Build Advice First build - restart question

Happy New Year everyone!

I decided to take the plunge and build my own system. I've been an Apple user for about 12 years and while I'm not moving to the PC fulltime, I've certainly got my foot in the door. Building the PC has been a very interesting experience. I've seen some crap components and some badly designed cases and it's also made me appreciate, on a technical level, the craftsmanship of my Mac Pro.

Anyway, the build went well - no serious problems, just a few hiccups with missings cables and the odd missing manual when my components were delivered.

The system I've built - Gigabyte DS3P mobo, 4GB RAM, 3GHZ Core 2 Duo, 500GB WD HD, 425 Hiper PSU and a few others bits - runs well. The only thing it doesn't do is restart!

Whenever Windows tells me it needs a restart (after a driver install for instance) , the system shuts down, tries to boot and I get two beeps from the motherboard. I have to restart the system manually by holding down the power button.

Have I missed some kind of setting in the BIOS or missed out a cable?

I am being stupid?

 

That's an interesting issue! Look up what the beep means in the mobo manual. It could be a BIOS setting for the power functions, or something more troublesome.

 

This is what my manual says regarding beeps:

But does this have anything to do with the fail to restart?

The CMOS is controlled by the small battery on the board. I removed the battery earlier today to try and resolve this issue, but no joy.

 

there should be also clear cmos jumper on the mobo somewhere. just make it short for a few seconds.

 

A few things off the top of my head:

If your videocard requires power, is it plugged in securely? Does it require more than 1 power plug? How have you got the ram plugged in (which slots)? Have you been into the bios and done a 'Load Default Settings' and then 'Save Settings and Exit'?

 

I removed the battery earlier for two mins, that does the same as a the CMOS jumper short, right? I'll do this anyway...no harm!

Yes, GPU is most definitely plugged in to the PCI-E slot and is plugged directly into the PCI-E connector from the PSU. No, it just requires one power connector, it's an 8800GT.

I haven't done Load Default Settings, I did see that option, I'll do it now.

 

I cleared the CMOS via the jumper. Switched on my system, went to BIOS and chose "Load Optimized Defaults", saved on exit and let Windows do its thing.

I restarted the system. Now, when the system shuts down and fires up again I hear one long beep and two short beeps. The manual says:

1 long, 2 short: Monitor or graphics card error

Weird. So, I cleared the CMOS again and loaded "Load Fail Safe Defaults". Tried a restart, same thing - long beep and two short beeps. After the beeping I can see that the hard drive activity light on the front of the case flashes. Then I hear the DVD fire up and it stays that way for about twenty seconds, then dies down. Then fires up, then dies down, then fires up...

So, monitor or graphics card error? But why just on a restart, why not also when the system boots?

The monitor I use works fine with my Mac Pro. Can't really say anymore than that. I've used the graphics card that's currently in my PC (8800GT) in my Mac and it works, no bother. The only thing that is different on the PC is how the 8800GT draws it's extra power: a cable runs from the PSU and plugs directly into the back of the graphics card. Seems fine to me, but could that be an issue? Or is this a motherboard/BIOS problem?

 

In the bios, ensure that the Init_Display is set to PEG. It may be set to onboard or something.

 

The Init_Display was set to PCI. I changed it to PEG, tried to restart, same beep, then changed it to PEG 2 and tried the restart, same beep.

I've noticed that the fans continue to be powered on a restart. Is this normal?

Have to say, I'm at a complete loss. My super limited experience of PC building has let me down!

 

Any ideas anyone?

Smash the motherboard with a hammer?

 

Re-seat the gfx card? Try another power cable to the gfx card? Tried the card in the other pci-e slot? It's either a faulty gfx card, the gfx card slot on the mobo or the psu not putting out voltage on the gfx power lead(s).

Btw, which DS3P have you got? There are several!

 

I have the DS3P Rev 2.1.

I've tried the graphics card with a different PSU, same problems on restart.

I can try a different GPU in there as I have a spare HD3870.

 

Success! I put the GPU in a different PCI-E slot and the restart works no problem.

Is the second PCI-E slot dedicated to SLi or something similar? Why would it boot but not reboot?

Thanks Kenco - much obliged.

 

If it's an SLi/Crossfire mobo, with 2 16x PCI-e slots, set to single-card mode, you might find that the 2nd PCI-e slot is automatically disabled to increase bandwidth for the other slots (they are limited to a certain bandwidth, shared between all the slots).

Which slot were you trying first time out?

 

The second, or the lowest slot on the mobo when installed.

That's interesting. I think I must have completely missed the SLi stuff. The mobo does support it (I think), but as I don't have two cards and this is a machine I'm building for use with EFIX module (article coming soon on The Mac Gamer) I ignored all the SLi stuff.

I'm super glad there isn't an issue with the board and it was my own mistake. You learn something everyday!

Now, to replace my heatsink and CPU fan with something that doesn't sound like a jet engine! I bought the cheapest Akasa heatsink/CPU fan combo - £7!

 

the gigabyte board you have got there is either an Intel P35 or P45 board, neither of which support nvidia's SLI feature.

Nice to hear its working now.

 

Well there you go then.

So what's the problem with the second PCI-E slot?

 

Hmmm, from what you posted prev, you mentioned that the card was once in a mac pro, did it come with the mac?

Just i remember a few years back that all GPU's that were installed in mac's had a mac compatible bios flashed on to them, which stopped the average mac user from taking a cheap and easy path to an upgrade.

This also presented a small issue in installing a GPU from a mac into a PC motherboard. I also believe that the gigabyte DS3P range is on a compatibility list known to work with OSX 10, so just maybe there is a small conflict still present in there, but as the board is compatible with OSX its not throwing all its toys out of the pram.

You could flash the 8800GT with an nvidia reference bios, and see if it helps.

 

For the record, the EP35-DS3P rev2.1 is a P35 board, which has Xfire support.

 

think i beat you to it mate.