Allenstein OctaPC(8-core) and Quadzilla(4-core) *OS Update

[GenerationM]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

Out of curiosity what happens if you unplug all the drives but the boot drive? Will it boot?

By way of an update, I noticed that hiding WAY down in the boot order there was the entry for PCI SCSI: <for my Western Dig. 80 GB> C: drive. I moved that to the top of the order and moved my DVD-RW drive out of the list altogether and things seem to be working fine. I also checked the Tyan BIOS page for upgrades. I'm on v1.05 now and it looked to me like there wasn't a whole lot of difference between 1.05 and 1.07 except for some default settings and things that us Quad users don't really use, so I left the BIOS version as is. I'm not a fan of flashing the BIOS at the best of times anyway. I'm alomost starting to think that it might be something with my IDE controller, so I may either switch my IDE cable to the secondary channel and see if that fixes the 'randow character issue' or upgrade to a SATA DVD-RW drive, as I have two open slots left.

Any thoughts on this? Either way, for now I'm back up and running again, but holy scary. Thanks for all the tips/suggestions/comments - mucho appreciated!

P.S. - I'm still a little curious why the boot order gets all messed around.

Regards,
Jeff M

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by GenerationM

By way of an update, I noticed that hiding WAY down in the boot order there was the entry for PCI SCSI: <for my Western Dig. 80 GB> C: drive. I moved that to the top of the order and moved my DVD-RW drive out of the list altogether and things seem to be working fine. I also checked the Tyan BIOS page for upgrades. I'm on v1.05 now and it looked to me like there wasn't a whole lot of difference between 1.05 and 1.07 except for some default settings and things that us Quad users don't really use, so I left the BIOS version as is. I'm not a fan of flashing the BIOS at the best of times anyway. I'm alomost starting to think that it might be something with my IDE controller, so I may either switch my IDE cable to the secondary channel and see if that fixes the 'randow character issue' or upgrade to a SATA DVD-RW drive, as I have two open slots left.

Any thoughts on this? Either way, for now I'm back up and running again, but holy scary. Thanks for all the tips/suggestions/comments - mucho appreciated!

P.S. - I'm still a little curious why the boot order gets all messed around.

Regards,
Jeff M

My experience is that three things can make the BIOS act wonky or change settings. A power surge or spike., Not having booted the computer in a long time or the back up battery could be going bad. They seem to be good for about 3 years in some motherboards and decades in others.

I would think about looking at the IDE optical and possibly the jumper settings. You mentioned you had it set to master and it should be at the end of the cable. You might find moving the jumper to CS or Cable Select helps things but it probably not going to make a difference as far as whether or not its a boot device.

I personally prefer all SATA drives since I would then disable the IDE controller in BIOS. But switching to a SATA drive may not solve your boot problem. You could how ever use it on you next build so the moneys is not entirely wasted. You also what to check that the Tyans SATA controller supports optical drives before buying a new one. Not all of the earlier ones did.

What might help is to deselect everything but the boot drive in the Tyans boot menu. Meaning disable the floppy, The optical, The audio drives as boot choices so that it only chooses the one drive you want to boot from. Most BIOS's offer you that choice.

It's possible that the BIOS has some how gotten slightly corrupted and needs to be reflashed. I've seen that happen before too. Reflashing the current BIOS or updating it may help. Since there is a slight risk involved you need to balance that compared to using the system the way it is now. As a final note I'm not intimate with the Tyans BIOS since I didn't have one. So take all this as some generic PC advice.

[GenerationM]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

I would think about looking at the IDE optical and possibly the jumper settings. You mentioned you had it set to master and it should be at the end of the cable. You might find moving the jumper to CS or Cable Select helps things but it probably not going to make a difference as far as whether or not its a boot device.

I think I may have temporarily solved the issue...tonight after getting home from the weekend, I blew out the PC with compressed air and decided to switch the IDE cable to the secondary channel and fire it up to see what happens. Turns out that it finds the DVD-RW drive and I was able to update my firmware. My guess is there is something funky with the primary IDE channel, but it appears to be working fine again. Just thought I give an update.

Cheers,
Jeff M

[GenerationM]

So today (last night actually), I'm just not sure what's happening, but the Quad is starting to act real funny again. After the IDE cable thing, I thought everything was going to back to normal, however, this week it's been locking up more than normal, and has needed a number of reboots. Most of the time it will boot to WinXP, but for the last few times it's been coming up with the 'Operating System not Found' error even though the SATA0 drive is the only item in the boot order. One thing that strikes me as odd though is last week when it was giving grief, at least in the BIOS boot screen after the PCI SCSI: entry in the Boot Priority section of the Setup screen, it would list the model of the drive. So, I'm not sure if the BIOS is even recognizing that I have an 80 GB SATA drive connected? at least before it said PCI SCSI: WD0800J..... and I could tell which drive was my 250 GB and which was the 80GB. Now the entry is just blank 'PCI SCSI:' with no drive model number. I'm starting to suspect the motherboard, but I wanted to check here to see if anyone had anything to add - board replacement is an option providing that I can find a Tyan Tiger S2877 K8WE board somewhere. If the battery on the mobo is suspect would replacing it make any difference. I can't recall what the battery maintains at the moment, but the system time and date doesn't seem to drift, so I can't imagine that would make a difference. I doubt that it's the BIOS itself since I still can get in to view the various BIOS screens.

One thing I recall having to replace the PSU a year or so ago after this had started happening - the original OCZ PSU died and I got a replacement from our local computer shop. It didn't have all the bells and whistles of the original, but it got me back up and running. I recall that the OCZ had the individual trim pots to adjust the 12, 5 and 3.3 V rails. When I looked in the BIOS this morning, the 12 and 5 V values were fine, but the 3.3 V was down to 3.072 V, so I thought that might be a red flag, but again, aside from the RAM, I'm not sure if having that low of a voltage would make my drives not show up? The drives that I have do have both power connectors, the old 4-pin molex style and the newer flat SATA style, and I'm not sure of disconnecting the flat style in favor of the 4-pin style would help or not. or of the SATA drive needs the extra pin for something.

I've worked with PCs for years and even now, I'm kind of stumped. A PSU change would be the most cost effective option if that's what it could be, but I guess if I have to try to locate a mobo, that's what I have to do.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Jeff M

[GenerationM]

Just a side note...just looked on eBay and found working a Tyan Tiger S2877 WITH two AMD Opteron 265's and 2 GB of ram for $39.99 - it should be here next week. In the event that my mobo isn't fried, then I have a backup anyway.

If it is my PSU, now that the OCZ Powerstream is no longer available, is there a robust replacement that anyone would recommend?

Still if there are any thoughts, I'm all ears.

Regards,
Jeff M

[Shan]

Originally Posted by GenerationM

If it is my PSU, now that the OCZ Powerstream...

A few had problems with this specific PSU. Dont rule this out. I'd probably look into it first.

Shane

[GenerationM]

Originally Posted by Shan

A few had problems with this specific PSU. Dont rule this out. I'd probably look into it first.

Shane

I'm actually on my second power supply after the Powerstream totally died, Shane, but the second one that I bought was an $80 replacement. I'm actually in Winnipeg this weekend so I'll head to a decent parts store and see if I can get a good Antec or Corsair power supply. If the 3.3V rail is suspect at 3.072V, would that cause my SATA drives to not be recognized (or sporadically recognized)? Is there a recommended brand/size of PSU?

Thanks for the prompt response. I'll keep the thread updated.

Regards,
Jeff M

[GenerationM]

So.I picked up a brand new Corsair TX650 power supply this weekend, and just put it in, but alas, the Quad is still having issues and displays the 'Operating System Not Found' message on each boot. I can't imagine that it would be the hard drive, as I have a backup C: drive that will not boot either. It appears that there is no HDD activity either - the light does not flicker at all during the boot process, aside from lighting up once when the power switch is pushed to start up. I'm thinking that something has to be gone with the motherboard or SATA contoller. Nothing looks out of order on the board, no browned parts, or swollen capacitors. I will be picking up my used mb tomorrow so hopefully I can find a solution that way.

I had an old IDE boot drive lying around from an old machine, so I plugged it in, and in the BIOS, it is at least recognized in the IDE2 channel, so it has to be something with the SATA controller.

If there are any other suggestions, I'm willing to consider options, but at this point I'm pretty much resolved to the fact that it's the the motherboard.

Regards,
Jeff M

[GenerationM]

Anyone? Suggestions/comments?

Regards,
Jeff M

[Shan]

Originally Posted by GenerationM

So.I picked up a brand new Corsair TX650 power supply this weekend, and just put it in, but alas, the Quad is still having issues and displays the 'Operating System Not Found' message on each boot. I can't imagine that it would be the hard drive, as I have a backup C: drive that will not boot either. It appears that there is no HDD activity either - the light does not flicker at all during the boot process, aside from lighting up once when the power switch is pushed to start up. I'm thinking that something has to be gone with the motherboard or SATA contoller. Nothing looks out of order on the board, no browned parts, or swollen capacitors. I will be picking up my used mb tomorrow so hopefully I can find a solution that way.

I had an old IDE boot drive lying around from an old machine, so I plugged it in, and in the BIOS, it is at least recognized in the IDE2 channel, so it has to be something with the SATA controller.

If there are any other suggestions, I'm willing to consider options, but at this point I'm pretty much resolved to the fact that it's the the motherboard.

Regards,
Jeff M

Unplug all hard drives including any DVD/CD drives etc. Plug one known working drive into SATA port one and see if it shows up in the BIOS. If it doesn't, do this same step with the rest of the SATA ports.

Less is more during the trouble shooting process.

Shane