Asus P6T Deluxe V2 - new build with boot problems?

[MasterRaichu]

Hi all.

I've been looking for a problem similar to mine on this board and others, and I'm stumped. I'm new at building machines, but I'm pretty tech savvy otherwise so I figured I'd give it a shot. I've built a video workstation for my freelancing business, but I'm having problems getting past the BIOS first boot. All parts on my build are brand new. Here are my specs:

built in an Antec Nine Hundred case:
Intel Core i7 940 (using stock cooler for now)
Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Mobo
OCZ Reaper PC15000 DDR3 1866MHz (6x2048)
PNY NVIDIA Quaddro FX 3800
Ultra X3 1000w PSU
Hitachi 1TB SERIAL ATA HD 7200/16MB/SATA-3G (x4, going to make 2 sets of RAID)
Lite On 6X Blu Ray ROM/ 16X DVDRW

Assembly was no problem. When I booted up for the first time, I was able to get to the BIOS menu with no issues, either. However, after setting specs in the bios (making my DVD Drive primary boot and configuring RAID), saving and rebooting, I get nothing but a black screen.

I am able to reset CMOS and get back to the first boot screen. But once I access it for the first time, save and reset, I get the black screen again. No splash screen, no anything. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I read somewhere that people were having issues when their hard disks were plugged into SATA Ports 5 and 6, so I specifically set all 4 of my hard disks in ports 1 through 4. Still having the same issue. I also tried starting up and not configuring RAID, but I'm having the same problem.

I realize that I have more disks in this build than most people will, so I'm wondering if its a problem specific to that, or whether it has anything to do with it at all? I'm at a loss for what to try next.

Has anyone ever had a motherboard just not function past the first boot? I'd love to know what I can try next, and any input would really be appreciated!

Thank you!

 

[_33]

I have the same motherboard with a i7 920 and 6GB of G.Skill memory. My black screen / no boot was because I put the memory in the wrong slots. I called ASUS tech support and they cleared that out of the way in less than 2 minutes. I suggest you to call ASUS and make sure all is in order in your system. BTW, I have 4 HDDs also, but not set up as RAID.

 

[MasterRaichu]

I'm not sure that's the case because I filled all six slots. I have 6 sticks of the same type.

 

[Mussels]

what it means is that you have a BIOS setting that is incorrectly set, preventing it booting.

Most common there, would be memory timings and memory voltages - excluding CPU, all voltages have to be set manually.

 

[MasterRaichu]

I see. I do have all of the voltages and timing values set to AUTO, so I'm definitely doing the BIOS setup wrong. My bad, I'm definitely more of a n00b than I thought.

I do have a question on this though. I discovered the other day that the RAM I was using was not on the Qualified Vendor List for this board (my sources mislead me when I purchased it), but I've heard that this may not matter if I know the exact voltages and timings, which I do (1866 PC15000, 9-9-9-28). Should I even attempt to use this RAM, or should I just bite the bullet and return it for QVL RAM like I was planning to do?

 

[Mussels]

simply go into the BIOS, and set the ram settings to match. You already listed the timings, you're only missing the voltage.

 

[MasterRaichu]

I've got that as well actually... wow... I am oblivious.

Thank you for your help Mussels, I will definitely try this when I get home this evening!

 

[MasterRaichu]

Hey again.

I tried setting my RAM voltages with the above specifications. HOWEVER, while I set the CAS, TRCD, TRP, TRAS, I have about 5 other values in the RAM timings section of my BIOS settings that I am unsure of how to get the values for. I've searched around for some help on this and come up with nothing. Are these special to the P6T board:

RAS# to RAS# Delay
REF Cycle Time
WRITE Recovery Time
Read to PRE Time
FOUR ACT WIN Time
Back-to-Back CAS Delay

There are also some other settings in 2nd Information and 3rd Information that I am just not sure about.

By the way, my result is that now I still get the black screen, but just before it goes black, I see the white text in a "terminal" font saying "express gate" for about a second. I think I may just need to set those values, as Mussels stated, but I could really use some help on these, as I cannot find the specifications for them anywhere (OCZ does not have them listed anywhere on their website that I've seen).

I will keep looking, but please help if you can!

 

[Mussels]

you can leave those ones on auto.

Basically, set everything to manual when you know what it should be, and leave everything else on auto.

Express gate is a mini linux OS on your PC. that means its booting and working fine (express gate isnt installed by default, therefore you're not getting anything once it tries to load it), but not booting your operating system/CD etc.

Change your boot order to be DVD drive first, HDD second and disable express gate.

 

[MasterRaichu]

HA! Disabling express gate did the trick. I'm finally installing Vista.

Thanks for all your help Mussels, I really appreciate it!