Help with DFI Lan Party NF4 UT-D

[eklock2000]

I am trying to help setup a DFI Lanparty NF4 UT-D and we are running into major problems getting it to recognize any hard drives...sata or pata in BIOS. We can get into BIOS, but it won't autodetect HDs. It will see DVD drive, ram works, power supply seems ok, and all connections made per the DFI manual?

The DFI-Street forums had a great step by step walkthrough. Now that they are gone, anyone know where I can get the best help?

Thx

 

[Ketxxx]

whats the exact hardware setup?

 

[eklock2000]

The specs are...

case-raidmax smilodon
motherboard-DFI lanparty UT Nforce 4 SLI-D socket 939
processor- AMD athalon 3800+
Ram- Gskill 1gb pc3200
Graphics card- XFX geforce 7600gt 256 mb
harddrive-western digital caviar 160gb sata
optical- sony dvd/cd rom
cooler master extreme power 600W

 

[Brother Esau]

First off our boards dont like Cooler Master P.S.U's! Clear you're cmos and let it sit for a couple of hrs with the battery out and see if that works and try some different sata ports as well!

 

[eklock2000]

The cooler master is a switch from a raidmax 500W.

We've tried all raid ports and IDE channels with no results. It just doesn't autodetect anything in the BIOS screen.

Also, we have cleared the CMOS with the jumpers.

Is it worth flashing the BIOS? The motherboard is version A? " R.A00"

Know of anywhere with a better walkthrough on setup other than the manual?

 

[Brother Esau]

Do you know how to flash the bios first off?

Don't know I was on the phone with Travis AKA Happy_Games today and he's in a transition so it may take some time for us too get back on the forum!

 

[eklock2000]

Well...I read the directions off DFI's website. It seems doable?

 

[Brother Esau]

Do you have a floppy drive?

 

[casums]

nope

well eklock was helping me it is actually my computer and i dont have one

 

[Brother Esau]

Then borrow one or go buy one and I will walk you through the process so you don't srew it up!

 

[Brother Esau]

Out of curiousity do you have the Sata PHY ports enabled in bios

 

[casums]

what is the purpose of the floppy drive (because i have a cd drive) if you dont mind me asking. sorry im a noob

 

[Brother Esau]

Yea you cant flash the bios from cd unless you have Tmods Bios Cd thats why! Your're 2 option on the D.F.I site is flash from floppy or in Windows with WINFLASH which I will tell you to never ever ever do you're bios flash from windows using winflash ...NOT EVER!!!

 

[casums]

i have to check if i have Sata PHY ports enabled in bios. also what is "flashing" and what does it do

 

[eklock2000]

You can borrow my floppy tomorrow casums

 

[casums]

i could not find the phy sata settings in the bios looked in every section

 

[Brother Esau]

Here's another stupid question for you do you have the power connector other than the sata connector pugged into the Hard Drive?

 

[casums]

nope just the sata power i heard using both can fry your hd

 

[Brother Esau]

Well dude thats you're problem no Pwer No Worky Worky!!!!! Kind of hard to fry you're hard drive if you do not have a 4 pin Molex power connection or a Sata power connection running into it! Just don't hook up both one or the other for the actual power connection ( But you still need the sata cable going from the hard drive to the motherboard!

 

[casums]

ok thanks im trying it right now. the front of my case is blinking right now and i think that is the hdd indicator

 

[Brother Esau]

You should have 2 cables plugged into the back of you're hard drive one is a power lead coming from the power supply and the other is a skinny flat sata cable that also plugs into the back of you're hard drive and the other end of that sata cable plugs into you're motherboard!

And you should not do this with the power supply plugged into the wall because its called electrostatic discharge and it will fry you're board , ram, cpu, etc , etc

 

[casums]

yea i have that but in my bios under standard cmos features it says

primary ide master
primary ide slave
secondary ide master
secondary ide slave
it doesnt ask for sata 1,2,3 and for like it used to like 4 days ago

 

[Brother Esau]

Did you get it working?

 

[casums]

windows could not detect it but i think i could make it if i could go into standard cmos features and press auto detect sata 1 but for some reason that option is not there anymore

 

[Brother Esau]

Question.....Have you been shoving you're hands in you're case while the power supply was hooked up?