New here because I have a huge problem!

S

Suzuka323

New Member
Alright, I've asked everyone I know, but nobody has been of any help to me, so here's my problem:

I have been constructing my computer for the past 6 months piece by piece while keeping it working, I finally got down to replacing the MoBo, CPU, and RAM. The problem is that I can't get it to boot, I've tried many things which I will list below along with the parts I'm using so you can help me figure this out, I'd appreciate it if any negativity towards the parts I've purchased could be left out of this thread, thank you.

Case and Peripherals:
Ultra Wizard UV Case
120mm Ultra Blue LED Fan
80mm Ultra UV Blue Fan
Ultra Connect X 500w PSU with Dual 80mm Fans
PCI Dual UV Blue Cooling Fan
XFX 6800 GT DDR2 256mb GPU Dual DVI - AGP 8x
Creative Soundblaster Live Card
USB 5 Port Card
40gb Internal HDD
120gb External HDD
80gb External HDD
Linksys USB WiFi G Speed Booster Adapter
Creative Speakers
Fuji Camera Dock
G7 Laser Mouse
Logitech USB Keyboard
Samsung DVD Writer
Sony CD Burner
Sony Floppy Drive

Motherboard- Mach Speed X-Caliber PT88BS PRO Socket 775
CPU- Pentium4 3.0HT Socket 775
RAM- A-Data 4gb Dual Channel Kit
CPU Fan- Ultra Fire Socket 775 Fan

Everything worked perfectly prior to the install listed above, everything still powers-up and the Mobo gets power as the CPU fan still works, but it won't boot, I didn't format the HDD before the install, but I was told that wouldn't keep it from booting. I have tried changing the GPU for a basic one, I've pulled everything out but the GPU, HDD, Fans, and 2gbs of the RAM to see if I could get it to boot, I've checked the jumper settings 6 times and still no boot. I am on my second Mobo and CPU from Tigerdirect in hopes that it was faulty parts, but it seems that that isn't the case, this is my first build, but I'm not illiterate when it comes to the function of computers, if someone can help me out here that'd be great, I need my computer up and running again as my laptop just doesn't compare. Thank you in advanced to anybody that helps me with this and I apologize to those of you who hate long posts.

I'll introduce myself in the New Member Thread.

Thanks,
Matt
 
does it power on and just not show bios?
do the fans spin if it does power on? even the one in the PSU?
do the LED's go on if it doesnt power on when you press the power button?
 
mattsprattuk said:
does it power on and just not show bios?
do the fans spin if it does power on? even the one in the PSU?
do the LED's go on if it doesnt power on when you press the power button?
Click to expand...

First Question: Yes, it powers on with all LED's working, but doesn't show Bios, monitors have Orange LEDs and don't switch to Blue and there aren't any beeps as suggested by the Mobo manual.
Second Question: All the fans work including the CPU and PSU fans.
Third Question: No, but I haven't had anything like that happen ever.

Ideas?

Thanks
 
Did you plug in the four wire 12v plug for the cpu seen separate from the main power connector? Generally that has two heavy yellow lead and two heavy black colored wires. The heavy applies to the slight gauge of the wires used for 12v feeds over the lesser 5v and 3.3v fan leads. Without that plug in on most newer model boards the system won't run except in rare cases.

Has the drive been partitioned and formatted yet or it that still to come? Without a working OS on it there's not master boot record at the beginning of the hopefully 40gb ide type drive. Until the system is up nad running you may want to leave the external drives disconnected. If you haven't miswired something you are most likely seeing a bad drive or board as the cause. That would be likely only if the 12v cpu feed was found to be plugged in already.
 
strange... you say you've re-seated everything, so thats not going to help.
the only possible problem i can see is one of 2 things:
1: component failure
2: component incompatibility

almost definatly the ram, and i doubt it is the processor as motherboards are catered for every processor with that socket.
if you take out the ram and boot, if theres no change theres your problem.

if you can, just to check, try and get hold of a stick of the same type of ram of say 128mb. wont cost more than a tenner i dont think if you buy cheap, thats just to make sure.
 
are you hearing any beeps as if it is posting at all?

I'm curious as to if your motherboard is set purely to onboard video and not trying to find the AGP gfx card you have plugged in. Have you tried plugging your monitor into the vga socket direct on the motherboard instead and see if anything comes up?
 
Alright, I'll try to answer all of your questions, here goes:

No, there aren't any beeps when I turn it on. Yes, the HDD still has not been formatted, should I wipe it clean and see if it'll bring up the bios, is it possible to unplug it and turn the system on, I was told that without the HDD it won't give me anything, including the Bios? As for the monitor/GPU question, I don't have a monitor that'll plug into the Mobo, the 2 plugs on it are the Male end of what should be VGA plugs, ie the plugs have pins in them rather than little holes to plug into, so any suggestions would be great with that, the 2 monitors I use are LG1780q LCD's with DVI, but I have an older CRT that I'm currently testing on the old AGP8x card I put in there to see if it'd boot. This is the second one of these Mobo's I've had, but it's almost like the Mobo's aren't seeing the AGP8x GPU as suggested. The board has a PCIX slot on it, but I don't have access to one of those for testing purposes. As for the External HDD's I don't have anything but the keyboard and mouse plugged into it, so that's not the issue.

If you want to see the Mobo: http://www.machspeed.com/specs/xcaliber/PT88BSPRO.html

Keep em comin', I'm going to try all this stuff out in a bit.

Thanks
 
Okay, I tried some things with the RAM, I had a DDR333 256 Stick laying around so I installed that in place of my DDR400, but nothing new, I also tried it without the RAM, still nothing. I was looking on the Machspeed site and they were talking about grounding issues, so I'm looking into that, but I installed all the posts I needed to mount the board.

Any more suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Okay, I tried the grounding issue troubleshooting section of Machspeeds FAQ and still no luck, I pulled the board out of the case and hooked power up to it, installed 1 piece of RAM and placed the older GPU on the board to hook my monitor up to and placed the whole assembly on the antistatic envelope the board came in and fired it up, still nothing. I'm at a total loss here, I have no idea what to do, I don't have a PCI video card laying around to try and the only plugs on this board that resemble anything close to a VGA plug are the Male Serial plugs on the Mobo itself. I can't get it to work and am very frustrated as my computer has been down for 3 weeks now, I just purchased a corporate laptop as a backup and also because it's nice to move my work around with me. I can't return these items back to Tigerdirect as they're non returnable items, I can only exchange them.

Someone have any other ideas?

Thanks.
 
Your mention of seeing this on two identical board I assume(same make and model from one vendor) points at one thing not mentioned here. A bad batch of boards! Last spring a friend ran into that when ordering everything except the case from another vendor. Absolutely "nothing" worked when tried. All power connections were double and triple checked. And even the way the board was mounted and secured was examinned.

The solution became obvious when the second board sent saw the exact same thing. Nothing! The vendor at request once the owner was advised to try a different model or make and model went with a different Asus model. The system has been running steadily ever since! Even the vendor pointed out the likelihood of having received a bad batch of boards.
 
Just wondering if you ever resolved this issue. I have the same exact problem. Please share your resolution. Thanks.
 
ajfjs said:
Just wondering if you ever resolved this issue. I have the same exact problem. Please share your resolution. Thanks.
Click to expand...

First things first newbie! You need a Welcome to the Computer Forum! http://www.computerforum.com/70672-official-welcome-thread.html and a reminder given to new members to review the http://www.computerforum.com/52038-forum-rules.html

Instead of reviviing an old thread you could start a new one for help there. PMing Suzuka323 wouldn't be a bad idea if you get a response after these months to see if the problems were solved since no further response has been added here.
 
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