This is a problem that I posted at the AMD.COM forum and tells of my experience getting this system up and running. For those that are not familar with this forum - they have factory reps that monitor the Abit post and all of the Abit reps there (and a few extras) had comments about this post: perhaps some here may be able to help
I had a hard time getting the CPU in the socket but after much modification I got it to fit. Now I get nothing out of the system - no video no beeps - no nothing
specs
NF7-S ver2.0
P4 3.2GHz
water cooled heatsink
Trident 4 mb video card PCI
sound blaster pro
IBM MWAVE modem
PC1600 DDR -64MB
Antec 480W true power
Quantum 3.2mb hard drive
4X Reveal CDR
TDK 48X CDRW
Klipsch 5.1 Promedia THX 6 piece personal audio speakers Windoze 95 15 inch Pixie monitor
Any suggestions here - I am at a complete loss at what to try next I have already replaced the check back valve for the flute controller in the system accelarator regulator. That was my last hope. I have tried everything else that i know. I am hopeful that someone here will help me to get this system to boot. You guys here know everything. I have already tried a different monitor too so that is out
2nd POST
He are a few of my solutions
I have corrected some of my problems. I had soldered the 32 and 33 pins in the CPU rather than the 33 and 34 pins. Once I corrected that, I bought an Intel P4 to AMD socket adapter at Radio Shack and that finally took care of my CPU problems. My next error was that I had the power switch on 230 (Europe) rather than the US standard
110. In addition, I had to modify the ACP slot slightly to get it to accept the PCI to AGP custom made adapter.
In the middle of this with all my hammering, sawing, and cutting I damaged my water-cooled heat sink and it leaked all over the motherboard. I was lucky that the power was off and the only real damage was to my ego. This turned out to be a blessing since I needed to have a fan plugged into the CPU fan power and I think that has helped with my boot problems.
It was becoming apparent that I had a RAM problem and I did some serious on line research and discovered I had installed the RAM upside down. Once I correct that I got some beeps and a few fans started turning. The beeps indicated a video problem so I redesigned my PCI to AGP adapter and changed the memory on the Trident card and that solved that problem
My next hurdle turned out to be loading the Abit motherboard drivers. I was forced to use some beta AGP stuff from Driver.com and that seemed to help with my video. I finally settled on some Cirrus Logic video drivers for my modified Trident video card (in French since they were the only ones i could find). They allowed me to run 256 color although they were not colors that I normally see in Win95. As anyone who ever tried to get an IBM MWAVE modem working - It turned out to be the nightmare that it always was and man THAT was really hard. My IDE was not responding as I had hope so I finally settled on some Intergraph German drivers that seem to work better than the Windows default. I hope when I load Linux, the driver process will be easier. There were some minor fine tuning that required a little time but nothing compared to my earlier struggles.
My system seems to have a few quirks but I can now get on line due to the sharp support people at AOL. If the site graphics are in French the site looks pretty good although I cant read it. My hard drive seems a little slow but that is probably due to the fact that I dont have a German hard drive. My gaming prospects do not look good since my Mark 3D score seems lower than it should be for an Abit NF7-S board with an Intel P4 3.2GHz processor
Maybe if I upgrade the BIOS and get the latest drivers for my system things will run better. If that doesn't work, should I consider RMA ing this board?
I had a hard time getting the CPU in the socket but after much modification I got it to fit. Now I get nothing out of the system - no video no beeps - no nothing
specs
NF7-S ver2.0
P4 3.2GHz
water cooled heatsink
Trident 4 mb video card PCI
sound blaster pro
IBM MWAVE modem
PC1600 DDR -64MB
Antec 480W true power
Quantum 3.2mb hard drive
4X Reveal CDR
TDK 48X CDRW
Klipsch 5.1 Promedia THX 6 piece personal audio speakers Windoze 95 15 inch Pixie monitor
Any suggestions here - I am at a complete loss at what to try next I have already replaced the check back valve for the flute controller in the system accelarator regulator. That was my last hope. I have tried everything else that i know. I am hopeful that someone here will help me to get this system to boot. You guys here know everything. I have already tried a different monitor too so that is out
2nd POST
He are a few of my solutions
I have corrected some of my problems. I had soldered the 32 and 33 pins in the CPU rather than the 33 and 34 pins. Once I corrected that, I bought an Intel P4 to AMD socket adapter at Radio Shack and that finally took care of my CPU problems. My next error was that I had the power switch on 230 (Europe) rather than the US standard
110. In addition, I had to modify the ACP slot slightly to get it to accept the PCI to AGP custom made adapter.
In the middle of this with all my hammering, sawing, and cutting I damaged my water-cooled heat sink and it leaked all over the motherboard. I was lucky that the power was off and the only real damage was to my ego. This turned out to be a blessing since I needed to have a fan plugged into the CPU fan power and I think that has helped with my boot problems.
It was becoming apparent that I had a RAM problem and I did some serious on line research and discovered I had installed the RAM upside down. Once I correct that I got some beeps and a few fans started turning. The beeps indicated a video problem so I redesigned my PCI to AGP adapter and changed the memory on the Trident card and that solved that problem
My next hurdle turned out to be loading the Abit motherboard drivers. I was forced to use some beta AGP stuff from Driver.com and that seemed to help with my video. I finally settled on some Cirrus Logic video drivers for my modified Trident video card (in French since they were the only ones i could find). They allowed me to run 256 color although they were not colors that I normally see in Win95. As anyone who ever tried to get an IBM MWAVE modem working - It turned out to be the nightmare that it always was and man THAT was really hard. My IDE was not responding as I had hope so I finally settled on some Intergraph German drivers that seem to work better than the Windows default. I hope when I load Linux, the driver process will be easier. There were some minor fine tuning that required a little time but nothing compared to my earlier struggles.
My system seems to have a few quirks but I can now get on line due to the sharp support people at AOL. If the site graphics are in French the site looks pretty good although I cant read it. My hard drive seems a little slow but that is probably due to the fact that I dont have a German hard drive. My gaming prospects do not look good since my Mark 3D score seems lower than it should be for an Abit NF7-S board with an Intel P4 3.2GHz processor
Maybe if I upgrade the BIOS and get the latest drivers for my system things will run better. If that doesn't work, should I consider RMA ing this board?