Tyan Thunder K7 won't post

[Guest]

Here's the bottom line, it simply won't POST when I start it, this is the
specifications.

-Tyan Thunder K7
-2x 1.53 Athlon MP
-2x Crucial 512MB Registered DDR + 2x Mushkin 512MB Registered DDR RAM
-Asus V8200 Geforce 3
-Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
-Tekram U360 SCSI Controller card
-Adaptec 2100S SCSI Raid controller card (32 meg cache, 128 meg stick
wouldn't POST either! w/ 4 device 68 pin Cable terminated)
-2x Quantum Atlas10k SCSI 36.4GB HD
-Plextor UltraWide 40x SCSI CD-ROM
-Plextor PlexWrite 12x/10x/32x SCSI CD-RW Burner (50 pin with Startech
50-68 pin adapter[terminated])
-3x Delta 80mm 68CMF fans
-Sunon 120mm 109CFM fan
-2x Thermalright SK-6 w/ 80mm fan adapter using Delta 80mm 68CFM fans
-Panasonic 1.44 3.5" Floppy drive with 32" floppy cable (the Tyan Thunder
K7 has the floppy connector at the bottom of the board and my floppy goes
on top of the tower case)
-In-Win 500 Full tower server case w/ Delta 460W AMD approved Power supply.

Ok, enough with the specs, time to move on to what I did, and now what its
doing. (Which is nothing)
I finally put up and booted the system for the first time friday and I've
been working hard on getting it working, with no success. I turned it on
and setup my Raid to use my 2 quantum drives in RAID-0, I then went into
the Tekram bios setup to make sure it was setup properly and it was. Next
thing I did was go into the main BIOS and disabled IDE, changed the AGP
memory and boot order options so CD-ROM was first in line. I then put in my
Windows 2000 Professional CD in my CD-ROM and booted from it correctly, I
hit F6 on load up and then put in my tekram and adaptec floppy's in and it
seemed to detect them correctly. I partionion my disk to make 1 partion and
then formated it (in the blue screen, not FDISK as DOS cannot see my SCSI
card or support RAID). It then copied all files to the HD (phase one: dos
copying). After that it booted and started detecting PNP items. When it
hits the section where it adds start menu items it prompted me 3 times for
the Windows 2000 CD, which it was already in there, it went th
rough copying those fine after hiting ok, then the next step went fine
(registering components), but when it came to saving settings it froze mid
way (the mouse would still move and numlock on KB worked, but it wouldn't
save anymore... and I left it there for 2 hours). I then decided to try and
reboot the system and retry that section, but this time it froze up 1/4th
the way on the same step. so I thought I would try again... but this time
it couldn't detect my cd-rom anymore so I had to restart the whole
installation.

I then restarted the installation by formating the partition and copy the
dos files back onto the HD, but this time it gave me a blue screen of death
half way done copying, so I said to myself "uh oh", and I then tried the
same thing again 2 more times giving me the same error. I tried removing
the sound card and geforce and then use the built-in video card and it
still did the same thing. So I then thought of trying Windows XP, and this
one gave me the same error, except this one got to 98% done copying files
until the BSOD came up. I then tried windows 2000 again, but this time it
wouldn't boot off the Cd-rom or floppy, it said IO disk error, so I tried
getting a new set of floppy disks and it said the exact same thing, so I
tried using a known good floppy drive and it still gave me the same error.
I then went into the BIOS to re-enable IDE and then rebooted the system and
turned it off to unhook the tekram and raid card so that I had no
peripherals causing any havok. I plugged in my known good Pioneer 16x
DVD-ROM drive and tried booting from that and it still said IO disk error,
so I took out the IDE CD-ROM and put the tekram and raid card back in and
tried booting up and it wouldn't turn on or POST. So I unplugged the floppy
drive from the board thinking this is what was causing the problem because
of the IO disk error, so sure enough I unplug it and turn it on and it
POST's and boots up, but I wanted to go into setup to disable IDE because I
have no need for it. It went through the POST for both the raid card and
tekram and then it froze up on entering setup for the BIOS, so I had no
choice but to reboot it and try again, but this time I got into the BIOS
setup and then went down a few options down to disk type support and hit
enter to view the available options and it froze right in the BIOS, so once
again I had no choice but to reboot and try again, but it wouldn't POST
this time. So I unplugged the tekram and raid card and tried again, but it
still wouldn't POST. I then unplugged the extra fans and hard d
rive power outlets and cd-rom's thinking it was sucking up too much juice,
but it still wouldn't boot or POST. What I mean by not booting or POST'ing
is that there is no video or keyboard responce. I then looked in the Tyan
Thunder K7 manual and found out that jumper J21 to reset the CMOS battery
is supposed to be defaulted on 1-2 for normal, but my board was defaulted
at 2-3 for clear. So I decided to try to put it back to 1-2 were it should
be and then bring it to 2-3 for 3 seconds back to 1-2 to reset the CMOS
(Keep in mind that the computer was completely unplugged, video, mouse, kb
and power as the manual suggests) and it still would not POST. I then
though maybe the board was shorting out (which wouldn't explain why it
worked before but ok, I still tried it) I removed several mounted screws
from the back panel and it still wouldn't POST (as I thought it wouldn't).

And that's where I am now... Stuck in limbo not knowing what else I could
try. I think I received a lemon (a dud board), but that's just my
professional opinion.

If anyone has any comments or know what else I could try I would be glad to
hear them out.

P.S I am at work right now and I have planned to try to remove the 4 sticks
of ram and use only 1 processor & 1 stick of ram to see if it will post, if not then I will
ask for an RMA from the OEM I got it from unless someone else has any other
suggestions as to what else I can do

 

[o1die]

Have you tried enabling the cmos jumper for 10 seconds (with system off)? I had to do this to get my last new board to post with the xp. Trying one stick of memory at a time is also a good idea.

 

[Guest]

What do you mean by "enabling the cmos jump for 10 seconds"? Its currently in 1-2 mode which is enable. Do you mean moving it to 2-3 (clear mode) for 10 seconds and then moving it back to 1-2 or the other way around?

 

[Guest]

Just wanted to let ya'll know that I figured out what the problem was. I took out my case fan to pull the case back lid a little bit to look at the ram, because I was going to try to use just one and then I noticed that the data cable that goes from my audigy livebay to sound card had been caught in one of the ram modules and it seemed to have dislodged it a little bit so I then made sure they were seated in properly. I then decided "what the hell", and turned on the pc and it POST'ed and booted up, but I didn't have the keyboard plugged in this time, so I had to turn it off again to plug in the keyboard. Once plugged in, I went into the BIOS (yes it allowed me to enter it this time) and then moved around and disabled IDE once again (the BIOS was reset by the CMOS reset jumper that I had done earlyer). I then turned around to look at my laptop for 15 seconds and then went back to my computer and it was frozen there, so I thought "Uh oh, not again". The computer was still turned on, and as I was bringing my hand towards the mid bar of my case I noticed the fan on one of the heatsinks wasn't blowing any air, so I turned off the computer, fastenned and checked the power connectors (mind you none of them seemed loose) and then turned on the computer again. It hasn't been giving me any problems up to date, I am currently formatting the partition for Windows 2000 and about to begin installation.

 

[Guest]

I'm still having problems with it not POST'ing. It was not the RAM or CPU issue. Something is either fried or not getting enough ventilation (which I can't figure out how this would be possible). I finally had Windows 2000 actually installed last night and had WinAmp playing tunes... but when I wanted to try to run 3dMark2001 it would give me a BSOD when I loaded up the program. So I then decided to install Quake 3, and it would give me another BSOD mid way through installing the game. So I tried rebooting, installing all microsoft updates and still nothing would help it. It came to the point where Win2k wouldn't boot anymore and give me a BSOD right away, so I tried re-installing it. I formated it and tried installing it again, but this time it stopped 1/3 through the dos file copy and said it couldn't copy or locate the file... I hit enter a few times and re-entered the CD-ROM and still nothing worked so I had to ESC out of the file and it did it for every single file so I cancelled setup. I went to reboot and it wouldn't POST. I tried the same thing I did yesterday, checked for loose cabling, ram lodging and its still not booting. Once again, I am confused on the BIOS setting because apparently it was set on 2-3 again... 2-3 is clear, 1-2 is normal. I have it normal right now and its not booting. Could it be a Tyan ERRETA? Anyway, I am going to try to do a few more things.