Having a horrible time...

SammyJ · December 8th, 2001, 04:24 PM

Hi everyone. Well, this is my problem;
Im trying to get my new PC set up... I installed an ECS k7S5A motherboard with an athlon xp 1700+. I have a 300W power supply (antec sx830 case), 256 megs of DDR ram. Im also using a maxtor 40 gig 7200rpm, and an LG 52x cd-rom.

Now here's the problem - whenever i do the initial boot, i simply get a black screen. Nothing occurs on the screen at ALL. (i dont even hear the initial beep noise) I tried swapping video cards (from an agp to a pci), and its the same thing. I removed both the cd-rom + the hard drive, same thing. I tried unplugging 2 of the fans to lessen the power drain, same thing...

I'm really confused at this point. Is it the motherboard? I already checked the cpu, i installed it perfectly. And the fan is running extremely smooth.

Can somebody PLEASE help me?

buttonpusher69 · December 8th, 2001, 04:34 PM

Sammy,

Set up your mobo outside of the case and see if it boots up then. If so you have a short from the mother board to the case. Reinstall the board checking all mounting hardware to insure you don't rcreate the short again.

Buttonpusher

SPEEDO · December 8th, 2001, 05:23 PM

Check the clear CMOS jumper and see if it is on the right pins!
If it is on the right pins move it to clear CMOS for a few seconds then put it back to is proper position!
See if this helps!

SPEEDO

Oh BTW Welcome to techIMO

SammyJ · December 8th, 2001, 05:56 PM

Well, I followed you're advice

I noticed the thread before me had the similar problem. Just so you get a better glimpse of the picture, these are my specs:

Antec SX-830 Case
Athlon XP 1700
ECS K75SA M-board
256 Megs of DDR Ram (1 chip)
S3 Virge PCI card (used for test purposes, heh)

Now, I took the entire mobo out, and i took the power supply out (because the wires didnt reach otherwise) and I tried once more to power up... and it failed again to get to the BIOS (meaning, I have the mobo OUT on an antistatic sheet, and some cushioning underneath, the power supply is also on an antistatic sheet). I also reset the CMOS memory as per indicated in the book whilst no power being on the mobo; no luck. The only thing I see wrong, is that the power SWITCH jumper erecting from my front panel has 3 holes, and the power switch jumper on my motherboard has 2. Which means one hole is empty. But, can that affect it? I can't do anything besides that (in terms of getting that hole filled). But right now, I only have the bare essentials, and the same problem is occurring: power up, cpu fan goes fine, no beeping light, no BIOS, nada

voogru · December 8th, 2001, 06:08 PM

Try putting the board on something non-metalic them special bags can cunduct electricty from the outside. try it on a woodtable.

hope this helps

SammyJ · December 8th, 2001, 06:12 PM

Just did the wood thing... No luck...
I also noticed none of the lights at the front of the computer turn on. Related? (but the juice is still flowing on all the fans...)

SPEEDO · December 8th, 2001, 06:17 PM

Let me see if I got this right.
Are you saying that the wire coming from the front panel of your computer has a plug with three holes in it!
Is this coming from the on off button?
Does it have anything written on it?

SPEEDO

SammyJ · December 8th, 2001, 06:25 PM

Well, the wire set that pertrudes from the front panel has 4+1 jumper wire-things; speaker, power led, power sw, reset sw, hdd led

Now, the power led jumper-wire has 3 holes in it.
However, on my motherboard, the slot reserved for the power-led cable is supposed to take up slots 2-4 (2 holes)
So it leaves one of them open...

I guess I could even draw a diagram :P

[9] [7] [5] [3] [1]
[8] [6] [4] [2]

So, the HDD led goes on 1-3, the reset switch goes on 5-7, the power button goes on 6-8, and then the power led is SUPPOSED to go on 2-4, BUT, like i said, the actually wire has 3 holes. So one of them is like on the theoretical "0" jumper setting

AzKidd69 · December 8th, 2001, 06:45 PM

Well easy way to see if the switch is the problem take a screwdriver and short out the leads momentarily on the mobo where the power switch would connect and see if it powers up then...

BTW you getting any fans or anything like that??

Also there is a way to trick a PS into turning itself on to see if that's the prob but I don't have the pic on this machine.... I'll get it in a few...

AzKidd69 · December 8th, 2001, 06:48 PM

OK i found it... here's how to check the PS to see if it's good or not....

HTH

And welcome to your new home.. In case you haven't figured that out yet....