DS3 major problems

p4radox · 7 Oct 2006 at 19:58

I have here the following spec:

DS3
E6600
2Gb Geil PC6400
BFG 7900GT
Seasonic 500W

Windows has been half installed, but when it reboots during setup it goes into an endless loop of booting and resetting.

All the BIOS versions have been tried, currently on F6. The board has been RMAd but apparently there was nothing wrong with it. 3 varieties of RAM have now been tried but the same problem still occurs.

Please help!

wizardmaxx · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:00

Do you have a different version of windows to try out, and have u upped the voltage on the memory

p4radox · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:06

I've tried 2 versions of XP. The RAM voltage has been tried on stock, +0.1, +0.2, and +0.3

edit: also tried installing on 2 different HDDs

wizardmaxx · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:08

Only other thing i can think of is HSF correctly seated.

Monstermunch · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:10

p4radox said:
I have here the following spec:

DS3
E6600
2Gb Geil PC6400
BFG 7900GT
Seasonic 500W

Windows has been half installed, but when it reboots during setup it goes into an endless loop of booting and resetting.

All the BIOS versions have been tried, currently on F6. The board has been RMAd but apparently there was nothing wrong with it. 3 varieties of RAM have now been tried but the same problem still occurs.

Please help!

Please read here under booting issues: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17636047

Some of these boards just don't work with Core 2 Duo chips....

p4radox · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:19

Monstermunch said:
Please read here under booting issues: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17636047

Some of these boards just don't work with Core 2 Duo chips....

I'd read that and it did worry me. On yours did you manage to install XP at all?

Was yours RMAd to OcUK? They said it'd been tested with a P4 and Corsair RAM - this time I'll make sure it's tested with a Core2Duo. :mad:

CrazyMonkey · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:34

The DS3 works a treat with Dual Cores, my nextdoor neighbour has the exact same kit as he has.
Perhaps its the CPU ? or somethign really stupid like the GFX card!

p4radox · 7 Oct 2006 at 20:35

Another gfx card has also been tried. I'm now convinced it's a nackered mobo

Monstermunch · 7 Oct 2006 at 21:05

CrazyMonkey said:
The DS3 works a treat with Dual Cores, my nextdoor neighbour has the exact same kit as he has.
Perhaps its the CPU ? or somethign really stupid like the GFX card!

Yes the DS3 is really designed to work with Core2Duo like the DS4 & DQ6 however there are a small amount of them that work perfectly with a P4 or a Celeron chip but won't boot with Conroe and just keep restarting.....

My first board would only get to the bios stage after about 20-30 boot cycles and even then it was unstable.

p4radox I think your board has this very problem. It's certainly worth RMA'ing it again and demanding it be tested with products that it was designed to be used with.... Cos I dion't think many people will be buying these board to run Celerons or P4's!

p4radox · 7 Oct 2006 at 21:23

Monstermunch said:
Yes the DS3 is really designed to work with Core2Duo like the DS4 & DQ6 however there are a small amount of them that work perfectly with a P4 or a Celeron chip but won't boot with Conroe and just keep restarting.....

My first board would only get to the bios stage after about 20-30 boot cycles and even then it was unstable.

p4radox I think your board has this very problem. It's certainly worth RMA'ing it again and demanding it be tested with products that it was designed to be used with.... Cos I dion't think many people will be buying these board to run Celerons or P4's!

Cheers Monstermunch. It's not actually my kit, but needless to say my friend is as annoyed by it as I am!

possum · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:54

p4radox said:
Cheers Monstermunch. It's not actually my kit, but needless to say my friend is as annoyed by it as I am!

Yes I am.

Buffalo2102 · 9 Oct 2006 at 03:32

This sounds like a problem with the SATA controller drivers/setup. If it was the common DS3 boot-cycle problems then the Windows setup wouldn't have been possible.

If you are using a SATA drive make sure that the controller is set to IDE mode, not AHCI, in the BIOS. If set to AHCI then setup will detect the drive(s) fine and install but won't boot.

You haven't said anything about your mates hard drive(s) etc. Are you using RAID?

p4radox · 9 Oct 2006 at 15:23

Buffalo2102 said:
This sounds like a problem with the SATA controller drivers/setup. If it was the common DS3 boot-cycle problems then the Windows setup wouldn't have been possible.

If you are using a SATA drive make sure that the controller is set to IDE mode, not AHCI, in the BIOS. If set to AHCI then setup will detect the drive(s) fine and install but won't boot.

You haven't said anything about your mates hard drive(s) etc. Are you using RAID?

I've just text him with that, cheers.

No it's not raided, it's a Samsung 200Gb SATA, it's also been tried with a 40Gb SATA drive.

possum · 9 Oct 2006 at 15:31

right I have checked that and it has been on IDE since I had got it