PC Pals Forum
Technical Help & Discussion => Self Building, Upgrading & General Hardware Help => Topic started by: alternator on March 22, 2004, 14:21
-
Hi, Im really at a loss here (I think)
After changing the case of my PC's, none of them will reach post. They power up but nothing is sent to the monitor.
I have changed the motherboards for brand new units, but still the same problem.
Do you think both of them might now have damaged processors? They are both Athlon, one is 2000+, and the other is 3000+
What do you think?
Any help appreciated?
-
Hi Alternator, and (https://www.pc-pals.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.apax34.dsl.pipex.com%2Fsmileys%2Fwelcome.gif&hash=05644ab4fbfa7c9585f756e9a79aab0a53d0e346)
I'm at a loss too, but as soon as a techie appears, I'm sure you will get some help. We have had some access problems over the last couple of days, over which we had no control, so please bear with us if your answer is not as immediate as we would normally like. :)
-
Can you give us some details of the mobos, cpus, ram and graphics card combinations that you have tried in the ones that will no longer work please Alternator :)
-
Hiya, and thanks for the warm welcome :)
Spec of PC 1
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
512MB DDR RAM (PC2700)
100 GB Western Digital HDD
Sound Blaster Audigy
nVidia GeForce 4 TI 4400 Graphics Card
Asus A7v333 motherbaord (model with onboard lan)
Currently has a Sparkle 250W PSU (although I have changed for a 300w - no difference)
PC 2
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
512MB DDR RAM (PC2700)
120GB HDD (another western unit)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
3D Power Radeon 9700LE graphics card
Had a Winfast K7NCR18 motherboard, but now has an Asus Via KT400 A/L mainboard in it - brand new.
300W PSU.
All that happened is I switched the case over (done this many times with many PC's in the past :-\) and they dont send anything to the monitor or beep etc.
Have removed Bios battery's overnight, tried booting up with motherboard, memory, processor and graphics card only but they just don't do anything ???
I must admit I didn't earth myself or ground myself before doing the changeover before. Do you think that I might have sent a bit of the old static into the processors? (clearly for the case changeover I left these attached, so didn't directly touch them)
Have had them apart about 3 times and back together, and changed the motherboards and re-fired up the systems but it makes no difference apparently :S
Tried on Multiple monitors, but they just go to standby or stay in standby while the PC is on. The drives all seem to open / close normally, and the lights illuminate on the mainboards when I switch on the power at the mains :-\
Thanks again...
-
Have you actually had the CPUs out at all?
Check they are seated correctly.
Have you moved the clear CMOS jumper into clear and not set back in the normal run position ?
Sorry to state the obvious if you have already checked that but we have to start at the beginning :)
-
yup, jumpers have been put to clear position, and 3000+ CPU has been reseated on new board, 2000+ hasn't (Ive had trouble getting the heatsink off! :-[)
-
It is of course possible that static could have damaged any part of the PC.
My best advice is to remove an item one by one from the pc and check to see if you get a POST screen. Keep repeating until you are down to basically no components.
Hopefully, you'll pull out a stick of ram, and the pc will boot, ergo the ram was the problem.
-
already done :) Memory was totally out at one point when I tried to boot it.
Well, Im guessing not the mainboards anyway, seeing as on one it has been replaced.
The only thing I can narrow it down to is the processors, as everything else has been lifted or changed before?
-
yup, jumpers have been put to clear position,
If you mean that then thats your problem, the jumper needs to be in the normal run position not clear position ???
-
nope :) put them back in their normal positions :)
-
I'm not saying that you have done this alternator, but I had a problem similar to this in the workshop several years ago. Have a close look at the pictures I took at the time and see if you can spot the mistake ;D ;D
-
LMFAO! Mate - got it straight away ;)
You missed a wire or two ;)
-
So I take it that your mobo isn't mounted directly onto the case? ;) :lol:
-
So the Rubber on the mouse mat is to erase your mistakes on the cables Adept :D
-
So the Rubber on the mouse mat is to erase your mistakes on the cables Adept :D
erm ... no. The plastic eraser is used for cleaning the contacts on PCI cards. Very useful tool is a plastic eraser ::)
If you ignore the bleedin' obvious and have a closer look at the motherboard Hook, you may just notice the cause of the problem ;) ;D
-
haha... nightmare! :)
-
Looks like you were "Short" of a few things Sean ;)
-
mmm.... "short" of a few risers? :o
Was that board working, or was that the reason it was being taken apart?
-
mmm.... "short" of a few risers? :o
Was that board working, or was that the reason it was being taken apart?
The customer made it himself and couldn't understand why he couldn't get it to boot.
Miraculously, once we added the requisite risers, the machine worked perfectly. One lucky bloke :o
-
Ok, it was more bad news today. Replaced the processor and still wont reach post.
Completely took it apart and re-assembled!
There are no beeps what-so-ever when firing this up? Its a completely new mobo and cpu!?
I have had it so its just motherboard and processor on the machine but still nothing? HDD spins up and stays at a constant speed.
If I have just mobo, processor, memory and graphics card it doesn't reach post or anything :-\
I have sold my old processor to my bro in law and he popped in his system - it worked FINE! :-\
I have tried with one dimm (alternating between my two dimms thinking it could be memory related), but still nothing.
Seeing as I don't use graphics, Im going to sell my new mobo and get one with on-board graphics as that will do the job plenty well for me tbh. It has surely gotta be graphics card related? Even without beeps :S
If it doesn't work then, Im just going to sell it off in bits on ebay, or as a faulty 3000+ system that has some sort of conflict somewhere that bill gates himself couldn't solve haha!
Any other idea's, or do you think I am on the right lines?
By the way, all power cables etc are plugged in, and the mobo is already on risers seated in the case ;)
-
I had a problem with a 2500 Barton CPU just after xmas that wouldnt run on 266 ram it had to be on 333 on that particular mobo.
It did beep though.
It couldnt be something like that could it, mismatched speed of RAM/FSB/CPU ?
You said youd had it running in another pc though didnt you ???
-
Hiya again Sandra...
I don't think so, the Asus mainboard supports 333 FSB speeds with 333 processors. I have the AMD Athlon 3000+ (333 spec processor) with 512MB DRR 2700 (again 333) and yup, it was running absolutely fine before I switched the cases over. Then both of the PC's failed to reach post ???
As you say, you'd expect it to beep. Its in a chieftech x-style tool free case at the moment which has no speaker, but I've had it in the other case, all screwed in, with the speaker connected... not one beep? I thought that too at one point, which is why I went for this particular configuration of 333 spec componants!
One thing I would say though, is I noticed that the graphics card fan doesn't move. I know on the nvidia cards the fan has two speeds, but I don't know about the ATI 9700? Thing is, I would have thought that I would have had this problem before if the fan had just stopped working and the graphics gpu had burnt out :-\
Its really odd... LOL! At least when I fix it we'll know if it ever happens again HAHA!
-
Funnily enough it was an ASUS board that supported 266/333 and 400, it just happened that the guy had 512 mbs of 266 DDR and we were using that to keep the cost down.
It was only by chance that I spotted in the manual when trying to work out what was wrong, that it said that if using a 333 CPU that it had to be 333 RAM :o
Its not the CPU speed in the BIOS is it thats been set too high, thats another problem I had recently with another ASUS board and Barton CPU, I had set that at 2200 not 1833 and even though it appeared ok it wouldnt load XP although it did load 98 ???
-
Yeah, I read up on that before buying the board. I've always liked Asus boards. This one has no jumpers as its supposed to do everything itself, bar make the coffee.
I don't know about the bios. I thought that it could be a possibility? Although it is supposed to do everything itself you can never be sure. Problem is, I can't get as far as the bios as it just wont do anything. It turns on, the fans spin, the HDD powers up but the monitor just won't come on from standby. I've left the bios battery out for 3 hours and retested, nothing. Theres not even any jumpers to reset the bios on this board. ???
How likely is it to be the graphics card in your opinion? You don't sound too convinced?
-
It could be I suppose but wasnt that running ok in the original case ???
-
Yup, was running fine.
This is the motherboard tech stuff:
Product Type Mainboard
Form Factor ATX
Width 30.5 cm
Depth 24.5 cm
Compatible Processors Athlon, Duron, Athlon XP
Processor Socket Socket A
Chipset Type VIA Apollo KT400
Max Bus Speed 333 MHz
Installed Qty (Max Supported) 0 ( 1 )
Supported RAM Technology DDR SDRAM
RAM Installed ( Max ) 0 MB / 3 GB (max)
Supported RAM Speed DDR266/PC2100, DDR200/PC1600, DDR333/PC2700, DDR400/PC3200
RAM Features Unbuffered
Storage Controller IDE
Controller Interface Type DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra) Fast Drives
Audio Output Sound card
Signal Processor VIA VT8235
Sound Output Mode 5.1 channel surround
Networking Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet
BIOS Features DMI 2.0 support, WfM 2.0 support, ASUS MyLogo, JumperFree, SMBIOS 2.3 support, ASUS EZ Flash
Hardware Monitoring CPU overheating protection
Sleep / Wake Up Keyboard wake up, wake on modem (WOM), suspend to RAM (STR), wake on LAN (WOL), mouse wake up, wake on PCI device, wake on ring (WOR)
Hardware Features Chassis intrusion detection, CrashFree BIOS, C.P.R. (CPU Parameter Recall)
Expansion Slots Total (Free) 1 ( 1 ) x processor - Socket A ¦ 1 ( 1 ) x AGP 8x ( 1.5 V ) ¦ 3 ( 3 ) x memory - DIMM 184-PIN ¦ 6 ( 6 ) x PCI
Interfaces 2 x storage - DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra) Fast Drives - 40 PIN IDC ¦ 4 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 PIN USB Type A ¦ 1 x parallel - IEEE 1284 (EPP/ECP) - 25 pin D-Sub (DB-25) ¦ 1 x serial - RS-232 - 9 pin D-Sub (DB-9) ¦ 1 x mouse - generic - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2 style) ¦ 1 x keyboard - generic - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2 style) ¦ 1 x storage - floppy interface - 34 PIN IDC ¦ 1 x network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45 ¦ 1 x audio - line-In - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ¦ 1 x audio - line-out - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ¦ 1 x microphone - input - mini-phone mono 3.5 mm ¦ 1 x audio - SPDIF ¦ 2 x audio - line-In - 4 PIN MPC
A pic is at http://www.dabs.com/images/uk/products/Motherboards_Mainboards/2J5F_large_150x150.jpg
Have a butchers... anything in your experience that I could do to the mainbaord itself or at least try??? LOL! Yer a star btw, giving techie support at this time in the morn :) :thanks:
-
Just looking at the PDF of the mobo manual for the ones I built this year and I think its the same model A7V8X-X at least it looks the same and uses the same chipsets as yours.
The graphic card is 1.5 volt although it ran ok on a 128Mb (8X) DDR GF4 MX4000+TV Out which was 3.3v although the first one turned out to be a faulty card, unfortunately that was also the one with the 266 ddr not the 333 so it took two visits to the shop to get the correct components to get it up and running.
Whats the voltage of the ATI card ?
Have you another card you could try in it ?
-
Just checked on the website, the graphics card appears to be of the 1.5 volt variety... the 8x AGP type...
I havent got another card, no. TBH if I got one with on board graphics then at least we could get the graphics card out of the equation, and if it works, then I could try adding the graphics card to the spec, and changing the bios settings (supposing I can get that far ::) )
LOL it should be so simple. Ive had every componant out of that system, and it all seems to work OK, apart from the graphics card and memory, as no-one has a board that will support 2700 spec memory and the AGP graphics card. Everyones on board with Baby mobo's ...
-
Just found this in the PDF manual, although if you cant get it to the bios scren to set it to UC, if needed I dont see how you can do anything about it ???
Do you know if your card supports this feature ?
-
ah hah! Thats something new. I've just looked through my manual and its in there too. I looked through the manual of my K7NCR18 motherboard, and its default is "disable" but the A7V8X-X instruction manual doesn't say whether its defaulted to enable or disable. Assuming this is the problem, as you say without getting into the bios I can't do anything. Is there any way to boot up with more basic values on this mainboard? I can't see anything?
The manual does say that there is a clear RTC RAM jumper on the mainboard which I didn't notice. Im not by the PC at the moment otherwise I would have a look! Might be worth setting the jumper to clear status for a few seconds without a battery in and re-testing?
-
Its just to the right of the battery and slightly below looking at it with the CPU at the top of the board and the IDE connectors to the right :)
Hope that you get it sorted soon, I am off to bed now so wont be able to try and help anymore for a few hours, hopefully someone else will come up with a suggestion that sorts it out if its not that :-*
-
No joy what-so-ever with that :S This isn't as easy as I'd hoped at all...
Any other suggestions before I throw it out of the window? ;D
-
open the window first ;D
sorry, I'm outta suggestions for now...
unless you can get yourself another cpu/mainboard to do testing with, I'm at a dead end.
-
LOL, the smashing of glass would have added to the effect ;D
PC now sorted, replaced A7V8X-X with an Asus A7V8X-MX (basically similar, smaller form factor with on-board graphics and all is fine. Problem must lie with the graphics card IMHO?
I'll start with the other PC, and see if I can get a cheap graphics card for it... ::)
Still find it strange that it happened on both systems but hey :-\ you know PC's eh!?
Thanks for your help throughout tho' guys :)