Help! New Build Won't Post

[superfuzzy]

Last night I assembled a new pc with:
*GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (Revision 1)
*AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Black Edition Processor
*OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS 500W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Installed the motherboard, PSU, memory, and the power comes on, cpu and system fans spin, but no beeps and no post. The only thing that works are the caps lock and num lock lights on the keyboard, and optical mouse is getting power.

I switched memory around and took all of the memory out ... nothing.
Also took out the MB and replaced it, hooked up everything, and nothing.

Once it is powered up pressing the power button has no effect, and the dvd drive's light goes on but won't open.

I did some searches on this, and seems it is either the CPU or MB, but there's no way of narrowing it down short of testing with an extra cpu or mb - which I don't have.

Any advice??? Gigabyte's support starts in a few hours.

BTW, one of the first reviewers on Newegg had the same exact problem.

Thanks!

 

[superfuzzy]

I found this on NewEgg user comments: "Out of the box my board was DOA; Cleared the CMOS (they do not provide a jumper to do this) and the system posted normally. Default BIOS settings are strange, but easy to configure. Brought the system up and had Vista 64 SP1 up and running in about an hour. Shut the machine down, moved it into my desk and during boot Checksum Errors flood the screen and system will not reboot no matter how many times I reset the CMOS. Grew irritated, went to Gigabyte web site and downloaded the latest BIOS update (F4); Board allows you to flash firmware from flashdrive which is good since don't have a floppy drive. After new firmware is applied the board runs like a dream. Clear the CMOS and update the firmware before you even bother trying to set the system up."


He removed the battery on the MB to clear the CMOS? I'll cross my fingers and try tonight!

 

[war_machine07]

If you have more than 1 stick of memory, I would try them one at a time. I see that you 'switched the memory around' but you should try that if you haven't yet. Maybe double check that all the motherboard power connections are connected with the power supply (main connector plus cpu power).

When you say that you replaced the motherboard, what do you mean?

You are correct, its the cpu or mb and you can't really tell which one it is. I would rma the motherboard first. I've heard several cases of instability on motherboards with AMD's hybrid graphics.

 

[superfuzzy]

If you have more than 1 stick of memory, I would try them one at a time. I see that you 'switched the memory around' but you should try that if you haven't yet. Maybe double check that all the motherboard power connections are connected with the power supply (main connector plus cpu power).

When you say that you replaced the motherboard, what do you mean?

You are correct, its the cpu or mb and you can't really tell which one it is. I would rma the motherboard first. I've heard several cases of instability on motherboards with AMD's hybrid graphics.

Removed the MB from the case and rebuilt from scratch, and reconnected all the stuff. I have 4 1GB sticks, and tried one of each in different slots, and also with no memory at all so that should be covered. It never posted or beeped.

 

[jsc]

Disconnect and pull everything including RAM. What you want to is have only PSU, motherboard, CPU, system speaker (to hear any beeps), and the case power switch.

Turn on the PC. You should get a series of 3 second long beeps. That indicates two things: a memory problem - it's missing - and that the CPU and motherboard is working well enough to try to POST.

Silence indicates that the POST did not run and you have a problem with (in the most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU.

Your symptoms do not rule out the PSU.

Normal powerup sequence (preboot):
Turn on PC. PSU output voltages rise to rated values (takes a couple hundred millisecs or so). After that happens, the PSU sends a control signal to the motherboard called "PowerOK". The CPU needs that signal to boot.

You can have all the output voltages, but if you have some kind of internal PSU failure that kills this signal, nothing will happen. The good new is that this is relatively simple to check. With a digital multimeter, check pin 8 (gray wire) of the main power connector to the motherboard - carefull, carefully . With the PC off, you should read 0 volts. Turn on the PC. The line should rise to about 5 volts (anything over about 3.5 volts is OK) in less than one second. While you are in there, you can check the main output voltages: orange wires should read 3.3 volts, red wires - 5 volts, and yellow wires - 12 volts.

More ideas here:
http://www.tomswiki.com/page/Troubleshooting+a+New+Build

 

[halthron]

Try putting it together outside the case. It's possible that the case is causing a short. For instance, a riser could be touching one of the traces on the MB. If the build outside the case beeps but won't inside the case, you'll have to figure out where the short is. If it doesn't beep outside the case then you most likely have a faulty MB, CPU or PS.

 

[superfuzzy]

Have you noticed that when there are problems the OP frequently doesn't reply to say how and if it was fixed, and what worked? My theory is that many times the problem was due to user error and the OP was too embarrassed to post what actually happened.

I called Gigabyte and got to the bottom of the problem in about 1 minute. I didn't realized the 4 pin ATX_12V connector had to be plugged in - the one that powers the CPU. I haven't built a PC for while, and for some reason thought the the extra 4 pins - the 20+4 powered the processor.

So for now everything is working, and I'll install RAID 1 tonight. I got two Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3320613AS 320GB - the ones with the bad Newegg ratings .

Thanks for the replies and I hope they'll help someone.