EP45-DS3 problems

[call2]

I've just bought a EP45-DS3 and installed a 8500 cpu, 4Gb Corsair DDR2 6400 ram and Windows Xp SP2c. After a few stability tests using prime95 on this new build I attached an external (data backup) USB 250Gb disk. When I came to reboot the PC it continually cycles on/off and will not boot up. If I remove the USB drive and power up all is well. And if I connect and power up the USB drive whilst the system is up and running it's fine. It's only when I re-boot and have the USB drive connected and powered up does the machine fail to boot and come up into Windows.

I also tried a bit of overclocking with this board and it's very stable at 3600Ghz (9.5x379), but would not boot at 9x400. Because the board had F4 BIOS I decided to install the F8 BIOS in the hope that it would improve the overclocking a little and clear up the problem with the USB external drive. To my amazement the fault remained and now I can't get it to boot at anything over the 8500 cpu default 3.16Ghz (9.5x333). Has anyone had a similar problem? And how does anyone inform the manufacturers about problems like this?

[runn3R]

Hi

my colleague has tried this mb with external USB HDD and no problem during reboot when it's connected. So you may try with different USB HDD, change PSU.

he also overclocked Intel E8500 CPU from default FSB333*9.5=3.16GHz to FSB350*9.5 under F4 and F8 BIOS'es and system boot up OK.  But of course quality of OC issue is not guaranteed by any manufacturer.

[baldrick1001]

I Have an EP45 UD3R that has the same problem with a new 640 gig IOMEGA external hard drive,  I tend to think it is a BIOS problem

[runn3R]

@ baldrick1001

do you overclock your rig ? if yes, then can you tell me if the same problem appears when no overclocking ?

[dpd1973]

I have an EP45-UD3R and have the same looping problem with external HDDs.
Is there any fix for this problem?

What version of the BIOS are you running? I'm on F4 but cant see anything relating to USB HDDs in the later versions...

[runn3R]

hi dpd1973

do you overclock your rig ?

[dpd1973]

Hi mate,

No overclocking - I just put it together this week, its an E8500 running at stock. Initially I thought it was the boot sequence but the BIOS said no, then I thought the power supply wasnt up to it but I realised the USB HDDs have their own power supply!

Seeing as it boots up and is stable when the USB HDDs are not attached, and is stable if I power them on after boot up I've concluded that it doesnt like USB HDDs! This means the board isnt suitable for me unless their is a fix/workaround as I'm concerned about switching on the HDDs manually in case it has any longer term effects on their reliability. I have 5 USB HDDs - I'll try booting up with just one attached and see if its a particular HD...

[runn3R]

@ dpd1973

ok, tell me the results of checking with another hdd's
and do try with latest F9 bios.

p.s. don't worry about lack of BIOS description regarding your issue as just not all fixes are being mentioned at the website

[chupo]

The problem might be in USB HDD's external power, specifically on 5V rails, since the voltage in the computer and in the HDD is almost never the same, not to mention a thing called cold boot....

[dave]

The following workaround has worked for some people with this problem:

Enter bios
Enter integrated Peripherals
Disable Legacy USB Storage Detect
Press F10 to save and exit

Disabling this feature will prevent you booting from an external USB device (e.g Q flash to update bios from a USB memory stick) but will not prevent normal operation of your external USB hard drive in Windows.