No life from new build, Is the MoBo DOA? EDIT- SIGNS OF LIFE ! More help needed!!!

Sorry sorry-

CPU - Intel i7 4790K
GPU - MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G
MoBo- Asrock Z97 OC Formula
PSU- EVGA SuperNova P2 (Platinum) 650W
CPU Cooler- Cooler Master Seidon 240M
RAM - G.Skill Sniper 16GB (2x8GB) 2133 MHz
Case- AZZA Nova 8000W (W for White)
SSD- HyperX Savage 120GB (which would be the system drive if I ever got to that point)
HDD- WD 1TB "Blue" edition

TP Link N900 PCIe Wireless adapter
HP 22bw monitor

if I am forgetting anything plz let me know. Again thanks

Thank you very much, i_got frustrated and took the dog for a ride and walk. One thing I can say is that I did pull off the CPU cooler,removed the CPU from the socket and inspected it .... Other than my thermal paste itblookes fine totally fine. Thanks again very much.

OK WE HAVE A PULSE , HELP ME SAVE THIS LIFE, it's a terrible thing to waste!!! (Along with, oh, $1,750 or so... lol.)

Smorizio I did basically what you said. Begrudingly, and knowing I'd have to do the damn thing anyway by Monday if I'm to RMA it and return it etc., I disassembled nearly everything. I set up the box the MoBo came in on top of the side-turned chassis/case and stripped down to bare minimums - the CPU is installed but without any fan or anything ( I did look very good at the socket on MoBo and undercarriage of CPU , looked all fine to me, nothing at all except the thermal paste smeared on the CPU top [but no excess or any drippage i can see etc.) , I still could not get anything to work, but when I pressed the power button on the MoBo, the blue led case fan in my case just for a split second lit up blue then stopped so what gives?

I realized I had done two things - I left the Case fans connected to the power supply when I disconnected all the other cables, but also I forgot to connect the CPU 12V power connector! When I connected it the MoBo has powered up! Red LEDs light up on the MoBo and I'm getting BIOS Asrock UEFI on my monitor! However lots of different codes on the Dr Debug, it seems to go through a ton of code sequences initially then it stops on A6, which the book says is a SATA problem.... what can the Sata problem be when I have no MoBo connected to it?


Now I guess is the time I have to put things together piece by piece to see if they still work and if there is a problem with something specific? I am very excited on one hand that it's working but now in a way, I had thought I did everything right earlier, this means the MoBo isn't dead right, so it was something else problematic?

Thanks for all help past and future, I am excited now but not sure exactly what the next step is. Thanks!! And lastly - is my CPU in any danger for being powered on without fans on it? It's not doing anything but sitting in BIOS, thanks!

Fair enough, while I can understand your answering me that way based on my wording, let me try to clarify: I'm not so idiotic that I don't plan on connecting a storage drive or even trying it out for errors etc. However, as I had just recently got the thing to even power up and show codes, i was thinking something else was going on. I thought it was smart enough to know that I didn't have any drives connected - but that it would only give errors based on actual physical errors or problems, not just the fact one wasn't connected. I have got the board back in the case, screwed down, with both RAM simms installed, and the CM 240M installed as well, and it powered up nicely and both ran the fans/water pump of the CM liquid cooler, but also is doing so far so good in BIOS, with everything recognized so far.

Granted I have a significant way to go left, with plenty more connecting, but not tonight. Unfortunately the last 72+hours have been miserable for my Australian Cattle Dog -.. he really didn't want me spending any more of his precious time on that damned Thing so I had to get up and leave it be for the night. Hopefully tomorrow I can finish and also of course get it all working ad working together / working properly ... who Knows.


thanks again I'll update tomorrow morning.

OK So far so good this morning. I have just about every single thing connected into the MoBo + PSU and have powered it up plenty of times, all great and all working - the ONLY thing left is the (massive sized) GPU. I left it in a secure spot in another room that I can't get into at the moment so I have to take another break. But assuming it wasn't the GPU that was causing the problems (which it certainly could be, I know, and realize.) [MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G btw], after getting it back into the MoBo/Case and the connections done, as long as it fires up again I will be on to installing Windows 10 via the USB.


I did encounter a minor problem, the kind of problem I thought I'd have a few days ago, when I thought i'd be all done quickly and problem free except for some minor inconvenience or two... but anyway - I have a Cooler Master Seidon 240M AIO liquid cooler, and this means there are two (separate) 120MM fans and a 240MM radiator. Each fan has it's own power cord w/ header and the pump/heatsink device has it's own power cord/header ( I am using the word header for connector). -- Anyway my MoBo has a 4-pin CPU_Fan1 and a 3-pin CPU_Fan2 connection. The fans are both 4 pin connectors and the pump/sink is a 3-pin. They include a 2-to-1 splitter cord to connect both fans to the same cord, so I thought i'd be golden, the 3-pin into the 3-pin CPU_FAN and the 4-pin into the 4-pin CPU Fan connection.

Well 1 fan simply won't spin, the system is working but one fan won't spin at all. I kept thinking it was some sort of wiring/connection/electrical issue or perhaps even a bad fan. It was after 1 hours worth of different attempts to resolve it that I realized, the one bad fan is like physically hard to spin, it will spin but not at all freely - i thought it might be screwed down too tight but loosening it didn't seem to help. and it sounds like it contacts something once per revolution but I can't SEE anything it could be hitting ... I am thinking it could be a bad fan? Guess I will have to call CM tomorrow. A stupid problem but a problem nonetheless, especially when I have had such trouble with building it, only to have to cancel all my hard work and re-do everything from scratch, then get nearly to the end and find another problem.


Oh well, should be able to report back soon if I got the GPU connected and still working and then OS install.. at the moment, if I power up and DO NOT press the f2/f12 whatever key to enter bios, it will display white text on top of a black screen "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device" yada yada - that is fine, right? When I am ready and insert the Windows 10 USB drive it will fix me right up?

Ahh oops, Smorizio I was trying to give you the best answer button but gave it to maxalge, whom also was very very helpful.

I am very happy to say that I am up and running nearly perfectly. Believe it or not, when I put the Windows 10 USB stick in, and fired up the power, it booted directly into Windows Boot / Installer and went from there. Windows 10 installed from there, nearly perfectly. Had one minor hiccup, at one point when it asked me to put in my network PW and choose some permissions/privacy settings, I did all that, hit next - it restarted, and brought me right back to the Network PW request. I did it again, redid the privacy settings, hit next again - and it continued with the install and I believe did it fine, I got it up and running in short order and have been using it successfully for a few hours off and on.

I took the trip to Best Buy and picked up an Antec 120MM fan.... Tomorrow I am going to try to pop out the faulty Cooler Master fan and sub in the Antec fan, see if I can get them working right. I MUST SAY, I have been monitoring my CPU (and GPU, MoBo, etc.) temps regularly since the very first time I got the MoBo to boot into BIOS on the box last night. The processor is running pretty decently cool IMHO for only 1 fan blowing on the radiator, I don't think I saw it go above 41C and rarely above 30s, in the mid 20s during all sorts of use (obviously not exactly a Formula 1 Race / Iron Man Decathlon-level CPU workout) but I am pretty happy so far.


Still have a good amount left, I won't feel satisfied until the cooler fans are working properly... Hopefully as I said I can make that change tomorrow (and certainly let Cooler Master know I have a defective fan! -- hope they give me a replacement, in which case I'll add the Antec 120mm to the case fans lineup.) and be pretty much set. Then I will have some pretty serious cable management duties and cleaning up the case before I finally close it up and declare it "D O N E done!" I am extremely grateful for the assistance and patience most of you showed and cannot say thank you enough for your time, effort , and concern.



Lastly- What was wrong? What happened to begin with to make this happen? WELL, since you ask, let me make a supposition.... When I finally resigned myself to having to take the whole thing apart and disassemble piece by piece, take it all down, I got near the end where I was physically unscrewing the MoBo, and when I went to get my hands down in the case to lift it out, I noticed something I hadn't before - the "OC Formula" logo I/O Shield that I popped into the case had these little metal clips of metal or 'wings' sticking out the back of some of the USB port windows... they were bent upwards or downwards but a few of them seemed like they were either INSIDE the USB port or even blocking it. ... I thought perhaps they were designed for blocking off certain USB ports but then, who would want to do that? I did some Google research and nearly every answer suggested they were designed for purposeful contact with the top of the ports, grounding and eliminating some sort of electrical signal 'noise'....Well they had to be shorting out something or other with the way they were seemingly bent into the USB ports. That is really the only thing I can think of, other than the board was physically shorted by the way it was placed on the standoffs or screwed in etc. Nothing else changed and afterwards I re-assembled it exactly a I had it before, and it still works like a charm. Its extremely likely in my mind it was some sort of short or issue like that. Hopefully there isn't any long-term damage if everything is working fine now and no MoBo codes, no error messages in Windows, everything looks fine etc? Thanks again to all who helped me and took the time to try.