opteron 165 will not POST

[magictorch]

Hi, I could not get my opteron 165 to POST on a MSI7207 K8NGM2-L mainboard T6216 emachines. The bios was updated after the motherboard was replaced by emachines in July 2006-CPUZ said it was a bios version from Febuary 06. PSU is 430watts, 29amps on 12v rails, BFG 7950GTOC, and 1 harddrive only. Any idea on how to get this processor working, perhaps you have some tricks for getting the emachines bios to accept the processor? I'm afraid Im a bit new too all this. Had a look at emachines overclockers and there is a manufacters MSI bios avaliable v1.05 for this motherboard but im worried about using it? cheers.

[sswilson]

Do not flash a standard MSI bios onto an e-machine mobo unless you have verification from the MSI site that specifically states that it will work with the e-machine model.

The model #s may be the same, but e-machine (and the other bigbox vendors as well) does funky stuff to the bios/mobo which makes it incompatable with standard bios files.

You stand a good chance of frying your mobo.

It's also possible that the mobo will not accept a different chip from what it was shipped with.... that's sometimes part of the bios setup which is funky.

I'll have a look tonight to see if I can come up with anything to help you out.

[magictorch]

hopefully youll find a work around, otherwise ill get a new board and case to fit the board! and probably an operating system!...oh well

[sswilson]

Did you try resetting the cmos on the board to see if that would force detection of the new cpu?

[magictorch]

actually it was not me who did it-it was a technician, although he hadnt switched a processor in three years?. He told me the computer wouldnt post so he didnt charge and put the old 3200+ back in. Id better ask him-theres a chance he didnt reset the cmos. When i took the computer home and booted it up with the old processor back in i got a cmos error so i just put the bios back to "standard" settings as it booted and thankfully it loaded the windows. Ill check tommorow to see if he reset the CMOS before doing the install. I noticed the pad was quite thick on the heatsink that came with the opteron and also the opteron has some gunk on it now-should it be there from just a pad on top? I better see that he didnt put paste and a pad together? cheers

[magictorch]

OEM Sign-On:	A7207NE7 V1.14 Date:02/07/06
BIOS Date:	02/07/06
BIOS Type:	AMI
Chipset:	AMD 1100 rev 0
Super I/O:	Unknown

cpuz says its the same as this so the bios is uptodate at least for emachines:http://downloads.emachines.com/drive...adme_en_em.txt

[sswilson]

It should be good to go then if it's from e-machines.

It may or may not fix the problem, but I'd try installing the cpu with a reset first before flashing the bios.

[magictorch]

i wont be able to get to this done till tuesday and ill see how it gos. i wont flash the bios just on tuesday although if the CMOS switch doesnt work and the current bios is uptodate, would flashing the bios with the same version do anything else (bios is uptodate)? Im sorry i really dont have a clue.I am a bit worried the technician put a thermal paste on the pad with the heatsink but ill have to check...hopefully doing that doesnt fry a new cpu!!! anyway thanks for the feedback and ill get back to you to say how it went.cheers,

[sswilson]

Yeah, sorry I didn't read deep enough to realise that you already had the latest update. I doubt re-flashing would help any.

Where exactly are you? Maybe somebody is close by who might be able to give you a hand.

[magictorch]

well I just moved to annapolis royal, nova scotia....however i couldnt find anywhere closer than kentville? (Bulldog computers- shut till tuesday for easter holiday). pretty busy right now and need the opteron to handle some heavy statistical modelling quite soon. Im not comfortable doing this install myself just yet-ok with graphics and RAM but seems cpu install can be messy. cheers..