soltek nv400 siren beeps

[fannus]

Hi All,
I've been having some strange trouble with a new Soltek nv400 (nforce2) board. I installed the puppy and threw in my Athlon XP 2400+ and on boot I got the "siren" or "repeating high/low" beep pattern. From the award bios beep codes this indicates damaged or bad CPU, so I tried an old 900Mhz T-bird that I knew to be good, and the same result.

Just to check to see what beep code this would produce, I took the processor out and booted, no beeps as I suspected BUT, I put both processors back in and no beeps now either. I wouldn't imagine that booting sans CPU would damage any parts, am I wrong here? I can't get any beep response out of the motherboard at all. All of these configurations I've tried are *just* the CPU and mobo, and I've tried all of them with and without ram (single 512MB k-byte dimm), and it always has yielded the same result.

Is it possible that I damaged it by booting without a CPU? I've tried clearing the CMOS, and every standard procedure I've known. The only thing that I can think of is that I'm running off a 300W PSU. It's not a cheap-o PSU either. I can't imagine that just the CPU and mobo would eat up all of it, especially with the old 900Mhz.

 

[pat]

Did you try to reseat tha AGP card. Most of the time I got beep in a machine was because the AGP card.



-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[lunitic]

Is the system working now, without the beeps, or is it completely dead? Did you get the siren immediately after switching the system on for the first time, or did anything happen in between?

 

[ChipDeath]

are you sure you seated the HSF correctly? What thermal interface material did you use?

Did you plug the CPU HSF into a CPU FAN header, and not a different one? (Some mobos won't boot if they think the CPU fan is not plugged in)

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<font color=red>The preceding text is assembled from information stored in an unreliable organic storage medium. As such it may be innacurate, incomplete, or completely wrong</font color=red>

 

[fannus]

As I said in my original post, I don't even have a video card in the AGP slot so that can't be a factor.

Also I believe I correctly described the order in which the problems occured, but let me be more precise:

1.) installed mobo
2.) installed processor
3.) applied thermal grease (came with fan)
4.) attached fan
5.) booted machine: result -> siren beeps
6.) switched to known working CPU: result -> siren beeps
7.) removed CPU's and booted: result -> no beeps, no boot
9.) switched back to original cpu: result -> no beeps, no boot

Now even with the CPU I know to be working, no beeps. As far as I can tell by booting the mobo without a CPU somehow caused it to stop beeping. No beeps implies no POST, so as a result the machine currenlty appears to be dead.

One of the first thoughts I had actually was that the mobo was not detecting the fan, because it's a pretty beefy Cooler Master and it uses a standard power plug (like on hard drives), it has an alternate connector to plug into the mobo fan power socket, but it always produces the same result.

I can't be sure that I seated the fan properly, but the sucker seems to be on pretty good, I've done it enough times with switching the CPU's in and out.

 

[ChipDeath]

did the HSF come with a little bit of tape on the bottom, which you forgot to remove? (Not meaning to sound patronising of course) Although I don't know why they'd supply thermal grease AND a little pad covering pre-applied stuff...

Although with the amount of seating/re-seating you're doing, I would expect you'd notice, but are you sure you're putting the HSF on the right way round (with the 'step' on the bottom covering the raised part of the socket), as going the other way around would prevent proper contact with the CPU.

Also, exactly how deep is the 'step' on the bottom of the HSF? It's possible it's too shallow, which would again prevent proper contact & give rise to these problems. (I seem to recall THG actually got sent a <i>review</i> sample HSF which had this problem, so it's not impossible!)

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<font color=red>The preceding text is assembled from information stored in an unreliable organic storage medium. As such it may be innacurate, incomplete, or completely wrong</font color=red>

 

[pat]

In reply to:
"As I said in my original post, I don't even have a video card in the AGP slot so that can't be a factor."

That could be the factor. Most mobo beep if no video card are detected by the BIOS. minimum config for boot is cpu/ram/video card.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[fannus]

The fan came with only the grease, no thermal tape (although I prefer tape). I've tried pretty much all the CPU configurations I've mentioned with RAM and video card, but they always yeild the same result.

I'm 100% sure that the fan notch is placed in the proper orientation (I made that mistake with a previous mobo so I've very mindful of it now). It is very possible that the notch for the HSF is too big, and that it's not making good enough contact, but if I put a small dab of grease on the HSF, it speads down pretty evenly over the surface of the CPU, so I'm inclined to think it's making a good thermal connection. Even so I'm not sure how I would fix it other than getting a new fan. One thing that I think I'll try is swapping in another older CPU that I know to be working from my previous box along with it's fan, and see if I get the same results.