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Problem building PC

C

caboosemoose

Gawd
Joined
Aug 26, 2002
Messages
584
OK, I am knocking up a new rig for a friend and I cannot get the beast to function. Key specs as follows:

P4 Northwood 3.2 / 3.4 GHz (have two proccies I am trying use, more of which in a moment).
Intel-own 875 bonanza and or Intel 865 (a Shuttle-made board)
80GB Maxtor IDE 7200rpm
2 sticks corsair ddr400 value ram (256MB each)
Geforce 5700 and or Radeon 8500

OK, so where there are two bits of kit of a given type, that's because I have tried both. Essentially, once it's all wired up, pressing the power button spools all the fans up and drives whir etc, but there's no beeping and no video output. Holding the power button down for 5-10 secs or whatever successfully causes the system switch off. I have tried all combos of above kit with one stick and two sticks (and even no sticks) or RAM, but no luck at. have cleared CMOSes, tried booting with no drives to exclude them.

I ahve even tried a different case. The only thing I havent tried is a different PSU, but is it likely this is the problem? The fans and lights etc all seem to be powered as normal...

The fact that it behaves the same regardless of what bits I use makes me think I'm doing something wrong, but I ahve built tons of systems and cannot for the life of me think what is wrong - how can it not work when I have 2x mobos, 2x CPUs, 2x goodamn nearly everything.

Have double checked that both 20-pin mainboard power connector and 4-pin supplementary connectors are attached etc etc etc

Any thoughts anyone??? I NEED help!!!!!!!!
 
Do these boards have integrated graphics? could you possibly have your monitor connected to the video card and while its the integrated video that's initialized?
 
Will try different ram slots and ram if i can - nope, there is no integrated graphics on either baord.

AHRGHRGHRH!!!!!!!!!
 
do you know if the video cards work for sure??? If not then use a working one.
 
Seems to be a video related problem, your monitor is not syncing up with the graphics signal, how about the pins on the monitors d15 connector, have any of those pushed in?
 
if its a new pc and ur video isnt comming up but the card works in another pc, i'd think it would be the ram :confused:
 
If, for example, the CPU is dead, would the mobo post and give an error message, or would it not post at all. Likewise, what *should happen* if you boot without any memory?

Thanks
 
ncantador said:
Seems to be a video related problem, your monitor is not syncing up with the graphics signal, how about the pins on the monitors d15 connector, have any of those pushed in?
Click to expand...
Don't think it's the monitor as there's no beeping and the keyboard lights don't flash etc etc etc
 
I think you should test what you have not: the PSU; if all the rest you have tested twice may be you have a bad PSU. ( I think it would be safer to test with a known good PSU).
 
caboosemoose said:
If, for example, the CPU is dead, would the mobo post and give an error message, or would it not post at all. Likewise, what *should happen* if you boot without any memory?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You need at a minimum the following to boot up a computer: Mobo, CPU, RAM, video. Lacking any of those parts (Mobo especially!) will result in a non-boot. Make sure you have a speaker hooked to the system to hear the beep codes if it gives any, although I think the Intel mobo comes with a speaker built-in. Well, the ones I've worked with always had a built-in speaker.

Try booting the system up without a case and see what happens. What I do in these situations is put the Mobo on the foam that came in the mobo box and place it on the Mobo box so that the Video card can hang off the side. Just need to short the ATX power switch with a screwdriver or something for a second to turn it on.
 
if you dont want to short it to turn it on then just have the case sitting beside the mobo and run the power swith line to the board and turn it on from there
 
Tried the out-of-case thang (nice idea, using the box, it's pretty much like using one of those test rigs).

Still no joy. Currently, my money is on the RAM being the problem as I can't believe I've got either two bad CPUs or two bad mobos and as it's the only thing I'm not able to swap (the only spare RAM I have is either very old 266MHz DDR stuff, and a couple of sticks of ECC registered. The former may or may not work, but I know the later is not compatible).



EXRTA NOTE:
Oh and am not getting any beeping at all, even when booting with no memory - is that how it should be?
 
Got it all working with a replacement motherboard - i suspect the bioses were too old on both of the first two baords to handle the CPUs without an update. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that both are Intel engineering samples. Either way, it works now, thank god.
 
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