New build not booting

[jayowens]

I'm having some problems with my first build. I think I did everything correctly, I went through all the steps thoroughly and paid close attention to what all the manuals said, but I can't rule out human error. I'm hoping if I describe what's going on, someone might have some clues for me.

First, my setup: ASUS mobo M2V. ATI Radeon x1800xt. Corsair 512MB DDR2 x2. Athlon 64 AM2. NEC DVD/CD. Seagate SATA2. Antec 500w PSU.

Each time I power up the machine, all the fans come on (video card, case fans, cpu fan). However nothing was showing on my display. I tried powering up a few times and maybe around the 5th time I actually saw the pre-bios screen (hit del to enter bios, etc.). I hit the Del key and then my monitor gave the No Signal icon.

After that, I couldn't get anything to show on the display. I checked all my connections, took out and then put back in the Vid card, un-plugged and re-plugged all the power connectors, changed the memory configuration etc. Nothing.

I was reading some posts similar to mine today and saw some things to try. I now just have the gpu, cpu and one memory stick installed. That helped, I finally was getting the pre-bios screen to show up again! However, almost right after it shows up, my display loses it's connection again.

I tested with another display and had the same result. Then I went back to my original display, this time I got the pre-bios screen and then a flashing dash in the top left screen, then some text sorta went by (was a bit too fast for me to read...) and then my display lost connection again.

I should note that I these last times I was only using one memory stick, and the one I took out had been in the machine the whole time (in otherwords I had tried booting up with only one memory stick, but this was the first time I was booting up with memory stick "B" and not using "A" at all).

I also have a USB keyboard attatched. Is it possible that could be a problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I don't know what to do! Please let me know if you need me to clarify a point, it's hard to describe all this!

Cheers.

-Justin

 

[jayowens]

Forgot to mention, the computer beeps once when the pre-bios screen shows up. The times the monitor never makes a connection, I hear no beep.

By the way, what is the pre-bios screen called? Is that "posting"? It has the ASUS logo and says pres Del to enter bios, F-something to do something else.

Update:
Even with only the CPU, GPU and one memory stick, it's intermittant whether or not the pre-bios screen will show. It shows maybe 1 out of 5 times, if that. Every other time I get no beep and nothing shows on the monitor, just the no connection to the computer icon.

-J

 

[Detson]

If you can't even get into your BIOS, its obviously not a hard-drive issue. I'd suggest a poorly seated graphics card, if you hadn't already removed and replaced it. I had a malfunctioning 6800 Ultra that gave me similar problems; you might want to try a spare card, if you've got one lying around. My only other thought is a bad motherboard.

 

[shadowduck]

Forgot to mention, the computer beeps once when the pre-bios screen shows up. The times the monitor never makes a connection, I hear no beep.

By the way, what is the pre-bios screen called? Is that "posting"? It has the ASUS logo and says pres Del to enter bios, F-something to do something else.

Update:
Even with only the CPU, GPU and one memory stick, it's intermittant whether or not the pre-bios screen will show. It shows maybe 1 out of 5 times, if that. Every other time I get no beep and nothing shows on the monitor, just the no connection to the computer icon.

-J

One beep means it passed POST (Power on Self Test). Take out your RAM and try to power the system on, see if it beeps a bunch. This will at least tell you the motherboard is probably working. I wouldnt rule out the power supply either. Reseat the video card as well.

 

[jayowens]

Tried some different configurations:

Note: Each time I powerup, the fans all have activity. So even when I say nothing happens, I just mean nothing shows on the screen, no beeps, but the fans (GPU, CPU and Case) all are active.

Mobo/GPU: 3 successive beeps
Mobo: 1 beep, about five seconds later another beep
Mobo/Memory: nothing
Mobo/GPU/Memory: nothing (5 times in a row)
Mobo/GPU/Memory in different positions: nothing
Then I tried the first setup again...
Mobo/GPU: nothing (this time no beeps at all).

Tried reseating the GPU, but that had no apparent affect.

So have I narrowed it down to the motherboard or power-supply, or could it still be the memory or graphics card? I don't have any spares to try, but I'm going to ask my friends.

-Justin

 

[jitpublisher]

You need to get rid of the USB keboard. Borrow or buy a cheap PS2 keyboard to troubleshoot until you get your system to POST at least. Until you can get into the bios, and check the settings, the USB keyboard could be one of the problems, the USB support may not even be turned on in the bios, if that's the case the keyboard is dead.....this happens on my board if I clear my bios for any reason. I keep a cheap $5 keyboard around so I can get into the bios and reconfigure everything.

 

[jayowens]

Sorry, forgot to mention that I've been using a PS2 keyboard not long after my first post. It's an old one though (over 10 years old).

 

[shadowduck]

Odd.. I would say still go get the PSU tested, and see if you can test another motherboard.

 

[ArbY]

I would try clearing the CMOS and see where that takes you.
Here is your motherboard's user manual (udpated) with some steps to clearing the CMOS, it's in *.PDF format.

[ Download M2V User Manual ]
Go to page 18 (39 of 117) and follow those steps.

It'll take you through removing the battery, switching the jumper and all that happy crap.

Good luck.

 

[jayowens]

Thanks for the tip, but no luck. At this point I think I need to start checking my hardware on a friend's comp, see what works and what doesn't.

I was reading some posts on the ASUS forum for my Mobo and a few others were describing a similar problem...wondering if it's a known defect. Contacted ASUS, curious to see what they say.