DannyBoo

Hi guys,
I just bought this new kit pieced it together powered it up installed vista and now having problems with the screen flickering when I boot the system, only to leave a blank monitor (tested with another pc works fine) with the light half way between green and orange???

Heres the specs..

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2,33GHz,
MSI P45 NEO2-FR, P45, Socket-775, DDR2,
1600FSB, ATX, ICH10R,
OCZ DDR2 PC6400 2048MB KIT, Reaper HPC,
2x1024MB, Heat Pipe, (CL4-4-4-15), E.P.P
Gainward Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3,
PCI-Express 2.0, 2xDVI/HDMI/HDCP (times 2)
Antec True Power Trio 550w(had this for nearly 2 yrs)

(Only have 1 of the 4850's connected till I get a new PSU)

Whats strange is that I still get a picture randomly the odd time I power her up. Seems to start flickering when PSU gets any heat into it???Reason I say PSU is because Iv moved RAM around, used 1 stick,tried just cpu+memory+graphics card no other connections etc. to same result.

This morning I tried her again and it booted into windows no problem atall. But 2mins in and flickering started again as if changing resolution or refresh settings then went to the half half coloured light again.
The thing is i could still hear the hard drive loading startup programs and everything seems fine.

When iI first pieced it all together only got 1 beep at POST, then when problem started got 2 beeps. Checked on AMI website for what beeps mean and 2 means :

"2 Parity Error Parity error in the Base (1st 64K) of memory "

Not sure what that means but tried to change the memory around some more. Got it to boot again...but same deal after 1min or so.
Im lost because this is my second lot of parts..I first got them and they wouldnt power up atall!!So RMA'd them and they fixed whatever was wrong and tested the parts (bar the PSU) for 3 days solid with memtest and 3dmark etc without fail???!!

Whats going on can anyone shine some light on this for me please??

Thanks

ps.. collecting a Northq Black Magic Flex 850W,Modular,80+ PSU tomorrow to see if that helps

Tumbleweed36

Those Antec True Power supplies are not very good IMHO. I think it is struggling with your video card and is sporatic in it's behavior (have had some True Power supplies be sporatic and had to RMA them). At least from a quick look, I think that is the issue. Of course, when you switch it out, you will know tomorrow. Do let us know.

dai

if you are going to sli you need to be at a min of 850w preferably 1k with those cards

DannyBoo

Just installed the new PSU only to find that it beeps 1long 2 short now which says on ami site

1 long, 2 short Failure in video system An error was encountered in the video BIOS ROM, or a horizontal retrace failure has been encountered

So video card must be the issue no?Iv tried both cards in both slots with no beeps when inserted on the lower PCI x slot, but no picture either. Have noticed the hard drive spins up but I cant hear it accesing now any more like it did before. Pretty stressful as you can imagine!!

What do you think guys?

Thanks again

dai

what psu did you install
can you try the cards on another computer to check them
i would rma the cards

speedster123

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...=Story&reid=93

DannyBoo

Check this out for a strange1!!

I rang KOMPLETT today and the guy said to just bring the whole case over with everything in it and he would test it while I watched.
Tried all the parts in other mobo's to find they were working fine!!

After 40 mins of swapping parts around discovered that mine wouldnt boot with the q8200 stock fan plugged into the cpu fan socket, but worked fine with the zalman fan he was using for testing, which only uses 3 pins on the cpu connector on the mobo!!!

So turns out the 4th pin was shorting the board.
He said he has never seen anything like it before in all the time he has worked in I.T.

Im just relieved to know that I didnt blow anything and that Ill get a new board free by Friday. Sorted.

Thanks for the help guys much appreciated

Tumbleweed36

You should buy a lottery ticket this week, because you are one lucky dude. Hope you get the board and everything works well.

dai

glad you have sorted and posting back the results