Splat
03-09-2008, 12:56 PM
New Hardware (fresh out of the box):
XFX 680i LT
Intel C2D E6750 (dual core 2.66GHz; using stock cooler)
Geforce 8800 GT
Corsair 2x1GB DDR2 800MHz dimms (EPP enabled)
Old Hardware (has been working flawlessly for years):
Corsair 2x512MB dimms (didn't intend to use these, but available for testing)
Thermaltake PurePower 680W
Hyundai L90+ monitor (DVI connector)
HDDs: WD USB external, Fathom Firewire (1394) external, generic ancient 20gig internal IDE
Generic DVD-RW capable optical drive
I'm in the process upgrading my machine. Everything arrived yesterday, and even though I'm not new to building a machine (I'm a natural born geek, have been doing so since I was 12), I decided to play it safe and go by the manual(s) since I hadn't done this in a few years. All appeared well, except for a few discrepancies between the PSU manual and mobo manual, until it was time to fire the system up.
All fans power up, the three LEDs on the motherboard light up (blue, yellow, green; this signifies normal operation if I understand correctly), keyboard appears to receive power (numlock/etc functional), everything seems in order at first glance but there's no output on the screen (monitor goes into standby, not "no signal" mode) and, judging by lack of HDD activity, the system does not boot.
Upon closer inspection, the following things don't seem quite right:
The power LED does not light up. This is even though I've hooked it up as per manual (had to do the ghetto scissor trick because it was a 3-pin). I tried reversing the leads just in case I got it wrong, but then the LED glows when the system is OFF (but PSU is on) and stops glowing when the power button is pressed.
When just the oldschool IDE drive is connected, the HDD led just lights up quickly when the system powers on and then turns off and stays off (it does this with no HDD hooked up too though). When the Optical drive is connected, however, the HDD LED does one of two things. It either stays on constantly for about a minute and then turns off, or it goes bananas and blinks repeatedly at a relatively high frequency. Which one happens appears pretty random between power ups / resets even with no changes to the setup.
Normally, when the system is powered off, only the blue LED on the motherboard is lit (which is normal AFAIK). However, if the PSU is turned off for a few seconds (so the motherboard actually turns off) and back on again, both the blue and the yellow LED light up. This persists until the system is powered up and back down, at which point only the blue LED is lit once again.
I've googled and searched these forums and it appears as though many people have pretty much exactly the same problem. I have tried the following things (in no particular order) to no avail:
Clear CMOS
Remove CMOS battery overnight
Connect just the essentials (mobo, psu, cpu, gpu) and nothing else
Disconnect graphics card to see if the system responds differently; no change.
Power up with no ram sticks at all to see if system responds differently; no change.
The graphics card has two DVI slots; tried both, repeatedly. No change.
Power up with the auxiliary power for the graphics card plugged in / out.
Use one ram stick instead of two
Use old school ram stick(s)
Play roulette with ram stick(s) / dimm slots
Power up for a few seconds with CPU fan not plugged in
Power up for a few seconds with CPU heatsink not attached (but still on CPU, I refuse to try without it. As far as I'm concerned, if the stock CPU heatsink for an Intel Core 2 Duo causes a short on the motherboard, then the motherboard does NOT support Intel Core 2 Duo as advertised)
EDIT: One of the people here mentioned not having a floppy drive could cause this. Hooked up my floppy drive, no change.
EDIT: Tried with no 8-pin 12V power to CPU, 4-pin instead of 8-pin (as per manual) and full 8-pin (original setup); no change.
EDIT: Set everything up outside of chassis, on isolated wrapping that came with motherboard, to rule out something in the case shorting the motherboard. No change.
I don't have an extra PCIe GPU or Sock 775 CPU lying around, so I can't try that. But considering a lot of people have this exact problem with other hardware and some of them did try to replace the CPU/GPU, I think it's safe to say they're not to blame. I can't imagine it being the PSU; It has more than enough power to supply this setup and has been working flawlessly for years. Can't be the RAM either because, as stated above, I've tried old / tried'n'true ram sticks to no avail.
Well, that's about it. I've tried to be as elaborate and specific as I could be in hopes that something rings a bell with someone. There has to be a reason so many people are having this issue.
Personally, I can't think of much more to try and frankly, after spending all day yesterday on this, I'm just about at the end of my patience and close to giving up / sending this board back and getting a different one... but I hope that can be avoided. Any advice appreciated. :icon_tiphat:
XFX 680i LT
Intel C2D E6750 (dual core 2.66GHz; using stock cooler)
Geforce 8800 GT
Corsair 2x1GB DDR2 800MHz dimms (EPP enabled)
Old Hardware (has been working flawlessly for years):
Corsair 2x512MB dimms (didn't intend to use these, but available for testing)
Thermaltake PurePower 680W
Hyundai L90+ monitor (DVI connector)
HDDs: WD USB external, Fathom Firewire (1394) external, generic ancient 20gig internal IDE
Generic DVD-RW capable optical drive
I'm in the process upgrading my machine. Everything arrived yesterday, and even though I'm not new to building a machine (I'm a natural born geek, have been doing so since I was 12), I decided to play it safe and go by the manual(s) since I hadn't done this in a few years. All appeared well, except for a few discrepancies between the PSU manual and mobo manual, until it was time to fire the system up.
All fans power up, the three LEDs on the motherboard light up (blue, yellow, green; this signifies normal operation if I understand correctly), keyboard appears to receive power (numlock/etc functional), everything seems in order at first glance but there's no output on the screen (monitor goes into standby, not "no signal" mode) and, judging by lack of HDD activity, the system does not boot.
Upon closer inspection, the following things don't seem quite right:
The power LED does not light up. This is even though I've hooked it up as per manual (had to do the ghetto scissor trick because it was a 3-pin). I tried reversing the leads just in case I got it wrong, but then the LED glows when the system is OFF (but PSU is on) and stops glowing when the power button is pressed.
When just the oldschool IDE drive is connected, the HDD led just lights up quickly when the system powers on and then turns off and stays off (it does this with no HDD hooked up too though). When the Optical drive is connected, however, the HDD LED does one of two things. It either stays on constantly for about a minute and then turns off, or it goes bananas and blinks repeatedly at a relatively high frequency. Which one happens appears pretty random between power ups / resets even with no changes to the setup.
Normally, when the system is powered off, only the blue LED on the motherboard is lit (which is normal AFAIK). However, if the PSU is turned off for a few seconds (so the motherboard actually turns off) and back on again, both the blue and the yellow LED light up. This persists until the system is powered up and back down, at which point only the blue LED is lit once again.
I've googled and searched these forums and it appears as though many people have pretty much exactly the same problem. I have tried the following things (in no particular order) to no avail:
Clear CMOS
Remove CMOS battery overnight
Connect just the essentials (mobo, psu, cpu, gpu) and nothing else
Disconnect graphics card to see if the system responds differently; no change.
Power up with no ram sticks at all to see if system responds differently; no change.
The graphics card has two DVI slots; tried both, repeatedly. No change.
Power up with the auxiliary power for the graphics card plugged in / out.
Use one ram stick instead of two
Use old school ram stick(s)
Play roulette with ram stick(s) / dimm slots
Power up for a few seconds with CPU fan not plugged in
Power up for a few seconds with CPU heatsink not attached (but still on CPU, I refuse to try without it. As far as I'm concerned, if the stock CPU heatsink for an Intel Core 2 Duo causes a short on the motherboard, then the motherboard does NOT support Intel Core 2 Duo as advertised)
EDIT: One of the people here mentioned not having a floppy drive could cause this. Hooked up my floppy drive, no change.
EDIT: Tried with no 8-pin 12V power to CPU, 4-pin instead of 8-pin (as per manual) and full 8-pin (original setup); no change.
EDIT: Set everything up outside of chassis, on isolated wrapping that came with motherboard, to rule out something in the case shorting the motherboard. No change.
I don't have an extra PCIe GPU or Sock 775 CPU lying around, so I can't try that. But considering a lot of people have this exact problem with other hardware and some of them did try to replace the CPU/GPU, I think it's safe to say they're not to blame. I can't imagine it being the PSU; It has more than enough power to supply this setup and has been working flawlessly for years. Can't be the RAM either because, as stated above, I've tried old / tried'n'true ram sticks to no avail.
Well, that's about it. I've tried to be as elaborate and specific as I could be in hopes that something rings a bell with someone. There has to be a reason so many people are having this issue.
Personally, I can't think of much more to try and frankly, after spending all day yesterday on this, I'm just about at the end of my patience and close to giving up / sending this board back and getting a different one... but I hope that can be avoided. Any advice appreciated. :icon_tiphat: