P8P67 Pro Puzzler

[siegedan]

I've just received my second P8P67 board after getting what I thought was a DOA board last month. Here's the challenge: When I put everything together the first time using a 750W Coolermaster (more than enough juice for any config, I thought), I found that the only sign of life was the standby light on the board (no post indication at all...not even a spinning fan on the power supply). I took off all components from the board and plugged in the 24-pin and two 4-pin 12V connectors, attached a single case fan and still, no life. I then tested all power supply pins with a multimeter after shorting the power-on pin and all were within voltage spec. Therefore, I concluded I had a dead board. So now I'm on my second P8P67 Pro, and just to convince myself I went out and bought a second 700W Thermaltake power supply (I figured I could always return it), and started from the ground up...SAME THING! Nothing more than the standby light shining green and the power supply fan (and case fan for that matter) wouldn't startup. I called ASUS directly about the board and the engineer I spoke with talked me through the same motions to no avail. He then asked if there was a wire going to position 20 in the 20+4 pin connector...no wire (this is reserved for the old -5V connector which I don't recall seeing in some time). He said that ASUS boards require this connection, and that I needed to buy a power supply with this pin useable. However, I have seen on many forums that people are happily using power supplies that DO NOT have -5V service, so I'm not sure I'm getting such sound guidance. Any one out there with a better explanation as to why I can't get this bad boy to post with nothing on the board?

 

[siegedan]

I've just received my second P8P67 board after getting what I thought was a DOA board last month. Here's the challenge: When I put everything together the first time using a 750W Coolermaster (more than enough juice for any config, I thought), I found that the only sign of life was the standby light on the board (no post indication at all...not even a spinning fan on the power supply). I took off all components from the board and plugged in the 24-pin and two 4-pin 12V connectors, attached a single case fan and still, no life. I then tested all power supply pins with a multimeter after shorting the power-on pin and all were within voltage spec. Therefore, I concluded I had a dead board. So now I'm on my second P8P67 Pro, and just to convince myself I went out and bought a second 700W Thermaltake power supply (I figured I could always return it), and started from the ground up...SAME THING! Nothing more than the standby light shining green and the power supply fan (and case fan for that matter) wouldn't startup. I called ASUS directly about the board and the engineer I spoke with talked me through the same motions to no avail. He then asked if there was a wire going to position 20 in the 20+4 pin connector...no wire (this is reserved for the old -5V connector which I don't recall seeing in some time). He said that ASUS boards require this connection, and that I needed to buy a power supply with this pin useable. However, I have seen on many forums that people are happily using power supplies that DO NOT have -5V service, so I'm not sure I'm getting such sound guidance. Any one out there with a better explanation as to why I can't get this bad boy to post with nothing on the board?

PS - Forgot to mention, I also went back, took out the battery, cleared the CMOS, and tried the whole process again with the new power supply and new board...no luck...I'm either missing something easy or I've lost my touch

 

[EnderWiggin]

I would post this on the Intel motherboard section of http://www.hardforum.com/
since they are much more proactive in responding to these types of questions.

I do have a P8P67 Pro board (B2) and I am having no problems with my BFG 850W PSU, but I am not sure if I have this -5V connection or not in the EATXPWR connector, but I will check when I get home...

 

[rolli59]

Sounds like a plausible explanation from their side. Your normal tech would not ask you that question without them having run into that issue before.
Then again if it is not have you tried shorting the power on connector with a screwdriver instead of using the power button on the case?

 

[siegedan]

Well, thanks to some sharp debugging help from a user on the overclockers forum, I've managed to get things working again. In short, what I found was that the technical notes from Asus were incorrect (they recommended testing power up with nothing but a single chassis fan plugged in to the mobo). However, newer mobo's require the cpu and at least one stick of memory to draw power (this is because much of the new power management occurs within the CPU itself). Once I installed the cpu, some memory, and a single chassis fan, the PSU worked fine. I do still believe that my first board was in fact DOA (as it wouldn't start even with cpu/memory installed), however, I think that my second RMA'd board was fine...I just didn't test it with the appropriate components.

Problem solved...note to other readers...don't trust the engineers from Asus (forum readers were far more helpful!!).