1. Make sure BIOS is set up to auto-detect the drives - ensure IDE and SATA controllers are enabled in BIOS, use AHCI if available.

2. Power cable faulty or not plugged in, cables not firmly connected

3. Have you FDISKed or initialised the drive? Under XP, go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management and add a new partition if the disk is greyed out. In Win7, right-click My Computer, choose Manage, then Disk Management.

1. CPU incompatible with board or board has wrong FSB setting for this CPU

2. Chipped core or burned by incorrect cooler installation, pins bent in CPU socket

3. Socket arm not down fully, or CPU not seated fully into the socket

4. BIOS may need reset to clear past CPU settings - also check 12v power connector in.

5. Fan failure protection on motherboard may force shut down if there's no power draw on the cpu fan socket, make sure fan is plugged in if this applies to your board.

1. Check if installed properly and there's no shorts against the case, or misplaced case standoffs touching the board - try it outside of case on anti-static bag

2. Remove all unrequired hardware (soundcard, ide cables, USB peripherals, etc)

3. Make sure ATX and P4 power cables are both fully plugged in and PSU is rated for this type of load

4. Make sure your ram and CPU is compatible with this board and are inserted the right way around

5. Don't forget to plug in the atx power button and the 12v power lead if the board needs this

6. Check bios reset pins are not shorted/closed

7. Check keyboard wakeup jumper or chassis intrusion jumper

8. Check for correct CPU jumper settings - try resetting BIOS by unplugging power and shorting BIOS pins with jumper.

1. Remove all hardware one at a time until problem disappears

2. Set CPU and RAM back to stock speeds if overclocked

3. Check the CPU temperature - should not exceed 60deg for most CPU types

4. Make sure your ram and CPU is compatible with this board

5. Correct motherboard drivers loaded? VIA 4-in1 or Intel INF

6. Try moving cards around or disabling unused motherboard resources

7. Test your RAM - see www.goldmemory.cz and www.memtest86.org

1. Check powersupply handling capability, look under Hardware Monitoring and consider testing rails with a multimeter

2. Not enough voltage to CPU, video card, or RAM - raise these a little at a time

3. Overclocked too far past capabilities of hardware

4. Videocard,cpu overheating - try removing case side and blow air in with a fan

5. Faulty wiring or possible shorting in loose power plugs

6. if using XP or 2K, check to see if the automatically reboot on error function is turned off. (right click on My Computer-->properties-->advanced-->start up and recovery[settings]-->system failure-->untick automatically restart)

7. Test your RAM - see www.goldmemory.cz and www.memtest86.org

1. Check the fan is functioning OK and is not full of dust

2. Have you applied thermal paste? If the cooler had a plastic protector over a thermal pad, has it been removed?

3. Apply thermal paste only VERY thinly (almost translucent) - too much insulates and retains heat

4. Heatsink seated properly? Not mounted at an angle?

4a. Socket arm down all the way?

4b. Heatsink mounted correct way around? Check step cut into bottom matches socket (AMD/Socket370 only)

4c. Heatsink full of dust - clean it out

5. CPU voltage and speed correct - set to defaults

6. System cooling insufficient - try removing a case side and blowing air in with a fan?

7. CPU thermal pad been reused? Scrape it off and use paste instead, as pads are not meant for multiple use

1. Are all computers on same subnet (eg. 192.168.0.X)

2. Are you using straight-through cables between PCs and switch/hub??

3. Are you using cross-over cable for PC -> PC networking without a switch/hub?

4. Cable broken - check for link light or try another cable

5. Network hardware malfunctioning (hub, switch, NIC) - swap it out

6. Can you ping each PC from another PC?

6a. Ping works but you don't see PC in Network Neightbourhood - are drives shared yet / do you have access permissions?

7. Are you are using a non-internet IP address (192.168.0.x, 10.x.x.x)

8. Plug and play operating systems set to yes in the bios can cause sometimes cause LAN failures

9. Check for multiple instances of the one network card device in Network Properties

10. Disable onboard ACR LAN in BIOS if you have a PCI network card

FIX: These problems with a system are often due to loose cables and connections. Cable connections inside a system could become loose during transportation. Please open the system cover, and do a visual checking to ensure all cables are properly connected. Pay special attention to SATA cables, power cables, and all the other cables that are connected to the motherboard.

Problem: External USB or Firewire hard drive in a case wil not appear in My Computer, or appears, but will not let you use it

FIX: All drives need to be partitioned and formatted before they can be used. How this is done varies according to your operating system. In DOS/Win9x, you use FDISK at the command line. In Win2K or later, use Disk Management (right-click My Computer, then click Manage. Once partitioned, you need to format the disk.

Some operating systems may not be able to access the unformatted/unpartitioned disk via the external case - try connecting it inside your PC to partition & format first.

If you are using an external 2.5inch disk powered only by the USB output from a laptop, and it will not show up after you have loaded drivers/fdisked/formatted, your laptop's USB voltage may be too low to run the drive - a common problem especially when the battery in the laptop is more than 6 months old, as the output voltage tends to sag. Try the external disk with a desktop PC, as they have higher USB voltage outputs. If it works fine with the desktop, you'll need to power the external disk with a power adapter when using it with the laptop.

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