Need Serious Help

[j_rich]

I know I am a noob and I need some help.

How do I flash the bios for a DFI LanParty DK X38-T2R with a USB Flash Drive?

I don't have a floppy. I couldn't find the right cable because the board has a 20 pin socket but all of my cables have one of the pinholes blocked.

My system has been on the shelf since December. I spent a **** ton of money and I need to get this to work or my gf is going to kill me.

Please help. I am desperate.

 

[orangegator]

Search google. I just typed in "flash bios usb drive" and got a ton of info.

 

[badge]

A Google search is a good idea. Otherwise, this is the only option:

It's not so bad...dieing.

 

[j_rich]

Yeah there were a lot of sources, with some things that didn't make sense to me. Does anybody have a reliable source??

 

[kbits]

Have you try DFI website suggestion?

http://www.dfi.com.tw/portal/CM/cmproduct/XX_cmproddetail/XX_WbProdsWindow?action=e&downloadType=biosTab&windowstate=normal&mode=view&downloadFlag=true&itemId=536

They provide different method depending on your OS. Read carefully and double check everything before flashing your BIOS. This is a process that can brick your motherboard if you do it wrong.

 

[j_rich]

Okay I have the latest version of the BIOS.

Now whenever windows is loading it gets to a certain point and you hear screeching from the system, the screen freezes and eventually it restarts.

Any ideas what might cause this?

 

[kbits]

Did you flash the BIOS or was it already at the latest version available? Is this problem is new or was it always that way? Is your Windows is a fresh install? What are your components?

You don't give much detail here.

 

[j_rich]

I flashed it, I think. But I have two hard drives one new, one old. The new one is the master and the old one (with windows installed) is the slave. This happens when I run it normally, and when I boot from the windows cd to try to reinstall windows.

Here are my parts:

DFI LanParty DK X38-T2R
Pentium Core2 Duo E8500
BFG 896 MB GeForce GTX260
2X2GB PNY XLR8 RAM
Corsair 650W PSU

 

[kbits]

You think? That doesn't sound so good.

What method did you use to flash your BIOS? Why exactly did you flash your BIOS in the first place? Is your Windows booted properly on this machine before? What version of Windows?

 

[j_rich]

I had this problem when I first tried to run the computer. Windows XP has never booted properly. I have been able to get it to run in safe mode, but now it does this when I try to boot in safe mode too.

I built my machine based on the $1250 enthusiast pc of the system builder marathon in november 2008. I took it to my IT guy at work, he said everything he could find involved flashing the bios. In the article they had to flash the bios to get the board to work so I figured I should flash the bios.

I was able to run windows in safe mode at the time, so I tried using winflash to flash the bios while in windows. That didn't work so I did it by booting from a usb thumb drive.

Now when I start up the computer it says October 3, 2008 is the version of the BIOS (which is the latest version) so I am assuming my flash attempt worked.

 

[kbits]

I would start from scratch, with minimum.

Check all cable connection. Clear CMOS. Test your memory sticks with a bootable memtest+ CD. If it pass, try install a fresh Windows (from a CD you know is working) on a reformated hard drive (assuming you won't lose anything important on it).

It is important that you manage to finish a fresh install of Windows XP.

 

[j_rich]

Got it to start to work with a fresh install but it continues to happen during the install. It makes the noise freezes then shuts down. I reset the CMOS again and it got a little further then noise freeze shutdown. So I reset the CMOS again, and it got a little further then I got the blue screen and it said video drivers failed to initialize.

 

[kbits]

Assuming you have no overclock at all...
Assuming your memory settings (timing and voltage) are set to the manufacturer specs in the BIOS (manually if it needs to)...
Assuming you did have test the memory with memtest...

From there, I would swap parts to find the faulty one. That isn't very helpfull if you don't have any spare parts, but that is the easiest way to me.