Asus Rampage 3 Extreme no start

shoe51

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Oct 30, 2010
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18,510
Hello,
I have put together a new system, Asus Rampage 3 Extreme, 980X, 6 gigs of recomended Corsair ram, 2x 480GTX 600 gig Raptor Silverstone ST1200 power.I have RMAed 2 of these boards for no start issues. they start for a micro second and then nothing at all.I have swapped all of the things around, different ram, different video, fans, no fans, 1 hdd, you name it, and I still have'nt been able to get these boards to start and am about to RMA a third board is there some special procedure to these or all 3 boards dead ? Added note, I have the vid, ram and stuff running on a P6TD Deluxe (except cpu, needed a bios up to ues it) Thanks.Shoe
 

shoe51

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Oct 30, 2010
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18,510
Well I have figured out my no start problem, seems there are some tabs on the motherboard tray that are probably the problem. I breadboraded the board and it started fine, I have 2 of these cases(Kandalf tower) one without a board in it there are 2 tabs on the tray, for what I don't know but that seems to be the problem, am going to trim them off with some snips and I should be good to go. Thanks. Shoe
 

shoe51

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Oct 30, 2010
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18,510
Yeah never thought it cdould be the case, there are a couple nof things im going to do. This case came with 2 different length screw posts, think the longer ones are a couple of mm longer and the plastic washers are a good idea too, also going to trim those tabs if they are there Thanks. Shoe
 
The "cheap" way is electrical tape {stays put}; you'll never see it and it works {washers are a pain but good to install}. Also, you don't want to micro crack your MOBO and have it warped with uneven stays/posts/etc. Remove ANY posts that don't match-up with screw holes. You're not the first to have this happen.

Enjoy!
 

shoe51

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Oct 30, 2010
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18,510
Hey just wanted to let you know that I got the system up and running and it runs good, temps are good seems to be a good board. I only had/have 1 problem couldn't boot from the 6/Gbs ports so i'll have to research what the problem is. Thanks. Shoe
 
Verify that you have ALL of the Marvell SATA Controller drivers installed - http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=jy0uafxYBCrJwksC

Next, shutdown, verify HDD/SDD is installed in the 'correct' Marvell SATA3 port {if stacked use the one closest to the MOBO}, Clear CMOS. Boot to BIOS make 'required' changes as needed and verify Boot Order with either the SATA3 in position 1 or position 2 if ODD is your preference, and Save and Exit.

BTW your '600 gig Raptor -> VelociRaptor 600GB' will see ~zip in performance gain; a Crucial C300 128GB+ is one of a few SSD that can barely break the SATA2 300 MB/s limit, and your Raptor HDD is ~1/2 the SATA2 limit. The 'SATA 6.0 Gb/s' ONLY referrers to the Interface {i.e. Controller Type} and a HDD with either SATA 6.0 Gb/s or SATA 3.0 Gb/s has nothing to do with the speed of the drive nor the fact it is ~1/2 SATA2 {145 MB/s} limit of 300 MB/s.

HDD - http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=821
Specs - VelociRaptor 600GB WD6000HLHX 145 MB/s - http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701284.pdf

Therefore, if it runs - leave it where it is...