button would work , only thing is that it would keep asking for floppy media)
would not post up first screen (processor speed ram etc.
if however i plugged it out from the wall for 20 mins it sometimes would post. again loading windows to various degrees.
I have disconnecting the floppy but i get a system halt message and unstopable beeps!!
what next (scrap heap)????
btw i am in Mayo for the next 2 weeks (new arrival in the morning!)

RicardoSmith

You know you need help with this. Randomly booting up the machine and saying its not working is not going anywhere. You also need to post the messages you are seeing exactly as they are onscreen. Otherwise we don't have a clue about what the problem is.