I have built another PC using some new and some secondhand parts.The S/H ones are : -
DFI Lanparty UT NF3 250GB Mobo
AMD 3400+ CPU
NVidia FX5200 256 MB AGP card
New Items: -
1 GB Corsair PC3200 DDR RAM (value select CL3)
LG SATA DVDRW Drive
Sony IDE DVD ROM Drive
Sony FDD
Seagate 160 GB SATA HDD
X-POWER 450w PSU
Everything connected I boot it up and get the hoped for single bleep indicating everything checks out 'A OK' and then nothing - I cannot get into the BIOS and when I press TAB to go behind the Lanparty screen there is nothing there, it's just a blank screen. I think I used the DVD ROM drive for the O/S CD but perhaps I tried both at different times still with no result. I am wondering if the BIOS has 'Overclocking' settings which the RAM I am using cannot cope with and so the systems stalls? However I have tried clearing the CMOS perhaps not for the recommended 10 minutes but still zilch. I have however read elsewhere that these DFI Mobos can be great or temperamental. Finally I notice that some of the spikes sticking out the bottom where components have been soldered in are particularly long in some cases and I am wondering if it might be something simple like a short? Could I grind them off lower with a dremel handtool?
I have even tried downloading an uptodate BIOS from Lanpart DFI, putting it on a diskette with the Diamond Flash Exe program but it fails to run when the system boots.
This Mobo looks the bizz but how can I get it working properly please? HELP!!
Just to let everyone know the problem turned out to be a dud CPU. I have another 754 socket PC in my network so I swapped the CPU and guess what it failed to boot. Luckily I had a spare 2800+ Athlon 64 mobile CPU which I had never used becaue I thought it might be dud too. To get it to fit properly under the heatsink I prised the heatsink off my dud CPU and superglued it to the mobile CPU - fitted it in the DFI Mobo and it booted up first time. Being unlocked and a low watt Odessa core it should be great for overclocking which is exactly what I bought the DFI mobo for.
