The mysterious case of the hanging BIOS screen

[amyk]

Things like this are what Port 80 POSTcards are useful for.

[apelly]

Discl: Have not read the whole thread...

Have you tried attaching a speaker? Most BIOSs have beep sequences to let you know what's not working as expected.

But I've also had boot issues in the past caused by USB device compatibility issues.

[HwAoRrDk]

I used a PC with an A8N-SLI SE board and Athlon 64 X2 4400 for several years. A very reliable system that was. I still have it, and it still works just fine. It amuses me that such a machine is considered 'legacy'.

A few questions:

- Do you have the manual? If not, it's all still available on the Asus website here.

- Which revision of FX-55 processor do you have? According to the CPU support list for the motherboard, one revision of that CPU works with any BIOS version, but the 'E4' revision only works with BIOS version 1010 and newer.

- What size are the memory sticks you're using? If I recall correctly, the A8N-SLI doesn't work with anything > 1GB, nor with <= 128MB, and depending on the modules in use, may not recognise all 4GB if you put 1GB in every slot. Also, when using a single stick, the manual says you need to put it in the 'DIMM_B1' slot. Also you can check the memory against the QVL list at the link above.

- Does the board have the 'EZ Selector' card installed in the special slot? It's a little jumper board that, depending on which way round it's plugged in, selects between single and dual (i.e. SLI) graphics card use. I could imagine it might cause problems if the thing is absent entirely. There is also a warning LED on the board that indicates error state with SLI configuration.

- The Deluxe version of the board features 'Asus POST Reporter', which gives verbal audio messages of POST errors. Try plugging in some speakers and see if you get anything.

[Ampera]

I should probably post I am in the process of return the board and plan to use an nForce 590 SLI solution now, as I already have the board, CPU, and RAM.

From what I can see, I've tried everything reasonable. The CPU should be compatible (although it reported it as an FX-57, which it most certainly is not, but it could just have been on THAT version of the BIOS)

I have run it barebones, I have reflashed the BIOS, I have followed the guidelines for RAM to the T (this isn't my first computer anyways), and the board does POST. It boots into DOS, and does all of that. My issue is that I wasn't able to get it to boot into the BIOS setup menu to change any options, nor boot from any non floppy-based media.

I'm taking a break from building these machines after this, as I am honestly getting annoyed with all this DOA bullshatner. Gonna go play around with 68k based machines like the Macintosh, Amiga, or ST machines now. I have a pretty good run of machines from a 486 to now this Athlon 64 machine.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I don't think there was anything within reason I could have done. The board's unusable as I have it and no amount of basic stuff seems to fix it.