Sapphire Pure Failing?

Moondust · 6 Mar 2006 at 17:04

Has anyone experienced problems with Sapphire Pure motherboards? I was running a Sapphire Pure PI-A9RX480, with Radeon X1300 , AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 and 2 gb RAM.

Having never overclocked this machine, I'm a bit surprised to find I'm now having problems. System repeatedly stalls or restarts, even whilst editing BIOS settings. Cannot boot from disk.

Any suggestions as to how to recover the system. System voltages seem to be stable, and core temperatures within the tolerances specified.

Moving towards an RMA, but thought someone out there may have experienced similar problems?? Could it be the temperature controllers in *** board? Or the power supply?

ajgoodfellow · 6 Mar 2006 at 18:42

Hi

Welcome to the forums

It could be a memory issue but if you cannot boot from disk it could be tricky to test this (you need to boot off the memtest bootdisk to run it)

What happens if you try to boot with just one stick of ram?

Moondust · 6 Mar 2006 at 20:03

When I booted with one memory stick I have the same problems. Initial bootup memory test completes with 2gb or 1gb stick without problems. sometimes freezes before this.

Subsequent IDE seek for devices fails most of the time. The erratic nature of the problem makes me think it is either a temperature issue or voltage, but that seems OK in BIOS. Then BIOS crashes! Reset CPROM memory and still problems persist.
Ran memtest off Suse-linux 10 boot disk and it listed several thousand errors. But could these have resulted from the mainboard malfunctioning? Unable to run memtest anymore, as memtest crashes.

Initially I thought this was a disk problem as it loaded up to NTFS.SYS in XP partition and halted, suggesting that I ran XP rescue disk. When I ran the rescue , it crashed during the reading of the CDROM. This made me think it was an IDE problem, as CD and SATA hard drive on IDE channels.

Had the mainboard or memory failed I would have expected some sort of POST message beeps, but all sounds normal until I get a freeze.
So, yes could be memory, but surprised that it would pass intial boot test.
Thanks!

ajgoodfellow · 6 Mar 2006 at 20:24

Moondust said:
When I booted with one memory stick I have the same problems. Initial bootup memory test completes with 2gb or 1gb stick without problems. sometimes freezes before this.

Subsequent IDE seek for devices fails most of the time. The erratic nature of the problem makes me think it is either a temperature issue or voltage, but that seems OK in BIOS. Then BIOS crashes! Reset CPROM memory and still problems persist.
Ran memtest off Suse-linux 10 boot disk and it listed several thousand errors. But could these have resulted from the mainboard malfunctioning? Unable to run memtest anymore, as memtest crashes.

Initially I thought this was a disk problem as it loaded up to NTFS.SYS in XP partition and halted, suggesting that I ran XP rescue disk. When I ran the rescue , it crashed during the reading of the CDROM. This made me think it was an IDE problem, as CD and SATA hard drive on IDE channels.

Had the mainboard or memory failed I would have expected some sort of POST message beeps, but all sounds normal until I get a freeze.
So, yes could be memory, but surprised that it would pass intial boot test.
Thanks!

Hi!

The bootup memory test isn't thorough so it often misses errors that are foud in memory testing programs

The memory errors do suggest a memory problem but they can be caused by a faulty motherboard. As it doesn't get any further than post and it started with problems on the IDE controllers this points to a faulty motherboard

If you try to boot it without any memory, graphics or CPU can you hear any beeps? If the motherboard doesn't beep then this is not a good sign

What happens if you just try to boot with one memory stick and no hard drives or CD drives?

Moondust · 7 Mar 2006 at 10:30

further investigations.....

With one memory stick and no drives I get an initial boot memtest (dosn't fail) ending at "DMI update success",of course, it doesn't boot. The DRAM is Corsair CMX1024-3200PT 400MHZ 3.3.3.8.
Ran memtest, and it says the memory is bad all the way (for both memory modules).
BIOS doesn't seem to crash with one module either, seems stable. Maybe the DRAM interleaving causes problems with 2 modules.

Will try another bank of new DRAM just to see.

Thanks again.

ajgoodfellow · 7 Mar 2006 at 12:34

Hi

Have you tried booting it without any memory to see if it beeps?

If you install the memory in a single channel configuration does it help?

Moondust · 7 Mar 2006 at 12:43

Without any memory it continuously beeps.
With one memory bank installed it does help.

have just tested out the memory in a RAM tester. One bank was faulty (scrap) and the other was fine. So with good memory in the board, it's still throwing up errors. Mobo is faulty.

So the mobo must have malfunctioned and spiked one of the banks. The system isonly 1.5 months old, so hopefully the next board when it arrives will last longer!

Thanks for your help.

ajgoodfellow · 7 Mar 2006 at 12:51

No worries - it's always frustrating trying to diagnose faults with PCs!

There does seem to be a problem with both your motherboard and memory so I would RMA them both - good luck!

Moondust · 7 Mar 2006 at 15:15

Yeah, I've RMAd them both , will wait and see what OC say... They refuse to replace the videocard which isn't suported under linux Grrrr. So beware, I bought a Radeon X1300 , but didn't check if it had linux drivers. Now OC won't replace it as the say it isn't faulty, bit disappointed that they won;t out of courtesy really.... :rolleyes:

Cheers

ajgoodfellow · 7 Mar 2006 at 15:27

I thought the ATI Linux drivers had improved?

Perhaps try selling it and buying an nVidia equivalent?

Good luck with the RMA BTW

lemonkettaz · 7 Mar 2006 at 15:32

i had a problem with this board.

i couldnt for the life of me run memory faster than 166mhz. i replaced the memory and that.. still got the same problem

in the end had to replace the mobo. im now using asus deluxe... lovely.

was a problem that persisted for a good month of so

frustrating start to the year.. hope you get it sorted asap... because it is very annoying

Moondust · 8 Mar 2006 at 14:24

Still witing for a reply from Overclockers!! No answer from their phone system, and they're ignoring requests through the customer support system.

I suppose they must be busy with the large number of Sapphire boards being returned!

I suppose I have to be patient, but for how long?

EuuurrrrggggghhhH!!!!!!

Fireburst · 8 Mar 2006 at 17:34

How long ago did you purchase the x1300?

Moondust · 9 Mar 2006 at 09:16

I bought the X1300 in January. I could hang on until the linux drivers are ready tho. I saw the board working on an XP machine and thought it looked good.