Newly built system, will not POST

J

joshyz

n00b
Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
9
I just built a PC for my brother's friend. I turned the PC on, I get the one short "everything okay" beep, then nothing. It just sits on the motherboard manufacturer splash screen. If I hold down Del when I turn it on, it says "Entering setup...." at the bottom of the screen, but never goes anywhere. This is driving me nuts, I've never seen this before and I've built several PCs for myself and friends and have never seen this problem.

Hardware:
ASUS A8N5X Motherboard
Onboard sound, network
Two sticks dual channel Corsair 512MB RAM
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
EVGA GeForce 6800 PCI-E 256MB


Troubleshooting steps that I have tried:
Disconnecting the hard drives
Trying a different keyboard and mouse
Double checking all the connections
Resetting the CMOS RTC RAM
Removing one of the sticks of RAM
Moving around the RAM sticks to different slots

Nothing is working. I'm ripping my hair out. Any ideas?
 
Make sure the 4pin 12v power plug is seated

Make sure that the 4pin section of the 24pin power plug is seated
 
put your hardrives on cable select....

also try reseting your CMOS
 
Just to clarify:
I have reset the CMOS
I have tried with the hardrives not even connected
The only add-in card is the video card
I have made sure the 4-pin power plug is seated correctly

Make sure that the 4pin section of the 24pin power plug is seated
Click to expand...

What is that?
 
because old mother boards only use a 20pin power connector while new ones use a 24pin power connector, powersupply manufacturers often make the additional 4pins removable. I have seen these "modular" 24pin connectors plugged into a motherboard and the 4pin section was not properly seated.
 
The 24 - pin plug did not seem to be modular. I will double check when I get home though.
 
Also make sure that none of your case leads are plugges in backwards. When I say case leads I'm talking about the wires for the reset switch, power switch, HDD led, etc. I have seen systems not post for these being reversed in polarity.
 
DonMega2k said:
Also make sure that none of your case leads are plugges in backwards. When I say case leads I'm talking about the wires for the reset switch, power switch, HDD led, etc. I have seen systems not post for these being reversed in polarity.
Click to expand...
Yeah I did that once. I wish they would make those a bit bigger. I know space is always limited but, I dont think it would be a large change.
 
Joves said:
Yeah I did that once. I wish they would make those a bit bigger. I know space is always limited but, I dont think it would be a large change.
Click to expand...

I've done it myself as well, back in my early days (486DX2 haha) of system building. I agree they could be a bit bigger, or have some fool-proof connectors. I mean, they could at least space them out a bit.
 
One more thing, any idea as to which lead would cause the most trouble? The power and reset buttons function, so I doubt either of those would be wrong. The power LED is wired just to the power supply (it's a lighted case), and the HDD activity light does nothing, since it never gets to any HDD activity.
 
I'd just pull all of them except for the power switch until you get it up and running, one less thing in the loop. The more I think about it though, based on the fact it's hanging when trying to enter setup, the more it sounds like the BIOS is corrupt. May need to RMA the board, but definitely exhaust all options before going there. Really though, if you have all peripherals out of the system except the video card, the case leads disconnected, 1 stick of RAM in the correct spot, and nothing else otherwise - you don't have too many more options. The last thing I would say is try a different stick of RAM from a known good machine as well as a video card from the same.
 
please note:
you cannot get the polarity of the power and reset wrong, they are just switches. The power and HDD lights can be hooked up wrong.
 
Thats true about the switches and polarity, but some motherboards offer a chassis intrusion connector that some mistakenly hook up power LED to. If there is a switched attached, then the BIOS detects an intrusion and fails to continue boot. Just a thought...

1st, reseat the CPU and memory. If you have two memory sticks, try with one
2nd, remove all uneccessary add in cards, hard disks, optical drives, etc...
3rd, Try removing the motherboard from the chassis. Could be grounding the board with a standoff somewhere
4th, Maybe its a PSU fault? If you have another, try swapping it
5th, Check the board for any physical damage aka bulging caps, cracks, etc...
6th, Make sure the CPU you've installed is supported by the board. Sometimes a motherboard may ship with an older BIOS and the newer CPU doesn't work until a BIOS update. When the BIOS does a POST and cannot read the CPU OPT Code number, it does a HALT state in order to protect the affected equipment.

Hope this helps,

-E
 
sounds like memory, I'd try removing one if you have 2 or try running some different memory in there.
 
Thanks for all the help. I tried everything that everyone suggested, nothing helped. Pretty much going with a bad motherboard. Had my brother's friend RMA it, hopefully will have a new one soon.
 
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