New AMD system assembled, but can't boot!

[TIbrO]

My friend just made his first selfmade PC and chose AMD, ofcourse. He got an EPoX 8KTA3+ motherboard just like mine, and a 1.33Ghz AMD Athlon. I helped him put a lot of it together, but he did most of it while unsupervised. Now the PC is all put together, and it seems everything is in fine from the way it all looks. I have even gone over it myself to check connections and everything else, even motherboard jumpers. Everything SEEMS to be fine, but when he powers it up, the monitor says that it is not getting a video signal. His floppy drive never lights up once, and the PC just sits there until you pull the plug out from the back, as the power button doesn't work.

Do any of you have any idea what is going on with his system? I am stumped, personally. The only things I could think of that could be wrong were bad video card, bad AGP port, or a corrupted BIOS. The motherboard site says that you can restore the BIOS if you screwed it up during a BIOS update or if it just gets corrupted, by putting the latest BIOS on a diskette and boot up using an old ISA video card, because PCI and AGP ports are disabled if BIOS doesn't work.

So before I start my hunt for an old ISA videocard, what do you guys recommend?

[grouch]

honestly i recomend that you get the computer and all it's pieces and do it for him because it will take too long to explain to him that he dorked it up.

i assume that you've played with your own quite a few times and all that so you should be able to find the problem fast.

things to look at:
1.is the motherboard screwed directly to the case or on stands like it should be? (seen that once)
2.are the cables in the back securelly installed?(had a monitor once that didn't want to work unless the screws for the cable were cranked in there tight)
3.are the little wires from the front of the box connected properly to the motherboard in accordance with what the motherboard says they should go to?(not the documentation but the actual mobo should have the connections etced into it)
4.if you feel bold try swapping your board for his and see if that makes it function. also try one card at a time swap from your to his.
5.check the power supply. make sure it isn't having problems.

the reason i don't jump on the bios is because you said that the power wasn't going off and that the floppy didn't work.
let me know if it helps you out.

[Sefy]

If all what grouch said didn't work for you, i'd strongly recommand you take the PC apart, and assemble only the required components, such as mainboard+cpu+ram+vga and see if the system will power up, oh, and also connect the PC Speaker, and lastly, your board has an onboard LEDS which diagnose if there is any bad component in the PC, check what number they give you, and follow the manual!

[kr0n0s]

hmmm this does not look all too good at first glance

i myself have gone through 2 AMD processors by attaching a s**** heatsink to them, first time i was admitidly a little rough, second time nothing could have been more gentile

things go smoothly till you hear the sound of fine sand while attaching the cpu

if the core is cracked nothing will power or post

and for all those who read after this the heatsync was a super orb and it is now a melted down paper weight, prolly the only thing its good for

hope this helps a little

[sommersby]

I to would suspect a messed up heat sync install as this is very touchy on an amd, if amd has a weakness this is it, once installed properlly it runs forever, but even experienced techs crush the cpu about 1 out of 10 times.

[Sefy]

Yay! i'm a lucky one, I haven't crushed a CPU yet! yuppy!

[zzyzzx]

Ive never heard of this CPU crushing phenomenon. How does one do it?

[bewley]

I had this happen once and it ended up being a grounded motherboard. Make sure the motherboard isn't touching metal in the case as this will cause the machine to just look dead.

As Sefy suggests, take the PC apart and only install the CPU, memory, and video card -- you may also want to do this without installing the motherboard in the case. Just hook it up to the power supply and lay it flat on the table. If the machine at least tries to boot, move the components back into the case and try again. If it still works, you are cooking with gas.

If it doesn't work... Then you will have to check your components (bad memory, cpu, etc?), jumpers, and settings.

Good luck!

[Sefy]

Well, zzyzzx, you know how a CPU is a big square and has a smaller square in the middle ? smash the middle part by using too much force, and you just killed a CPU, it's quite alot of fun i'm sure, just a tad bit expensive fun for my taste

[Willy Will]

I bought a power supply and it was bad right out of the box.

[eyeofbeholder]

I recently had a very similar problem. Push the power button and nothing. No fan, no light, nothing. Ended up being a messed up hard disk drive.

Unplug power to everything, including the motherboard. Then, starting with the motherboard, attach the power supply - one by one. Hit the power button between each device you attach power. See if you can isolate where the problem is.

Like me, you might think you have a totally messed up computer when it is only the hard drive.

Good luck.

[Sefy]

Something else that might help is, if you have old IDE cabels and you accidently put them on incorrectly, the system won't even post.

[TIbrO]

You know what, guys? I think it is the grounded motherboard theory. I bet he put the motherboard on the bare case, and that's why it is not booting. He was pretty desperate today and wanted me to take out my proc and heatsink to test cause he called EPoX and they told him he had a bad proc. Hmmm... I bet the processor is not even bad, though, and the motherboard is just grounded to the case. Thanks guys!

[Sefy]

Next time you can try ICQ'ing me directly when you are doing all the installations

[sommersby]

Make sure he used the heatsink compound correctly, had a guy bring me his puter the other day and he had put the compound aroung the edge of the cpu rather than in the center on the chip...lol his processor lasted about 10 minutes. expensive lesson!

[x2pacalypsehalx]

without reading other replies i think you blew out the cpu..

[simchippy]

Sounds like a grounded motherboard to me.
I always test my mb out of the case with memory, cpu(with heatsink and fan) and video card first. If I can post I then unlock the chip and bolt the mb in and attach all wires.
If you fried the chip you may smell the burn. If you crush the die you will probable see the damage.

good luck

[TIbrO]

Well today is a new day and he is going to go buy some motherboard stands for his case. Hopefully the grounded motherboard is what's wrong, and nothing worse. Thanks again, guys. I might be back if it still doesn't work, though!

[TIbrO]

Aha, we tested the motherboard out of the case, and it still sat there saying "FF" on the LCD error code thing...

So we took the heatsink off and the processor out. Ineed the core was crushed!

So now we must wait a few weeks before a new mobo and proc come to reassemble the PC.

[d4n13l]

Amateurs! HA!

[Sefy]

He crashed the core ?? well, now you can have a CPU mounted on his head, saying, I didn't just crash Windows, the CPU went down too

[stevendm]

Does this computer use an AGP video card? If so make sure that it is seated properly in the connector. The AGP connectors use two rows of connector pads on each side and if not seated the first row is mating up with the second row in the connector. That won't work.

I had this same problem in a system I was setting up and all the computer would do is beep about 8 times and then stop.

stevendm

[Shabubu]

And just cause it wasn't mentioned yet. Take out and re-insert your RAM sticks, if there not in right you might not be able to post. But I think grounded mobo or shagged PSU

[Sir Kopelot]

Man the last 2 people dont pay much attention!!

He Already found the problem, just like people already said
new mobo / cpu !!

no more intergalactic suggestions!

the first 2 replys were right onthe money, there are sertain steps to be taken in diagnosing a problem like this
and he folowed them


no more posts

[TIbrO]

Hehe, thanks guys. All of you submitted very valid suggestions. Sir Kopelot, don't go too hard on them, some people just read the posted question and skip all of the replies, and immediately reply to the question themselves.

And stevedm, I thought it was a bad videocard at first. We tried all sorts of wacky stuff to see if we could even get lucky enough to get the damned motherboard to beep ONCE at us... it wasn't even beeping or anything. It would power up, get the heatsinkfan and PSU fan going, light up the LEDs, and display "FF" in the error code LCD ont he mobo, which according to the manual means "POST completed successfully. Now handing control over to the OS."

Oh well, he is returning those parts as soon as tufshop.com replies to his email and stuff and he gets an RMA number or something. But anyway, in like a week or two, expect me back here asking more stuff if it doesn't go as it should, again!

[speedy]

Just so TibO and friend don't feel too bad, here's what happened to me about 15 years ago:

Moving to a new house. Last thing out was my computer. Put the damn thing on the front seat, even put a seatbelt around it. Arrived safely. Couple days later had time to hook up computer in its new home. Plug it in, everthing fine. Start to push it into place. Oops... You know that acrid smell when a resistor burns up? Well in my pushing the computer back into place on my desk somehow one or more slot covers or something touched the base of a brass lamp that was plugged in to the same circuit and turned on. Blew the whole F####ing system, video card, CPU, motherboard. Ouch!

[Sefy]

I had a more annoying incident, which is a warnning, don't go with electrical stuff through the Bangkok airport! it fried my MP3 CD Player and my Mainboard!, man I was so pissed! I just bought those two, and when I got to Australia I had to buy new ones, although I found a great place in Perth which sold it at practicly US price+Delivery

[wellmashed]

I had a water tank burst in the bathroom upstairs just above my computer downstairs in the living room.

I came home from work once and it was raining in the living room and my pc was drenched.

I picked up the base unit and poured the water out of it.

After replacing the keyboard and mouse I was like really surprised when the thing booted up again no problem.

Not even the monitor blew.

So so lucky eh.

Only cost £10.00 for k/b and mouse.....

And about £700 for ceiling plastering,decorating,carpet etc......

[TIbrO]

Hehe, damn...

[Chris X]

Is your power supply AMD Certified 2 handle your processor? U can have a 400Watt PSU but if its not giving enought amps to the 5v line and 3.3v and 12v, your computer will either not turn on, or will become extremely unstable. Most of booting problems are from a PSU that isnt strong enought.