Boot problem w/ KT-400DUP

I posted this a few months ago but didn't really get any responses, so I'm
trying again.

Early last year, I built a new main box - Soyo KT-4000 Ultra Dragon
Platinum, XP1700+, 60GB Deskstar, 2 ROMs, Ti4200, w2k; except for the mobo,
nothing fancy. Over time, it developed this strange mechanical noise during
boot-up; a 'labored' sound, like a fan motor going bad. But it always booted
fine and ran fine.

In about March or April of this year, I pretty much rebuilt the whole
thing - new CPU, PS, case, single ROM, FDD, all new fans. I upgraded the vid
card, too, but don't recall if it was right before or after. So, in addition
to the vid card, the only things that I carried over which contained
mechanical moving parts over were the HDD and the mobo, with its little
Northbridge fan.

The labored noise was still present. I tried unplugging the Northbridge fan
(though it was hard to imagine that little thing making that loud of a
noise) and subsequently also replaced the HDD; neither action helped, nor
did trying other vid cards.

The real problem, though, is that it suddenly developed a habit of not
booting successfully. Right off, I checked Soyo's site and found a BIOS rev
that added Barton support and I installed that, as the new CPU was a Barton.
Didn't help with the boot problem.

What happens is this: normally the box beeps once when the power is turned
on, beeps again after ~30 sec., the monitor makes that static-y crackling
noise, the boot screen appears and the boot process commences.

When it does not boot, instead of the crackling monitor noise after the
second beep, there is a third, long beep, the screen stays black and the
boot process doesn't start. Pushing the power button restarts the sequence.
Sometimes it boots successfully on the first attempt, sometimes it takes 7
or 8 tries before it finally boots.

It strikes me, and I hope I'm using the right terms here, that the boot is
failing because the video subsystem is not intializing.

I installed MBM5 to see if maybe it's a power problem and it seems maybe it
is - the 3.3v and +5v are good, but the +12v is ~+10.xx, the -12v is ~-5.xx
and the -5v is 0. (In comparison, I just put together a little Shuttle XPC
and MBM5 shows proper voltages across the range on it.)

I would tend to think that it's not the PS, though, as (1) it's a good
quality one (Antec 350w) and (2) I was getting the same laboring noise (if
not the boot problem) with the old PS.

It seems to me that the mobo is defective/damaged and is not properly
regulating the voltages. Could this be a likely scenario?

I should add that when the box is up and running, it's rock solid and runs
beautifully. I haven't experienced any strange/wierd/oddball problems or
anomalies, 3DMark and Sandra report normal performance, etc.

I'm running 333DDR and that's set properly in the BIOS and I reset the
proper FSB for the Barton in the BIOS, too.

Are there any settings in the BIOS I should double check?

Any help/advice/pointers with this rather agravating problem will be greatly
appreciated. Now that my Ti4200 is back in this box (I swapped the newer
card into the Shuttle), I want to upgrade but am hesitant to do so until
this problem is resolved. I'm willing to go with a new PS but am also
considering trying a new mobo. TIA

thomas k. wrote:
> I'm willing to go with a new PS but am also
> considering trying a new mobo. TIA

Well it sounds like you've swapped everything except the motherboard.

I would remove the mobo and check the installation, say for unused metal
standoffs that might short out the board.

My guess is that the mobo could cause your power problem, but I probably
don't have a good reason to say so. Sounds like you aren't shy about
buying/swapping parts. If you buy a mobo and that doesn't fix it, at
least you'll have a spare. And the mobo is no more expensive than the
average component.

thomas k. wrote:

> Early last year, I built a new main box - Soyo KT-4000 Ultra Dragon
> Platinum, XP1700+, 60GB Deskstar, 2 ROMs, Ti4200, w2k; except for the mobo,
> nothing fancy. Over time, it developed this strange mechanical noise during
> boot-up; a 'labored' sound, like a fan motor going bad. But it always booted
> fine and ran fine.

I'm thinking maybe the board has something wrong with a hard-drive
controller or a fan controller so that it turns the motor on and off or
changes the motor speed when it shouldn't.

Matt <> wrote in message news:<OqP3d.6889$Y%>...
> thomas k. wrote:
> > I'm willing to go with a new PS but am also
> > considering trying a new mobo. TIA
>
> Well it sounds like you've swapped everything except the motherboard.
>
> I would remove the mobo and check the installation, say for unused metal
> standoffs that might short out the board.
>
> My guess is that the mobo could cause your power problem, but I probably
> don't have a good reason to say so. Sounds like you aren't shy about
> buying/swapping parts. If you buy a mobo and that doesn't fix it, at
> least you'll have a spare. And the mobo is no more expensive than the
> average component.

If the voltages are not right , get rid of Soyo. Out of three of the
KT400, I have one running, the other two have issues, including
voltage. This from an Abit KV7.
Dave

Thanks for the responses, guys.

I forwarded this to Soyo tech and their suggestion was to try a different
PS.

I'm just going to go with a new mobo. I've been looking at a couple of
Solteks, one of which, I guess, isn't available in the U.S. and newegg is
out of stock on the other one at the moment.
thomas k.

Fixed by replacing it with a new mobo (a Soltek nForce2 Ultra). HW monitor
shows spot-on voltages across the range.

How nice not to hear that awful noise when I hit the power switch and to not
have to hit it 7 or 8 times to get it to boot.

Kind of underwhelmed by my Soyo experience but realize that *any* board can
go bad and the Soyo, when it booted, performed solidly.

"thomas k." <> wrote in message news:<7RX3d.24$gu5.1@trnddc09>...
> Thanks for the responses, guys.
>
> I forwarded this to Soyo tech and their suggestion was to try a different
> PS.

Ah, yes. The SOYO equivalent to 'have you re-booted Windows?'

Send the round-eye out to drop a hundred bucks on a power supply. Maybe
he'll be so ****ed off by the time he comes back with the same symptom
he'll by ASUS or GigaBit or MSI. Either way, we got him off the call and
we still have his money.

I think it was the KT-400DUP that led Soyo to un-link this group from
their support site...too much traffic with silly problems. RAID no work,
sound no work, sound no work with NIC enabled, you name it. BIOS updates
from hell (leading them to the disclaimer, 'Don't update your SOYO BIOS
except to fix a bug' [since you'll acquire twice as many in the update,
until we just give up and stop doing updates altogether].

Maybe they'll get serious and ask you to send all your components to them
for weeks at a time. After all, you're just a hobbyist, you didn't actually
intend to *use* this computer did you?

Not a bad business model. You can make a pretty good living selling
everybody one really pretty motherboard.

Greg

(Greg B) wrote in message news:<. com>...
> "thomas k." <> wrote in message news:<7RX3d.24$gu5.1@trnddc09>...
> > Thanks for the responses, guys.
> >
> > I forwarded this to Soyo tech and their suggestion was to try a different
> > PS.
>
> Ah, yes. The SOYO equivalent to 'have you re-booted Windows?'
>
> Send the round-eye out to drop a hundred bucks on a power supply. Maybe
> he'll be so ****ed off by the time he comes back with the same symptom
> he'll by ASUS or GigaBit or MSI. Either way, we got him off the call and
> we still have his money.
>
> I think it was the KT-400DUP that led Soyo to un-link this group from
> their support site...too much traffic with silly problems. RAID no work,
> sound no work, sound no work with NIC enabled, you name it. BIOS updates
> from hell (leading them to the disclaimer, 'Don't update your SOYO BIOS
> except to fix a bug' [since you'll acquire twice as many in the update,
> until we just give up and stop doing updates altogether].
>
> Maybe they'll get serious and ask you to send all your components to them
> for weeks at a time. After all, you're just a hobbyist, you didn't actually
> intend to *use* this computer did you?
>
> Not a bad business model. You can make a pretty good living selling
> everybody one really pretty motherboard.

> Greg


Anyone who is running a Barton core chip in a KT400 board with a "no boot"
condition should contact Soyo about ECN-E000-K7VX4L-001. It is a component
change that should fix the problem once and for all. Newer Rev 7 boards don't
have this problem.

Andy