Boot trouble. I read the sticky

[mortonww]

System specs (it's not mine):

Asrock AM2+ motherboard
4 GB (2x2 GB) of OCZ DDR2
Phenom II x4 940
2 x 9800 GT
WD 250 GB HDD

FROM: Blue power 680 Watt non-active-PFC power supply
TO: Corsair 650TX

FROM: Stock Heatsink
TO: Schythe Mugen II

Once the above swaps were made, the following symptoms occurred:

Got to BIOS, temperature was 40C. Not excellent, but not shut-down hot. Checked RAM settings, checked all the hardware was recognized then exited.

Once I exited the BIOS, a saw a very very quick flash of a BSOD and then the computer restarted and went to the motherboard splash screen again. There was nothing I could do in BIOS to get the computer not to BSOD once I saved the changes and attempted to load windows. I even downclocked the processor to 2.0 GHz once.

So now, I don't even get that far. I turn it on and the fans spin up for four seconds (mugen fan and connected case fans) and then the whole thing dies again.

-checked that heatsink was seated securely. it is.
-tested with one stick of RAM at a time in different slots. did not help.
-8 pin and 24 pin are plugged in
-case power leads are connected to the right pins.
-was wearing an anti-static wristband clamped onto a metal part of the case

-ALTHOUGH: my uncle did touch the motherboard a couple of times before i had a chance to tell him the significance of the anti-static wristband.

-tried it with just 8 pin and 24 pin connected.


PLEASE HALP!

 

[mortonww]

Come on, guys.

 

[Paperdoc]

That 40C temperature, was that CPU?

Check the connection of new CPU fan to mobo. Some mobos monitor the fan speed on the CPU cooler and, if it fails to see a speed it interprets that to mean the fan is not working and shuts down the whole system immediately without waiting for the CPU to overheat. Usually it also will put out a big warning beep as it does so, IF you have a mobo PZO speaker for that sound to be generated. If that is your situation and you are sure the fan is working, there is a place in BIOS fan setups where you can tell it NOT to do this if necessary (may be hard to do if you can't boot into BIOS, though). Better option, of course, is to make sure the CPU cooler fan speed is being fed to the BIOS and this safety protection is working normally.

Did the change involve a different fan type? If you changed from 3-pin to 4-pin fan, or the other way around, that may require that you tell your BIOS that the fan type on the CPU cooler is different. Some mobos seem able to detect this automatically, but some require a manual setting.

You could try a BIOS Reset in case some configuration setting is wrong. First you need to know and write down any special customization settings you made. Then this is the sequence:

1. Disconnect the power cord so the system has no outside supply, then open the case. Remove the mobo BIOS battery (about the size of a quarter) from its plastic holder.
2. Find the "BIOS reset" pins that have one jumper on a pin pair. Move the jumper to the other pin pair and leave for about 10 seconds, them move it back to the normal storage position. Replace the mobo battery. Close up and reconnect power.
3. Boot immediately into BIOS Setup. You need to re-establish a good set of BIOS Parameters. Go to a menu near the end where you can Load a set. Usually the best choice is either Factory Default or Optimized Default. Save and Exit. This should allow you to boot smoothly.
4. If you need to change any parameters to a custom setting, reboot into BIOS Setup again, make your changes, Save and Exit.

 

[mortonww]

I will be trying this in another couple of hours. Still at work. Thanks so much for these suggestions.

 

[mortonww]

Okay, Paperdoc, I've got it running again. I can start up and get into BIOS. No more 5 seconds and then shut off. I did this:

1. Disconnect the power cord so the system has no outside supply, then open the case. Remove the mobo BIOS battery (about the size of a quarter) from its plastic holder.
2. Find the "BIOS reset" pins that have one jumper on a pin pair. Move the jumper to the other pin pair and leave for about 10 seconds, them move it back to the normal storage position. Replace the mobo battery. Close up and reconnect power.
3. Boot immediately into BIOS Setup. You need to re-establish a good set of BIOS Parameters. Go to a menu near the end where you can Load a set. Usually the best choice is either Factory Default or Optimized Default. Save and Exit. This should allow you to boot smoothly.

I selected "Load Optimum Defaults" or something similar to that and it BSOD'd

Now I'm back to the first set of symptoms where I get to the BIOS but once i exit, no matter how lax the settings are, a BSOD flashes very quickly and then the computer restarts.

I did check the CPU temperature in BIOS again, and it's still around 40 C. The CPU fan power cable is the same as the stock one. They were both 4 pin.

Is there any possibility of this PSU not being compatible with the motherboard?????

 

[Paperdoc]

There should not be a compatibility issue here. But there could be a faulty PSU. Do you still have your old one in working condition? Try replacing just that in place of the new PSU. If that makes a huge difference, talk to the supplier of the Corsair to get a replacement.

The other thing this sounds like a bit is RAM trouble. So try a few of things.
1. Go to the OCZ website and look up the specs for the exact model of RAM you have. Go into BIOS Setup and check the voltage being supplied to the RAM, and the timing settings in use. If any do not match the RAM specs, change them.
2. Likewise, at the AMD site check the full specs for your exact CPU. Verify in BIOS Setup that the voltage being supplied to the CPU is correct.
3. If those don't solve your problem, remove one stick or RAM and run it in single-channel mode with only one installed in the correct slot. See how that works. Run Memtest 86+ on it. Then repeat the experiment with the other stick, but in the same slot. If you find one RAM stick faulty, you might have to replace both - do you have a matched set?
4. If it still is not working after the RAM tests above, look closely in the mobo manual and see if there is a way to run a single-channel (1 stick) RAM system with that stick in a different slot. If you can, repeat the RAM tests that way as a check on the mobo RAM slot itself.

I realize that some of this may prove impossible. It's pretty hard to run Memtest on a single-channel configuration for four hours if the machine won't even boot! But report here what you can find out.

 

[shovenose]

well, i would say that ur comp is fine, it just needs windwos reinstalled. do a repair of the install 1st, if that doesnt help do a complete reinstall. i have never damaged ram or mobo even tho i neveruse antistatic measures

 

[mortonww]

Thanks so much for your help. I changed the settings in the BIOS for the RAM (making the timings much looser than what was on the sticker but at the same voltage) and that didn't help. So I was reading this page explaining a bunch of different blue screen errors and one had to do with the hard drive. Long story why that one stuck out, but I switched the SATA cable (the data one) to a different port on the motherboard and everything works perfectly!

Thanks for the reply shovenose. I really appreciate this forum in times like these. Out of the woods now, though.

EDIT: I failed to mention this, but I had already tried with the old power supply yesterday. Thanks for your time.

 

[mortonww]

Best answer selected by mortonww.

 

[Paperdoc]

Glad you found the problem. I find it puzzling, though. I would not have associated a bad SATA port with the symptoms you describe. Guess I just learned something.

 

[mortonww]

Yeah, me either. I was just kind of trying things at that point. I read that list of blue screen errors I mentioned above and only a couple seemed plausible. The hard drive one and the driver conflict one. So I removed power from one graphics card to create the non-SLI condition of the pc that existed before the last shutdown. And I changed the sata port that the windows hard drive was connected to. And then it worked. Before that I had tried switching the 4 pin molex (?) power connecter with a SATA power connecter 'cause the drive accepted both, but that alone didn't work.