KN8 SLI only to BIOS

[thothep]

I followed assembly instructions carefully for everything, and have disconnected the only questionable piece (the second HD), but the machine still lags in recognizing the keyboard and mouse, and is not recognizing the Windows disk in the DVD-ROM. I can get into BIOS (after staring at the Tab for Post, Del for setup screen for 5+ minutes), but I'm not sure what, if anything to try tweaking.

I saw someone saying not to plug the bottom 4-pin power connector in if not actually using SLI, but people were recommending the extra power connection on the Newegg reviews of the graphics card.

New Parts:
Abit KN8-SLI
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice
2x512mb Samsung DDR400 PC 3200 RAM
Rosewill GF6600-SLI (1)
Western Digital Caviar 80GB SATA150
Enermax Liberty 500W

Old Parts:
DVD-ROM (from an HP I got in Sep '00, master on IDE1)
CDRW (just over a year old, but can't remember the make, slave)
Front card reader (I think it came with my Soyo Dragon Platinum KT333)
WD Caviar 250 GB Ultra ATA w/Sata adaptor (disconnected, 4 mo old)
Lian-Li case, haven't connected the case USB ports cause they're a 9 rather than one piece plug.

Monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers are run through a KVM switch, moving the keyboard and mouse to a direct connection does not change anything. They are working fine with my other computer, an old 500 mhz DeskPro I picked up secondhand.

Decided to give it one last shot before I sent this post, it found the Windows cd, and was running it, but didn't recognize the keyboard, so I couldn't press Enter to install.

I hope posting under the motherboard is the right choice. Thank you for any help proffered.

 

[DD_Jay_AZ]

Plug the keyboard directly into the K8N board, you might have a bad KVM, seen that alot. Or a bad keyboard. Try tweaking the "Gate A20" option in the CMOS/BIOS.

Unplug all drives from the board, see if you post faster and get into CMOS quicker. Plug 1 drive in at a time until you find the culprit.

Make sure the optical drives are on the second channel, I've seen BIOS bugs that lag POSTing if optical drives are on the primary/master position one the IDE. Better yet, only have the optical drives setup as slaves.

The 4 EXTRA pins by the main power connector are needed for PCI-E, especially with power hungry video cards like yours.

The 4-pin molex style connector directly by the 16x PCI-E slot is specifically for SLI mode to give the second card the extra power as well. Pretty much totally uneeded if yyour only running 1 card, just the standard 24-pin main ATX power connection should be enough.

Always plug in any external power connectrs that are on your video card directly.

 

[thothep]

Well, there are four possible reasons for the problem, but it seems to have cleared up now, and there's no reason to add back in any of the reasons to further identify it.

1. Unplugged the 4-pin molex
2. The guy who assembled my last computer left the jumper on the DVD-ROM in cable select, changed it to master
3. Moved optical drive connection to IDE2
4. Removed front bay card reader from previous mobo

Everything seems to be running well now, and I have to be fast to catch the BIOS entry. So thank you, I may not have followed your directions exactly, but they pointed me in the right direction.

Out of interest's sake, where would I have found "Gate A20" in the BIOS?

 

[DD_Jay_AZ]

Usually in "Advanced BIOS Settings".

Most commonly in the same place where you assign boot order and some other generic stuff. Really only makes a difference on todays computers if your troubleshooting a possible bad keyboard or using a KVM.

If your using a KVM still, let the motherboard/BIOS deal with keyboard speed, not the keyboard. Makes using a KVM much less likely to lock-up a system.