New computer setup won't even load to bios.

[Jeff240sx]

Just put a computer together with parts off newegg.com, and it's acting like I've never seen.
It's:
Soltek SL-856pro-775 mobo with 3.0GHz P4, SocketT, Hyperthreading and 800mhz fsb.
ATI Radeon 9800pro
2x512mb matched Geil ddr400 ram
S-ata western digital raptor
and a floppy and cd-rom stolen from my gf's computer.

So, I put all this together, and the first few times it started, it said "NOTE: BIOS is not installed", but I could enter BIOS. It recognized my processor, fans, temperatures, floppy disk, and hard drive. Not the cd-rom. After that, I got the NTLDR error, and created boot-up disks as per Microsoft's instructions. No dice.
So I go to sleep. Wake up today and made a boot-up disk with ntldr, boot.ini, and ntfinder on it. Start up the broken computer, and viola! BIOS! Listing my processor, ram count, ect. It also gave an error. S-ATA drive not setup, and CMOS clock was off. So I entered bios, first section was the clock. After setting it forward 2 hours, it froze up, and I haven't seen the BIOS screen, or the message telling me I have no BIOS. Now it won't even POST. Any clues?
-Jeff

[Alfie]

The no bios installed is referring to the raid controller on board,if you're not using raid disable it.
I suspect you haven't set bios up correctly,clear cmos by using the jumper on board,do it with no power to computer.
Leave the jumper in the clear position for 5- 10 minutes and then put it in the save position(close) and reboot.
If you get into bios,you want to set the clock,set all drives to auto detect,set the memory to auto,disable raid,etc.
Make sure cpu detection is set to auto.
What hard drive are you using and what is the rest of the system?
If you're using a new drive and you have the XP cd,you don't need bootdisks,just set cdrom as first bootable drive and with xp cd in place reboot the computer,the XP cd will take over,format the drive and install xp.
Is the sata controller natively supported or is there a seperate controller?
If a seperate controller is on board,you will need the drivers for it on a floppy,XP will ask you if you wish to install scsi drivers or 3rd party drivers for a controller,the floppy drive is where xp will look.
If you're using only one sata drive,you'll have to configure that in bios,etc.

[Jeff240sx]

s-ata is onboard. I'm using a s-ata WD raptor 36.7gb drive.
I've been back to bios twice since that post, after leaving the computer off for a prolonged time. It's froze up both times, after setting the clock forward a few hours, or looking at the boot devices.
I've never heard of a computer needing to rest before allowing bios to load, and especially crashing in bios. I'm really lost here.
The rest of my system is listed above, stuffed in an antec case with 380w ps.
-Jeff

[Alfie]

Disconnect the cdrom and floppy and see if it will boot then.
Are you using the standard power connector for the hard drive?

[TheMajor]

pull out one memory stick and try booting..then try with the other stick

[Jeff240sx]

I've previously disconnected the floppy and cd-rom. It didn't boot.
Just jumpered to clear the cmos and edit bios. It let me in, and after 3 changes, it froze up.
Will do on the ram swap.
-Jeff

[Jeff240sx]

Removed one stick of ram, and no more crashing bios, ect.
I did recieve the "NOTE: BIOS is not installed" message before it went to bios. I loaded failsafe defaults, and changed the cd-rom to 1st boot device. Now in the process of installing Win XP.
What did removing a stick of ram do, and how do I go about using both sticks in the future?
Also, how long will formatting a 36gig drive take? Can I let it go overnight? I really need to get to sleep lol.
-Jeff

[TheMajor]

glad I could help....formatting won't take very long normally..maybe 30mins to an hour....you can let it go over night.....just try the other stich again in teh future, or try changing slots between both sticks

[Jeff240sx]

Well heck. It froze during the drive formatting. Froze at 0%.
-Jeff

[Jeff240sx]

Back up and running. Selected quick format this time. There are 2 partitions on this drive, 8mb and the rest of it. I'm assuming the 8mb is the boot sector?
-Jeff

[TheMajor]

I don't know...I think only SATA's have the 8mb partition?

[TheMajor]

I've never seen an 8mb partition after formatting my IDE drives

[Alfie]

If you enabled sata as primary drive,pata as secondary,it should format normally.
If sata is a seperate controller,you'll need to load the drivers for it.
I would check bios again and see what the options are for sata,boot from xp cd,using XP reformat the drive and see what happens.Did you partition the drive?
With the memory,it could be a faulty stick or you didn't put them in the proper slots,you may want to check your manual.

[Mesaeus]

Originally Posted by TheMajor I've never seen an 8mb partition after formatting my IDE drives

I've seen plenty Windows XP setup likes to make one if you let it make a partition (you're not installing to an existing partition). Anyways, it sounds like at least one memory module is working very badly. Download memtest86+ and install it on a floppy disk. Boot from the floppy and let it make one pass. Test both modules. It's theoretically possible that the bios setup crashes because of bad memory, since it also uses a tiny piece of RAM memory while it's running. The reason most other people with bad memory don't have their bios crash on them, is that this piece is very small, so the module has to be almost completely bad before there's a good chance that the little piece is also failing.

[Redfallon]

Go into the BIOS (if you can get there with one stick of RAM) and crank the RAM voltage as high as it'll go! GeIL RAM REALLY REALLY REALLY doesn't like to run at the stock voltage of most boards (2.5~2.6) If you can crank it up above 2.8V anywhere to 3.2V it might fix your problem. 2.65V is the minimum I would give it.