680i Mobo Won't POST!

[jerreece]

Okay, this is driving me nuts. Hoping some folks can give me some suggestions as to what I might be missing throughout today. Will be heading off to work in a couple mins.

I had a working system as follows:

Antec 480W True Power 2 PSU
Antec Case
Q6600
XFX 680i LT SLI Mobo
4GB (1GBx4) Corsair PC-6400 DDR2
GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) 512MB
WD Sata 400GB HD
Maxtor IDE 120GB HD
Lightscribe DVD-RW IDE Drive

So lastnight I received a new case (Thermaltake Armor 8003BWS) and new PSU (Antec TPQ-850).

I took everything out of my old case. Installed the new TPQ-850 PSU in my new Armor case. Got the setoffs installed for the ATX mobo. Got the Mobo insalled. Installed my SATA hard drive, IDE CD and IDE Hard drive. Hook up all my fans, etc. 24-pin Mobo power connector is installed, as is the 8pin CPU power connector. Even plugged in the 4-pin Molex connector to the mobo (this is for extra power for GPUs). I also installed the 6-pin PCI-E Power connector to my 8800GTS. I then hooked up all my front panel cables (Pwr Switch, Pwr LED, HD LED, Reset Switch).

Everything should be good to go. Lug this beast of a case up onto my desk. Hook up all my cables (keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc etc). I flip the power on for the PSU. Get a Blue LED on my motherboard (thus it has power). Hit the power button on the case.... nothing. Only thing that happens is a yellow LED on the mobo lights up. No fans, no PSU fan, no nothing.

So I fiddle with my front panel cables. Rechecked that all my power connectors are secure, can't find anythng wrong. Try it again. Same thing. I searched some other forums for this problem. I'm finding everything from folks having bad memory, not enough power available, reset CMOS, etc.

I powered off the PSU, and reset CMOS. Still nothing. Pulled out all my memory, tried to boot with 1 dimm. Nothing. Unplugged the PSU from my surge protector, plugged it straight into outlet. Nothing. Strangely enough however, at random (completely at random) when I push the power button all the fans start, and I have Blue, Yellow, and Green LEDS on the mobo. But no video or POST.

Hmm. So I remove my 8800GTS and put in an old GeForce 6800 card that I know works. Still no video. And on top of that, the fans don't even come on anymore (they only come on completely at random intervals).

I unplugged my IDE cable, wondering if suddenly my CD Drive and IDE HD were fighting for master/slave. Now suddenly, with the IDE cable unplugged when the system does power (i.e. fans run) the mobo lets out a constant high pitch squeal. It's horrible.

What am I forgetting to check? EVERYTHING in this system worked perfectly prior to moving it into this new case with the new PSU. (BTW this PSU auto switches from 110v to 220v, so I didn't mess that up).

Any suggestions would be awesome. I'm hoping to get several suggestions so I can try troubleshooting again after work tonight.

 

[jerreece]

Nobody has any ideas? Looks like this thread has 36 views so far (couple are me I'm sure checking for responses). Only thing I can think of to try is to hook it all up to my old PSU again and see what happens. Concerned something might be wrong with my motherboard.

 

[jerreece]

LOL Okay, now that I have 69 views and no responses....

I think I've settled on the motherboard being dead. I hooked the system up to my old PSU. Still didn't work. I removed the heatsink and CPU. Then reinstalled both as I'd read on some other forums that the 680i boards are sensitive to CPU placement. That didn't fix the problem either. Tried another video card again, still nothing.

The CPU appears to be in perfect shape. I also removed the motherboard completely and inspected it. No signs of any burns, shorts, etc. So I'm puzzled as to what it's deal is.

I dug out an old system (I gotta have internet!) and got it running for now. But, going from a Q6600 and 4GB RAM in Vista 64 down to....

AMD Athlon 3500+ w/ 1 GB RAM in Vista 64.... is wretched slow. Just switching browser tabs has a full second delay. lol

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who read this entry at least eh? Hopefully XFX will RMA my board.

 

[mww011079]

Well you are not alone. However, I don't have an answer. I've had the exact same thing happen to me. Oddly enough I have the exact same setup.

Q6600 and 4GB of ram running Vista 64... Weird.

Anyway, here is my story. I've had my system up and running for about four months. Recently I started having trouble with the sleep/hybernate feature. Once, I would put my pc to sleep it would turn off like it went to sleep but then it would not wake up. I found out that it would crash as I had to hit the power button to turn it on.

So, after I tried the fix from here, my sytem would go to sleep and wake up but it was considerably slower and it would show a resuming windows wait screen. I'm not sure what the differences are (whether it was saving state to ram and now to the hd) but there is definately a difference. Then yesterday I tried to resume windows and nothing. Except the Yellow light of death(I just coined the term). I unplugged the pc then plugged it back in nothing. Since I'm a developer I have a few PCs arround me so I instantly start searching for what this yellow light means and BAM the thing just starts running. So I shut it down last night and this morning nothing but as I typed the second paragraph, BAM again, just turns on. I get lucky in comparison I get full functionality. Anyway, I'm not sure if it is a sleep thing or if it is something more. What ever it is I hope it goes away.

I'm going to try and run a fix on windows. If anyone has heard of anything else please post. However, do to the lack of posts. I'm imagining that this is an isolated case.

Matt

 

[ffejie]

I have something similar going on. I have a Q6600 with a XFX 680i MOBO. I'm only running 2 GB of RAM and Vista 32-bit (dual boot with Windows 7). I have the same experiences with sleep/hibernate that Matt does. However, it seems to be getting flakier. A few nights ago, I power the whole thing down (usually I just put it to sleep) and now I can't get it to come on at all. I have three lights: Blue, Yellow and Green but no XFX Play Hard BIOS screen and certainly no POST. I have fiddled with the RAM, no luck there either. I am using a iogear KVM, so I figured maybe it wasn't detecting the keyboard anymore, but when I plug in directly, I get the same thing. I'm noticing that my camera is lit up, so it's getting power which means that the keyboard and monitor (also on USB) should be also getting a signal.

I have tried resetting the CMOS, got a new battery, but no luck either. I opened a ticket with XFX Support, and see what troubleshooting steps they give me.

Can anyone find any documentation as to what these three lights indicate?

 

[jerreece]

Old post brought back to life. In my case I ended up shipping my motherboard back to XFX. They determined the motherboard was in fact dead, and shipped me a brand new one. So my problems are all gone.

 

[ffejie]

Old post brought back to life. In my case I ended up shipping my motherboard back to XFX. They determined the motherboard was in fact dead, and shipped me a brand new one. So my problems are all gone.

Yeah - looks like I'm headed that way. I've got XFX support engaged now and they're already prepping the RMA, once I test my video card and PSU, I'll probably send it back.

 

[jerreece]

Good luck! Though it seemed slow due to my eagerness, all in all I think XFX's RMA process went fairly smoothly.

You'll typically get an update from them each day once they receive your board. They'll tell you they got it. Then that they tested it. Then that it failed. And later you'll be notified that a new one has shipped. So keep in mind a new Ticket response doesn't already mean its done.

For me though, it was painless once they got it. And thankfully they sent me a brand new Retail Boxed motherboard, not a refurb as far as I can tell.

 

[ffejie]

Good luck! Though it seemed slow due to my eagerness, all in all I think XFX's RMA process went fairly smoothly.

You'll typically get an update from them each day once they receive your board. They'll tell you they got it. Then that they tested it. Then that it failed. And later you'll be notified that a new one has shipped. So keep in mind a new Ticket response doesn't already mean its done.

For me though, it was painless once they got it. And thankfully they sent me a brand new Retail Boxed motherboard, not a refurb as far as I can tell.

Thanks for sharing the experience. It's a shame they don't cross ship, but obviously that adds significant cost to the mix for them. They should probably do it like Crucial* and get a Credit Card, cross ship and then charge if the board is good or never returned.

*No idea if Crucial still does it this way, that was my experience about 3 years ago.

 

[jerreece]

I think some manufacturers (maybe eVGA?) pre-ship a replacement before you send in the old. Have seen folks in the forums make this kind of claim before. Course as a company, that means you have to trust your customer is being honest (or get CC info ahead of time).

Good luck to you on your RMA.

 

[ffejie]

I think some manufacturers (maybe eVGA?) pre-ship a replacement before you send in the old. Have seen folks in the forums make this kind of claim before. Course as a company, that means you have to trust your customer is being honest (or get CC info ahead of time).

Good luck to you on your RMA.

Jerreece, do you remember about how long the entire RMA process took once they started the paperwork?

I'm actually considering just buying a new mobo, RMAing this one, and when I get the replacement, putting it up on eBay or something. I know I can get a new mobo by Tuesday.

 

[ffejie]

Jerreece, do you remember about how long the entire RMA process took once they started the paperwork?

I'm actually considering just buying a new mobo, RMAing this one, and when I get the replacement, putting it up on eBay or something. I know I can get a new mobo by Tuesday.

Nevermind - I called XFX and they told me it's 3-5 business days after it arrives that they ship a replacement. Looks like I'll be down for another 2 weeks or so. I sent my Mobo off last night.

By the way, anyone who is RMAing (or trying to RMA) with XFX, I recommend calling them after establishing the online ticket. It seems that online tickets only get addressed a few times a week at most, but the phone guys (who are the same guys) set up the RMA in just a second or two. I should have called them about a week ago and avoided all the waiting. It only took about 10 minutes on hold to get through to them.

 

[ffejie]

FYI - XFX tested the board today and agrees it's faulty.

 

[cool2562]

i have the same problem wondering if I should go straight to the RMA and not waste time

 

[ffejie]

cool2562 - you should probably try the basic things like RAM troubleshooting and video card troubleshooting. Once you are sure, get on the phone with XFX, they will take care of it much quicker than online. (909) 230-9800

But you don't want to RMA a good board, because nothing sucks more than pulling everything off, pulling it out and being out for 2 weeks and getting the same board back.

 

[cool2562]

i took out everything from the case and built it outside of it. I had 1 stick of memory and videocard connected and I still got that yellow light with the blue one. I called XFX as you suggested and they gave me an RMA right away. Do you think I should send it in or it possible could be my power supply or cpu?

 

[tnielsen]

I had the same problem and may have a solution to try.

In my case, the computer has been working great for over a year, then suddenly would shut down right as the startup post happened.

I noticed the blue led was on, then the amber (yellow) would light up. A fraction of a second later, the green, then the motherboard would just power off.

I sanity checked a bunch of things, one of which was testing the voltage of the BIOS battery (the small watch batter on the motherboard). It tested fine, but when after having it out for 20 minutes and then placing it back in, the machine booted.

The boot sequence stopped with the bios complaining that the CMOS was invalid and to press delete. I had to reenter all my bios settings, but it's been working fine ever sense.

 

[Designs]

I had a simmilar problem with a foxconn motherboard, after test after test and some reading i found that certain CPU coolers or graphics cards can "bend" the motherboard and kill it without any suggestion as to why,

the reason this happened to me is that i changed case and of course rushed it slightly (as we all do with something new) so thinking nothing of it i just put my components in willy nilly, and after that it booted.. ran for 20 mins then just shut down. lights worked fans sometimes worked but all in all it had been over stressed by rushing it.

always remember to re-place everything static free and carefully. most modern motherboards are built alot stronger but it doesnt mean that it can take full weight head on.

Designs.

 

[jsc]

I think some manufacturers (maybe eVGA?) pre-ship a replacement before you send in the old. Have seen folks in the forums make this kind of claim before. Course as a company, that means you have to trust your customer is being honest (or get CC info ahead of time).

Good luck to you on your RMA.

eVGA does that (or at least they did). And yes, they hold your credit card hostage.

 

[jsc]

Crap. I just noticed that this thread is a year old. Someone please kill it.

 

[4Ryan6]

Its dead