Just thought I'd pass on a little hard won experience on this score...
I have a slew of Abit AX8's and hit pretty much the same problem with the bios diagnostics getting as far as 8.3 and then just sitting there.
Testing with 5 different (rating and manufacturer) PSU's that I had to hand seemed to indicate that the issue was related to the amount of amps being put out over the 12v rail... and in one instance I found that a SATA drive being unplugged would allow me to post but not get anywhere when power was supplied...
Solution in the end was to buy a number of enermax PSU's with over 16amps on the 12v rail and since then I haven't had any problems at all...
As a small additional note.. BIOS was 1.00 with no OC settings and cmos cleared...
Other setup info:
- matrox 80gb SATA hd's
- dvd rom
- 3000 winchester 939 cpu
- abit ax8 mb
- superflower desktop case (a la ebuyer).
Moral of story and lesson learned for me was to check the power output beyond the wattage.. expensive lesson but worth passing on..
Hope that helps...
