Alrighty, then! The puter is assembled. I'm going to call Opus now (he's waiting for my call), and he's going to walk me through it. I hope my next posting will be a good one ...

Wellll ... been on the phone with Opus for 1 1/2 hours. The puter is recognizing the FDD and the CDROM, but it won't read them. The system keeps locking-up. We tried having the HDD and the CDROM as masters on IDE0 and IDE1, treid them as master and slave on IDE0, tried disconnecting the HDD to force it to boot from the CDROM or FDD ... nothing has worked, and we're stumped. I'm gonna call him back shortly, and see if there's anything else we can do. If we can't get it, I'll have to call iWill support ... oh, crap, tomorrows Saturday ... call them on Monday to see if they can figure it out. The FDD and the CDROM work, just for some reason, the system freezes when it leaves the main starting screen. This really sux. If anyone has any ideas, or perhaps experience with this problem, please post ASAP.

SOS, were you mean to a computer in your last life? Man, what a shitty run of luck you've had with this crap! I'm starting to think Pahrump is located in some bizarre vortex or something! Have you considered taking all the time and money you've spent on retarded computers and putting a down payment on an Ampex MM1200-24 and an MCI board? Although, the way your luck's running, the 24-track would only run backwards, and all you could record would be devil music. I bet if you had Opus build you a 'puter from scratch and test it, when you took it home it wouldn't work either!

When you say it locks up when it leaves the main starting screen, do you mean the first BIOS screen, or the main logo screen of WinDoze? Do you have a Digital Multimeter, and have you checked the power supply plugs and all the power supply voltages? Am I right in assuming that this Iwill board is a P4? What about the "extra" 12 volt plug needed for P4's? This almost sounds like a +12 volt problem, if no drives work right. What make and size power supply? What post codes are you getting? Just a single beep, or what? I'll stay up for about another half hour if you're still on - otherwise, tok-atcha in the (later) morning. You can borrow my theme song, "Born under a baaad sign", but just til this is over, OK? Until then, deep breaths and shallow beers, bro... Steve

Okely-Dokely, then, you're obviously asleep, so WTF am I doing up? I'm glad you asked that, do you always talk in your sleep? 'kay then, don't even THINK about botherin' me til ya see a cuppa coffee in my hand... Steve

Steve....hope you had your coffee...I havent yet.
As SOS had explained everything is hooked up correctly...it's an athalon computer so the P4 specs dont matter but the power supply is ok for athalon....everytime he boots the machine up it goes thru the found this hardware, testing memory...blah blah blah blah...right after that where it should detect the CDROM to boot off of it just hangs..I had SOS check his keyboard and try and hit Num Lock to see if the light would go on and off...nothing..no response from the keyboard..but he can hit the DEL key to get into the BIOS so the keyboard does indeed work. If he puts a boot floppy in it doesnt read that either..the floppy light just stays on. At first tI thought he might have had the cable backwards but he didnt...I had him swap IDE cables, try different configurations and still nothing...
I'm baffled..I think I like your idea about the tape machine playing backwards tho..devil music man!!!! or as my old Sweetwater service manager used to say...Angry Music!!! lmao!!
I'm shtumped... :confused:
Opus

Man, the only thing I hate about the internet is not being able to put your hands on things. SOS, send me the mobo,ram and CPU, I'd certainly be happy to see whats what with it for ya .

Opus, looks like you've got it all covered, as far as cabling and such. Is this the original Athlon CPU from the first build, or is it new?

Wy hell...you're only like 4-5 hours away SOS...come on in to the "real" world civilation in Los Angeles and I'll get it going for ya!! lol!!
Just kidding...I know you said that you have a buddy in town that does PC servicing...did ya get in touch with him about it yet? Let us know...poor guy :(
Opus :D

Four or five hours compared to the fourty-five hours spent so far, does'nt seem so big a deal really :p

Hehehe ... Tommy, oddly enough, you're probably REAL close on your 45 hour figure! Right now, I'm not doing anything with it. I'm fed-up with it, and I'm really beginning to lose my temper with it. Each time I mess with it, I get more tempted to give it flying lessons.
I'm going to call iWill tomorrow and see what they have to say. When I received the first XP333, which was a version 1.0, I had called iWill, and the tech told me that if it was a NEW board, it would have been in an anti-static silver bag, inside the plastic box. Hmmm, funny, the "NEW" XP333 that IWILL just sent me WASN'T in an anti-static bag! This is the THIRD XP333 that I've received that hasn't been in an anti-static bag! Could it be that they have so many returns that they just keep sending out the same boards over and over?
If I return the board for refund, then what? It doesn't seem to me like I have many other choices. No VIA chipsets. No SIS chipsets. Ali Magik chipset? Hmmm ... there aren't many manufacturers that make them, and I don't want one with mixed SDRAM/DDR slots, and I don't want one that limits me to only two DDR slots. AMD chipset? Well, they have that damned VIA southbridge. I really don't know what to do next. Any suggestions would be welcome.

SOS' signature...
"Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Knowledge is limited.  Imagination encircles the world."
...Albert Einstein
"...But without enough knowledge, you're just a creative idiot."
...Michael John
I'm beginning to feel like a creative idiot. Maybe I'd better think of a new signature.

So, how do you like the new signature? :D :p :roll:

ha ha ha ha ha!! Great one SOS!!!
Opus :D

Well, I was on the phone with iWill today, and got nowhere. They want me to send them the mobo, processor, heatsink/fan, graphics card, and memory, so that they can test it. I wonder if this is the norm when people have a problem. Do you think that most mobo manufacturers would do this? Should I send them all of this stuff, or should I return the mobo to the retailer and get a different brand/model? This really sucks. I don't know what to do. Please give me your opinion/guidance.

Well, I was on the phone with iWill today, and got nowhere. They want me to send them the mobo, processor, heatsink/fan, graphics card, and memory, so that they can test it. I wonder if this is the norm when people have a problem. Do you think that most mobo manufacturers would do this? Should I send them all of this stuff, or should I return the mobo to the retailer and get a different brand/model? This really sucks. I don't know what to do. Please give me your opinion/guidance.

Maybe it's just time to throw in the towel and grab aholt of Opus's ANUS. (Jesus guys, that's pretty borderline ain't it?)

Seriously. I built a decidely lower tech AMD system (ProRec Roll Yer Own Thunderbird)and it has run flawlessly (well, mostly) since day one. Sounds like if your going to dance on the bleeding edge your partner ought to be Intel.

My .02,

lou

Ya know seeing my name and the word ANUS in one sentence is starting to bother me :eek:
lol
I hope future readers dont get teh wrong impression here!!! lmfao
Opus

Thanks Lou. Actually, I'm not trying to do anything on the bleeding edge, in fact, quite the opposite. This PC isn't intended to ever run a host-based DAW system. It's just a little 950 Athlon with a CDROM, a FDD, & a 10Gb HDD. VERY basic. I just want the darn thing to run. I don't even care if it overclocks (although that would be nice). At the rate I'm going, I'd have been better-off with a friggin eMachine! LOL
I have 3 kids, and summer's on the way, so I don't have more money to throw at this thing, either. Seriously, I need good advice here. Do I pack it all up and ship it to iWill, or should I return it to the retailer and choose a different mobo? Right now, I'm leaning toward shipping it to iWill, and including the power supply, which they didn't ask for.

what the hell, ship it to them. sufficiently insured and let them sort it out. i'm sure you told them about the sub-standard packing. i'm thinking there's no way you'll get it back not working and at there frustration not yours. i assume that you're paying the shipping at least one way and that sucks but mabey in the long run it will be worth it. good luck. hope it all works out and remember 10 years from now it won't matter at all.

Yeah, I guess I'll ship it to them. I'll let somebody else have this headache. I think I have a better chance of getting a working puter that way than buying a different mobo. Who knows, maybe the prob is in one of the other components (even thoough they're brand new).
The next time I want to build a puter, I'll just have the components shipped to Opus! LOL

SOS, I built a system like you are trying to build for my gf not too long ago. Ditch the mobo, and get an ASUS A7V, or related. (I think you can get a version with the KT266 chipset) That board I know for a fact works, and comes in a static-free baggie for certain! ;) I can't say enough good things about that board, it was easy, it's stable, and it works... I dunno anything about iWill but based on this, I will never buy anything by them.

Good luck,
Vlad

So we're waiting for The Build IV
:cool:

You got mail.

Well, I think iWill can get it working. If so, I'm just going to use what I have and leave well-enough alone. My guess, at this point, is that the problem is more than likely something else in the system besides the motherboard. The odds of getting 3 bad mobos in a row is pretty slim. If I had to bet on it, my money would be on the power supply being the problem. It's a brand new, 350 watt, AMD-approved unit, but given the symptoms that have occured, the most likely suspect is the power supply, IMO.