Please help: DFI NF4 LP showing 3 LED's all of a sudden

[btomasie]

I have had this DFI NF4 LP Ultra-D (revision R.AD0) board ever since the D's came out. Now all of a sudden something is majorly screwed up. I boot up now and it'll quickly go from 4 red LED's to 3, and then stop, and then emit a 1-second long beep, 3-second long silent (pattern constantly repeated). I have not changed anything, and no idea what's going on.

What I have done to troubleshoot:

- pulled everything off (everything USB, all SATA hard drives, all IDE hard and DVD drives).

- tried with my PCI-E card, and then also tried with an old regular PCI card.

- I have OCZ VX RAM... I have tried each one by itself in the orange slot closest to the mobo edge, and then also tried each on the closest yellow slot.

What is the issue? I am pulling my hair out. I also have a Asus A8N5X mobo here that I borrowed, and it also has an issue... it'll have a long beep, followed by 2 short beeps (and that'll repeat as well).

CPU is a 3800+ A64 X2 (the first one that came out).

Thanks so much.
Brian

[xirokx]

Front X error explained:

4 LEDs on = Power applied, checking CPU
3 LEDs on = CPU has been detected OK, checking RAM
2 LEDs on = RAM has been detected OK, checking VGA
1 LED on = VGA has been detected OK, entering BIOS
0 LEDs on = System has booted to the Operating System.


I boot up now and it'll quickly go from 4 red LED's to 3, and then stop so you cannot get into windows? pls clarify??


then emit a 1-second long beep, 3-second long silent (pattern constantly repeated). was your RAM overclocked?

What bios are u using on your DFI board? Is it phoneix?


I also have a Asus A8N5X mobo here that I borrowed, and it also has an issue... it'll have a long beep, followed by 2 short beeps (and that'll repeat as well). So even with this board you cannot get into windows? pls clarify?

I think I am not 100% but it looks like your memory has died or is dying please answer above questions....

Have you tried just 1 stick of RAM instead of two? then you could find out which stick is faulty...

[viper650]

turn off power at psu, take out all but 1 stick of ram and put it in the number 1 slot. put the clear cmos jumper onto the clearing position and turn the computer on. it should boot, and stay at the dfi lanparty screen. wait a minute and turn the computer off from the psu. replace the cmos jumper to normal, take out the battery and wait about a minute then pop it back in. boot back up and it SHOULD get you to boot. go into your bios and check the ram voltage. i boot at 3.0v just to be safe, and this has worked numerous times for me today.

i swear, this is one of the most finicky boards ive ever used. it wont even let me attatch two additional sata drives. very very picky. after you have fixed your bios settings, power down by the psu. replace ram in dual channel mode(or however you had it before) and hopefully it will be booting again. this happend to me 5 or 6 times today, that did the job every time.

[Kain XS]

Clean the CMOS or give it a long clear.

[btomasie]

thanks guys for the replies.... still nothing resolved yet.

To the first responder: the computer won't POST, so nothing comes on the screen, so not even getting into the BIOS, much less Windows. I have tried with both my PCI-E card with DVI LCD monitor, and an old PCI to VGA CRT monitor. Nothing ever comes on the screen.

Yes the RAM was overclocked, it's VX RAM. The 4V jumper was also set (which is now back to the orig. position). The RAM always had 2 90mm fans blowing over them ad the PWM.

All my various reboots have been with just ONE stick of RAM, and I have tried both. I also tried each one separately in the top-orange slot and top-yellow slot.

To the second responder:
thanks for the suggestions... I tried that and still nothing. I even pulled a completely different stick of old DDR RAM out of "garage" PC this morning to eliminate altogether the VX RAM. Still the 3 LED's are lit.

Since everything is booting and spinning (all the fans, HD's even though their SATA cables are diconnected, i still have them plugged in with power) should I try swapping PSU's? I have a 450watt Antec in that spare PC. I don't think it's 24-pin though.

Thanks for all the help...
Brian

[v0dka]

Guess your RAM has gone down the drain, sorry to tell you. :(

[btomasie]

And I guess I'm "OK" with that, but it still doesn't explain why I pop in that old generic DDR RAM (that was being actively used in that garage PC, so it's working perfectly) and still the same exact issues.

Right now I have ALL 4 power connections pulled from the mobo, the CMOS jumper set to clear, and the battery pulled. I'll wait an hour (it's been 45 min.) and then connect it all back up with the generic RAM again.

Then I guess I go back and swap the CPU and generic RAM to the Asus board and give that a try too.

If only this happened in August, I could have bought a Core2Duo and new mobo this weekend. ;) Meanwhile, I need some inexpensive "temp" solution until then.

Brian

[btomasie]

Got the Asus to boot up with the 256MB stick of generic RAM. WinXP is basically non-useable!! Will need to try picking up a el-cheapo set of 2x512MB this weekend.

So is my mobo AND VX both shot? That's not cool.

Thanks,
Brian

[viper650]

sounds to me like the ram only. what do you mean by non useable? just really slow or wont boot properly? im guessing that ram is dead. what a shame too, cant get that stuff anymore.

[btomasie]

It's running (typing from the PC now) but so frickin' slow. Ya forget how to not multitask!!

Thanks,
Brian

[Viss]

Same thing happened to me VX after some months at 3.5v (decent cooling on both board and ram always). The VX stil runs/clocks the same as before BUT the system wil only boot with both dimms in if it has been off for a few hours at least. Otherwise 3 leds stay on. Me VX is the only mem that has this though, both me UTT and old BH5 do not have this problem. Give it a go, hope it works for you.

[faruquehabib]

try the VX in the "garage PC" to see if it works. i am having a very similar issue with my ultra-d, but mine is not overclocked and has corsair value ram, which works in another rig. good luck