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Help! What's wrong with my new system??

V

veeoo

n00b
Joined
Mar 15, 2004
Messages
34
I finished putting together my new system last night. Powered it up and went into the BIOS setup. Everything seemed to be ok. CPU, memory, HDD were all recognized. I exited and booted from my windows CD. All was good until I hit enter to set up a partition on the hard drive. At this point my computer decided to power itself off for about 5-10 seconds, and then power itself back on.

Upon powering back up my motherboard did not post. I killed the power switch on the power supply. I tried powering on a few more times and each time the motherboard would not post. All the fans, dvd, hdd, etc turned on but there was no boot screen.

I attempted again this morning and now I'm having trouble getting anything to power on. Sometimes i'll get a power on with no post and sometimes nothing will turn on.
It seems to be a motherboard problem but why would it post fine once and then give out? Could it be the power supply? Is something shorted out somewhere? I don't know how to pinpoint the problem.

Here's a list of the parts i'm running:
Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 geforce 6100/430
Seasonic S12 430W PSU
Aspire X-QPACK case
2x1GB OCZ PC3200
Athlon 64 X2 4200+
BFG Geforce 6800GT OC
Lite-on DVD rom
Seagate 160GB 7200.9 HDD
CPU and GPU are watercooled (no leaks so that's not the problem)
 
is it possible something overheated? possibly a fan wasnt connected? heatsink failure?
 
I'm pretty sure nothing is overheating. I'm watercooling my cpu and gpu. Radiator fan and pump are both working fine. I had it on for at least 10 minutes while I explored the bios. CPU was holding steady at 29 C and system temp was reading 28 C.
 
It sure sounds, to me, like one of the components experienced a fairly quick failure once it got warmed up a bit. I don't have any experience with your particular motherboard, so I can't speak directly to that. However, if you are having trouble getting it to turn on at all, I'd be inclined to look at the power supply and the motherboard. Disconnect all the drives, USB headers and the like from the MB and see if it'll boot. Try swapping out components in an organized fashion: if you pull the RAM, does it give you beep-code errors? How about if you pull the video, instead? If neither gives you beep codes, it's a pretty good guess that the RAM and Video aren't what are holding you back from starting up. Try pulling the MB out of the case and booting it sitting on the desktop (on a sheet of paper or a box, so it can't short out against anything). If it boots out of the case, then you probably had a short against the metal of the case somewhere... Try a different powersupply, if you have one available. Make sure you have all the fan headers and +12v connections plugged in.
 
Thanks for the help.
I hope to try all that out when I get home from work tonight. My problem is that it's tough to swap stuff in/out because of the watercooling.
 
disconnect psu from mobo and see if you can consistently get it to power on by shorting a black+ green wire on the 20/24pin mobo header
 
It's looking more and more like the motherboard is the culprit.
I tested the power supply by shorting the green and black wires. It's working fine.
With the power supply connected I'm able to power on the system but i'm getting no post.
I disconnected my 6800 GT and connected my monitor to the integrated graphics. power but no post
I tried two sticks of ram, each stick separately, and no sticks of ram. power but no post, no error beeps, nothing
I unmounted the motherboard and put it on a piece of cardboard. It powers on like when it was mounted in the case but still no post.

That only leaves the CPU and motherboard. The CPU seemed fine when I was able to get into the bios yesterday. It was definitely not overheating either. As I said, it held at 29 C after a good 10 minutes. The motherboard would at least make some kind of beep if there was a bad cpu right?

I'll try to get some pics up after I get my system running. I guess I'll have to RMA the motherboard unless you guys have any other troubleshooting steps to try.
 
veeoo said:
It's looking more and more like the motherboard is the culprit.
I tested the power supply by shorting the green and black wires. It's working fine.
With the power supply connected I'm able to power on the system but i'm getting no post.
I disconnected my 6800 GT and connected my monitor to the integrated graphics. power but no post
I tried two sticks of ram, each stick separately, and no sticks of ram. power but no post, no error beeps, nothing
I unmounted the motherboard and put it on a piece of cardboard. It powers on like when it was mounted in the case but still no post.

That only leaves the CPU and motherboard. The CPU seemed fine when I was able to get into the bios yesterday. It was definitely not overheating either. As I said, it held at 29 C after a good 10 minutes. The motherboard would at least make some kind of beep if there was a bad cpu right?

I'll try to get some pics up after I get my system running. I guess I'll have to RMA the motherboard unless you guys have any other troubleshooting steps to try.
Click to expand...


I'm betting motherboard.
 
Yep, it does sound like the MB. Incidentally, I've never run into a MB that would beep if the CPU was bad, so that doesn't necessarily rule out the CPU. On the other hand, I've run into fairly few dead processors in the 15 years I've been in the PC business, which also makes me thing MB on this one.
 
Yup, its mobo....I just had my gf's laptop go out with the same kind of error you are having. Does it flash an error message right before it cuts off by the way?

On a side note, I always recommend you use the stock heatsink etc at first just to see if you have all the parts working...otherwise you will have a hard time if something goes bad and you run watercooling. That is what I did with my qpack watercooled beast.
 
I do not get any error messages or beeps. The system will power on but the motherboard does not post.
I sent the motherboard back to newegg this morning. I hope to have a replacement by next week. I'll definitely test it out with the stock heatsink this time. I don't want to fuss with the watercooling until i'm sure it works.
Thanks for all the help. Hopefully I won't be needing it again with the replacement board.
 
So I got my replacement gigabyte 6100/430 board on wednesday.
First thing I did was test it with the stock cooler, no video card, 2 sticks of ram. Motherboard posted fine. Powered down and connected HDD and cdrom. Still fine.

Now I decide to put everything into my case with my cpu waterblock and gpu waterblock on my 6800 GT OC. I get everything connected but leave the power switch on the PSU off. When I flip the PSU power switch on, my system turns itself on! Not a good sign.
Power stays on for about 5 seconds and shuts off. Then I cannot power on the system using the case power switch.
I unmount the motherboard from the case and slip in a piece of cardboard to isolate it. I also disconnect my video card. Now the system works normally, no self power on when flipping the psu switch. System powers on with the case switch and everything is good.

Seems like I must have had a short somewhere on the motherboard so I reconnect my video card to see if it will work. With it connected the systems reverts back to the bad state where it powers itself on for 5 seconds and then shuts off.
I repeated this 3 times. Every time the video card is connected i get the badness. With the video card disconnected all is good.

Did I possibly damage my gpu when I put on the waterblock? It did work temporarily with the first motherboard. Is it overheating due to a bad mount? Why would having my video card connected cause the system to power itself on for 5 seconds and then be unable to power on? very strange...
Maybe the board won't accept any PCIe x16 video card?

Anybody have any suggestions as to what's going on? Thanks.
 
Yes, the system seems fine when i disconnect my 6800gt and use the onboard video. Once I connect it, the system acts strangely as described. In the bios there is an option for the onboard gpu "Always enable" or "Enable if no PCIe GPU". I have it set to always enable.

Update: I tested another video card (X300se) and I get the same behavior as with the 6800gt.
Then I tried another power supply (antec neopower 480W) thinking that could be the problem. Nope, the same behavior where it powers itself on and I get no post from the mobo. Both of these components work fine in my other system.

It seems to me like the mobo will not take a pcie x16 gpu.
 
I had it at that setting when I had everything in the case. That's when I first saw the problem. I set it to always enable because I wanted to be able to just leave my monitor cable plugged into the onboard gpu.

These new chipsets are supposed to be able to run both onboard and external graphics, but that option is definitely something I should test out thoroughly.
 
I finally got it working....sort of.

I was able to hook up my video card and get the motherboard to post. I still had my monitor hooked up to the onboard video though. I even installed windows. This is still with the mobo on a piece of cardboard.
I thought everything was fine so I went to hook up my monitor to my 6800GT. Well I guess I shifted it the wrong way and the mobo would not post.

It turns out that if the metal bracket of my 6800gt is touching the metal of the case, the system will turn itself on. If it's not touching the system behaves normally. I can even power on the system by temporarily touching the bracket to the case. The mobo will even post so long as the gpu card is no longer touching the case.

Can someone please explain to me why this would happen?
I've already ordered an asus a8n-vm csm as a replacement for this finicky board. I don't think I want to keep it. I'm hoping the asus will not have the same problems in my case as the gigabyte.
 
I have the A8N-VM CSM and although Im happy, it might be a bit finicky too right now.

when I added a hauppage PVR-150 PCI, it knocked out the onboard sound (and would not install drivers for the PVR)... had to change PCI slots to get it to work... reseating did not help. Also, my new NEC 3550A DVD-RW is freezing up on me on long reads (even once during initial windows install) I hope its the drive itself and not the MB... Or i hope its just a BIOS issue, as the temp CD-RW Im using is running ok on the same cable.

Im running similar to what you have listed though, and the asus board is doing well with the OCZ ram I picked up. Im getting better cooling in the QPACK when I reversed the 120mm fan direction to blow air in, and you might want to consider testing that out to see if it can work the same for you.
 
ben123 said:
I have the A8N-VM CSM and although Im happy, it might be a bit finicky too right now.

when I added a hauppage PVR-150 PCI, it knocked out the onboard sound (and would not install drivers for the PVR)... had to change PCI slots to get it to work... reseating did not help. Also, my new NEC 3550A DVD-RW is freezing up on me on long reads (even once during initial windows install) I hope its the drive itself and not the MB... Or i hope its just a BIOS issue, as the temp CD-RW Im using is running ok on the same cable.

Im running similar to what you have listed though, and the asus board is doing well with the OCZ ram I picked up. Im getting better cooling in the QPACK when I reversed the 120mm fan direction to blow air in, and you might want to consider testing that out to see if it can work the same for you.
Click to expand...

My asus a8n vm csm is having some problems with my tv tuner ( ati theater 550 chipset)
 
Clearly, there's a short somewhere. Is there any chance there is a metal standoff or screw on the motherboard tray that might be touching the bottom of the motherboard? If not that, is the video card touching any components on the motherboard? Also, look in the slot your card goes into. Are any of the contacts in there bent? It sure sounds like you are grounding out somewhere in that loop.

veeoo said:
I finally got it working....sort of.

I was able to hook up my video card and get the motherboard to post. I still had my monitor hooked up to the onboard video though. I even installed windows. This is still with the mobo on a piece of cardboard.
I thought everything was fine so I went to hook up my monitor to my 6800GT. Well I guess I shifted it the wrong way and the mobo would not post.

It turns out that if the metal bracket of my 6800gt is touching the metal of the case, the system will turn itself on. If it's not touching the system behaves normally. I can even power on the system by temporarily touching the bracket to the case. The mobo will even post so long as the gpu card is no longer touching the case.

Can someone please explain to me why this would happen?
I've already ordered an asus a8n-vm csm as a replacement for this finicky board. I don't think I want to keep it. I'm hoping the asus will not have the same problems in my case as the gigabyte.
Click to expand...
 
I think I fixed it. I flipped the power switch connector around the other way. This got rid of the issue where the system would power on if the video card bracket was touching the case.

Is this normal? I thought that the orientation of the power switch didn't matter. I thought it would work either way.

Anyway, if it was my fault or not, I plan on returning the gigabyte board and keeping the asus board. I don't trust the gigabyte board and I've had good experiences with asus in the past.
 
The only thing that might make sense for that to work is that one of the power-switch connector wires is damaged and makes contact with the case at some point inside. When the wire is connected, it completes the ground activation and powers on the system. By switching, the damaged wire will land on the opposite pin (the one that carries ground) and therefore not impact anything.

You might want to check for continuity between each power-switch cable pin wire and the case, just to be sure. If it is damaged I'd return the case.
 
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