Hmm, what power supply?

Motherboard looks like an Intel Marl Advanced/ML; a relatively early ATX board that does indeed use the 430HX chipset.

It's a 420W, no name power supply, but I think it should be more than enough for this system.

SpanK87 wrote:

Hey guys, my name's Alex and this is my first post here.

Welcome 😀

The problem I'm having is that it takes 2-3 minutes for the computer to post. Also, I can't install an operating system because it won't boot from any of the CD drives. I checked the CMOS battery and it's ok. I removed one drive at a time, it does the same thing. I removed the sticks of RAM and tried them one at a time, same deal. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to take that long to post. Am I missing something?

That's a long, long time to boot. Can you get into BIOS? In any event I'd expect "fast boot" to be disabled, and perhaps you have 'auto' on all the IDE drives taking time to autodetect/time-out.

Also, I'm not sure what model the motherboard is because nowhere on it does it say Intel 430HX. There is this code AA 655377-206. I googled it and I get some listings on ebay for the same motherboard, but with no name. No drivers, no manual, no nothing. I'll upload some pictures, maybe you can help me out.

That's an Intel board alright, the Intel Advanced/ML 'Marl'. With i430HX chipset. So the description is accurate, but not adequate. Now, don't expect too much in the way of ready-made info, as this was typically an OEM board.

That said, Intel is generally good with technical documentation, so you get stuff like this:
http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/sq598/28180602.pdf
http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/ROM/INTEL/28180602.ZIP

dionb wrote:

That's a long, long time to boot. Can you get into BIOS? In any event I'd expect "fast boot" to be disabled, and perhaps you have 'auto' on all the IDE drives taking time to autodetect/time-out.

I can get into BIOS. There is this option, Turbo Boot or something like that and it's enabled. I'm really not sure if all IDE drives are on auto.

dionb wrote:

Intel is generally good with technical documentation, so you get stuff like this:
http://www.bcmcom.com/tech/sq598/28180602.pdf
http://files.mpoli.fi/hardware/ROM/INTEL/28180602.ZIP

Thanks for the links.

L.E. This is what I have in BIOS:

^Looks like your upper optical drive (the HP-branded one) isn't detected. Perhaps check the jumper settings of both optical drives; one should be "master" and the other, "slave".

It isn't detected because it's not connected.

I need your help guys. It's not booting, no matter what I do. I tried to boot from CD, floppy... nothing works. What am I doing wrong?

SpanK87 wrote:

I need your help guys. It's not booting, no matter what I do. I tried to boot from CD, floppy... nothing works. What am I doing wrong?

Try connecting the CD ROM as primary, and have the HDD as secondary master, then check if it boots from the secondary when there's no CD in the drive.

I remember doing this on a old 845GV motherboard from Intel and I encountered the same problem, and moving around the drives made it boot from disc in order to install XP.

^If this doesn't work, perhaps try temporarily swapping in a known-good PSU. A "420W, no name power supply", especially one that is a decade+ old, is quite suspicious.

PcBytes wrote:

SpanK87 wrote:

I need your help guys. It's not booting, no matter what I do. I tried to boot from CD, floppy... nothing works. What am I doing wrong?

Try connecting the CD ROM as primary, and have the HDD as secondary master, then check if iït boots from the secondary when there's no CD in the drive.

I remember doing this on a old 845GV motherboard from Intel and I encountered the same problem, and moving around the drives made it boot from disc in order to install XP.

Tried it, no success.

SW-SSG wrote:

^If this doesn't work, perhaps try temporarily swapping in a known-good PSU. A "420W, no name power supply", especially one that is a decade+ old, is quite suspicious.

I tried my OCZ 650W from my main computer, it doesn't work either.

Does the 440hx chips ether even support booting off a cd rom? Your best bet would be using a ms-dos boot disk with cd drivers and then install Windows

chrismeyer6 wrote:

Does the 440hx chips ether even support booting off a cd rom? Your best bet would be using a ms-dos boot disk with cd drivers and then install Windows

It does have a boot order option, but no matter what I select, it doesn't work. I also tried booting from a Windows 98 startup disk and no luck.

chrismeyer6 wrote:

Does the 440hx chips ether even support booting off a cd rom? Your best bet would be using a ms-dos boot disk with cd drivers and then install Windows

My Asus P55T2P4 has the HX chipset, and it boots off the CDROM just fine. There seems to be some sort of underlying hardware issue here, but I don't know what it might be - it seems that everything but the CPU has been swapped. Maybe try a different CPU if you have one.

The motherboard's manual says it doesn't support MMX processors, only Pentium. But still, the BIOS detects my MMX just fine. Could this be the problem?

Does your motherboard support Vcore < 3.3V? If not, you might want to beef up your CPU cooling.

gdjacobs wrote:

Does your motherboard support Vcore < 3.3V? If not, you might want to beef up your CPU cooling.

I don't think so. Any other suggestions?

Just a decent HSF. I believe S370 coolers will work and should be easier to source. Also, what board is it? Maybe there are undocumented jumper settings or mods which you could use.

Still can't get it to boot. What can be the problem guys?

Have you tried booting from a DOS bootable floppy with only the FDD connected and all IDE drives disconnected (and set to "none" in BIOS)?
You say POST is very slow. It is the same if you disconnect ALL drives?