Motherboard Trouble???

[karkfump]

My nephew has just experienced a system failure with his XP 1800, and although it will post and the bios can be accessed, and settings changed, he cannot get Windows XP Pro to boot after this, either by CD or floppy. It simply comes up black after he exits the bios. He is running a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP ver. 1.1 motherboard and he has cleared the bios, and it still will not boot Windows. Any ideas...obviously I am having to try to find the answers for him. By the way, I am getting ready to build a system for another relative and I have been looking at the Gigabyte GA-7VA as a basis for this new system...as a reasonably priced MB with 8X AGP, Via KT400 chipset, and 333MHz memory capabilities available for future upgrade. Anyone with experience with this board, or any other suggestions would be appreciated. The board sells for $84 on Googlegear, so this looks (on the surface) like a good buy for a board with these feature.

[zaltec]

As far as I see the KT400 chip performs less well than expected. The KT333 is a more established chipset. But if he isn't going to be overclocking I don't see any problems in that choice of mobo. nForce2 chips are excellent, you might want to look at them.<BR>If you live in the states, pricewatch will give you a good idea of prices. Newegg is a really good place to get components aswell.<BR>As for the boot problem, you will have to wait for the software gurus for that<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Joe]

go with a nforce 2 motherboard .. you can find them as cheap as 88bux <BR><BR>as for the motherboard problem your nephew is having. <BR><BR>will it boot off a cd .. as in start loading like its doing a fresh install. or will it not even do that?<BR><BR>if it will do that then try hitting f8 through the bootup to get to a options menu and try booting into safe mode. if it boots into safe mode try uninstalling the last applications or so that where installed on the system. this may be a cause of the problem. <BR><BR>what current OS is he using? .. if he is using winxp and happend to instal roxio ez cd creator and didnt install the patch before rebooting this could be a reason for it not booting into windows. it ez cd creator needs a patch in xp or it will majorly mess your install up. (you might not even be able to get into safemode because of this software)<BR><BR>if non of this helps come back and let me know what the full system specs on his machine are, what os, applications he has installed. and anything else you think might be helpful. in order to really help you out on this problem i need to know all the details.

[karkfump]

No it will not boot at all, from cd or floppy, it will only post and allow access to the bios. He knew about the issues with the ez cd creator, so he hasn't installed this. He runs Windows XP Professional and the mobo is just about three months old. He took it all down and put it back together and he has tested it with cd drives disconnected, floppy disconnected etc. Just a black screen after you exit the bios. He plans on taking the mobo back to the dealer tomorrow, so I guess this will tell us something.

[Colin]

karkfump your nephew may have to change his boot order to get his system to boot from CD or floppy...<BR><BR>It sounds like he hosed his OS if he's using system restore he may be able to role back... AS for the motherboard, I don't have any experience with it myself but from what I hear it's a godo value board... <BR><BR>When you find out what it is, please let us know!