Q6600 system with issues

[duhrman]

Hi,

I'm very new to building my own system. I have helped my dad build systems when I was much younger and the technology has changed enough to leave me a bit confused. I have already bought my system and am having problems. Hopefully this is the proper place to post. I am not getting an output to my monitor when I turn on my new computer(monitor just displays checking for a signal). Here are my components:

MSI SLI 650i Platinum P6N Mobo
Q6600 Quad Core CPU
2GB OCZ DDR800 SLI Certified Dual Channel RAM
OCZ 700W nVIDIA SLI CERTIFIED Power Supply
EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS KO Graphics Card
ATA100 120gb hard drive (my old hd; I have a sata drive on its way)
Sony DVD+- burner

Anyways, I was wondering if there were some quirks to building the system that I'm missing. In the past systems I've helped build, the mobo's had quite a few jumpers with settings that needed to be set properly for the machine to start. I've noticed that my mobo doesn't really have any of these and that most of the setup is done in the BIOS once you get it up and running. Maybe there are some vital jumpers that I didn't notice. Also, I did my best to verify that all of the components I have are compatible with each other but maybe I messed up somewhere. Any help or ideas on debugging techniques would be greatly appreciated. If I had known about this forum earlier, I would have ran all of my ideas for components by you guys first.

thanks,

~Duhrman

 

[duhrman]

By the way, forgot to mention: I did try swapping video cards with no luck. The one I tried was a borrowed BFG 8600 GTS 256MB card. I think this most likely rules out the possibility of it being a video card issue.

 

[Solariscs]

Is your monitor connected to the Card or the motherboard?

EDIT: try connecting your monitor to the motherboard and check that you have the graphics card supplied with power from the PSU through the 6-pin PCI-E connector

 

[duhrman]

Alright... I'm not sure what you mean by "connecting your monitor to your motherboard" because my mobo doesn't have an integrated video card. As for the 6-pin PCI-E connector, I have that connected. Another thing of note: All system fans spin indicating that the power supply should be good.

 

[Solariscs]

Yeah, sorry that board doesn't have a video out. Well it could be your PCI-E slot is messed up, have you tried using the other one?

 

[azimuth40]

Well for people that have not built a system in a while, here is the most common problem. they fail to realize that there is no post beep but all the fans are spinning. Generally this means that the four pin connector by the CPU is not plugged in. This supplies 12 volts to the CPU power circuits on the mother board. It is missed because old school boards did no have such a plug. If you already know this then I'm sorry and everyone can move along, nothing to see here.

 

[duhrman]

Ok... I tried the other slot with no luck. Since it is SLI, I think the other slot will only work when you actually have to cards in place and have SLI enabled. One thing I read about and tried was a D-Bracket that came with the motherboard. It has for diagnostic LEDs that give status reports on the state of the motherboard. I figured I could get these LEDs to let me know what might be wrong. These LEDs never turn on which makes me think something might be wrong. Here is a link to the motherboard manual. http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloadfile&dno=4260&type=manua l
On page 35 of the manual pdf, you can find more information about these LEDs I mentioned. Thanks for your help!

~Duhrman

 

[duhrman]

Well for people that have not built a system in a while, here is the most common problem. they fail to realize that there is no post beep but all the fans are spinning. Generally this means that the four pin connector by the CPU is not plugged in. This supplies 12 volts to the CPU power circuits on the mother board. It is missed because old school boards did no have such a plug. If you already know this then I'm sorry and everyone can move along, nothing to see here.

Ok.. I didn't forget to hook up the 4 pin CPU plug but I did have a bit of confusion on that topic that maybe someone can clarify. My motherboard has an 8-pin hookup for the cpu power. The motherboard came to me with 4 of these pins blocked off by a plastic cover. My power supply has two 4-pin power hookups, one labeled "CPU 1" and the other labeled "CPU-2". I have been able to hook up both to collectively cover the 8-pin hookup, but maybe I'm doing this wrong. Any ideas?

~Duhrman

 

[MrTechnoFreak]

The links for the manual seem to be bad on MSI's site...

Are you sure you have your PC speaker (the onboard one) connected? If you don't, you may not be hearing beeps that would tell you what's wrong.

 

[MrTechnoFreak]

Oh, and try unplugging your HD and seeing if that changes anything...in fact, try having just your mobo, cpu, ram, and video only.

 

[duhrman]

Oh, and try unplugging your HD and seeing if that changes anything...in fact, try having just your mobo, cpu, ram, and video only.

Here's the link again. I think this one should work.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloadfile&dno=4260&type=man ual

I'm pretty sure I have the pc speaker hooked up. My case has a 4-pin cord labeled "speaker" that I have hooked up to pins 2,4,6, 8 on the hookup labeled "JFP2" which is referenced from page 31 on the manual pdf. I think this should work, but I guess if I'm hearing nothing and seeing nothing, something might be wrong. I tried hooking up just the components you mentioned with no change. I really wish there was an inexpensive way to test out different components without buying any of them to diagnose the problem. Thanks for your help.

 

[MrTechnoFreak]

You meant JFP2 on page 34 right? hehe (at least that's where it's at on the online manual).

K, well if that's where you have it hooked up, then that seems right.

The reason I asked about the HD is because if you have a PATA drive hooked up upside down, it could cause your system to do what you describe.

If you've removed everything but the Vid, CPU, and RAM, then maybe try it with one of them removed. If you don't start getting beeps then, then you may have either a bad motherboard or bad PSU. That's about all I can think of at the moment.

 

[swifty_morgan]

I went over to newegg. Several people were complaining about different issues with this board. Perhaps you got a bad one ?

no idiot lights/ no post/ bsod...... etc.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Ok.. I didn't forget to hook up the 4 pin CPU plug but I did have a bit of confusion on that topic that maybe someone can clarify. My motherboard has an 8-pin hookup for the cpu power. The motherboard came to me with 4 of these pins blocked off by a plastic cover. My power supply has two 4-pin power hookups, one labeled "CPU 1" and the other labeled "CPU-2". I have been able to hook up both to collectively cover the 8-pin hookup, but maybe I'm doing this wrong. Any ideas?

~Duhrman

Maybe you should only have used the unblocked plug.

Any mention of why the other was blocked/taped off?

 

[MrTechnoFreak]

Here's MSI's troubleshooting page...might double check all of those possibilities...

 

[duhrman]

I think it might be the board. I went ahead and tried starting with no RAM and heard no beeps. Assuming I hooked up the speaker properly and it works, is it safe to say that it is the board or could it be something else? I still have not found any complete info on the cpu power hookup. The power supply manual doesn't go into detail on what is necessary and neither do the board or the cpu manuals.

 

[chikit]

RMA!

 

[duhrman]

what does RMA mean?

 

[duhrman]

Ok.. I think I understand what RMA means: you're saying to get a replacement from the seller. That's what I'm gonna do. I have a general question of you guys out there who might have gone through a similar issue. If I ship it an item back to Mwave(the seller in this case) for replacement stating that it's defective and it turns out that it is not defective, what if any penalties are there? Thanks.