Fails to boot from disk, black screen with blinking cursor

[Crimsonwrath22]

I just built my pc and when i start it up everything seems to start up and i can get into bios, but then it goes to a black screen with a blinking white cursor in the top left and i can't do anything else. I tried changing the boot order and booting with a win 7 install disk and a bootable usb, the optical drive seems to spin up on start up and then spins down and i get the same black screen with blinking cursor.

Does anyone know what the issue is?

System Specs:

MSI P67A-GD65 (B3)

Intel core i-5 2500k

XFX Black Edition 750W PSU

Sony Optiarc AD-7260S DVD/CD ±RW

Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX, 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s

G.Skill Sniper 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz

Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme Rev1 cpu cooler

MSI Twin Frozr II Radeon HD 6870

 

[mosox]

Try some other SATA ports on the mobo. Put the boot order to DVD first.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

I have the boot order set to boot from my optical drive first and i have now tried all 4 of the SATA 3Gb/s ports. It still just ends up on the black screen with blinking cursor.

 

[mosox]

Standard troubleshooting guide
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/261145-13-perform-steps-posting-boot-video-problems

 

[house70]

Is the DVD geniune? bootable? not scratched?

 

[mshaw]

Not sure if this helps but i noticed you had a 6gb/s Board and a 3GB/s drive. Maybe you need to manually slow the SATA speed in the bios. I had a similar issue with my older system the other way round, i had to reduce the 3gb/s HD to 1.5gb/s to be compatiable with the SATA 1 config.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

Is the DVD geniune? bootable? not scratched?

I burned the dvd myself from an iso which i downloaded from my university's online store. So the iso is genuine and the dvd was new with no scratches. I'm assuming it's bootable, unless i burned it wrong...? I just burned the disk image onto the dvd.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

Not sure if this helps but i noticed you had a 6gb/s Board and a 3GB/s drive. Maybe you need to manually slow the SATA speed in the bios. I had a similar issue with my older system the other way round, i had to reduce the 3gb/s HD to 1.5gb/s to be compatiable with the SATA 1 config.

The board has 4 6gb/s SATA ports and 4 3gb/s SATA ports. I made sure to use the 3gb/s SATA port so it should be fine. Also, the cd/dvd drive info shows up in the bios so i'm assuming it's hooked up correctly.

 

[house70]

you could try to boot from same dvd on a different PC... not go through with installation, just see if it boots.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

I bought a genuine windows 7 dvd to try out and even tested it using another dvd drive which i know works, but i keep getting the same problem...

 

[mosox]

What RAM exactly, some G.SKILL Sniper are low voltage some high. Try with only one stick of RAM. In the BIOS manually set the memory voltage to the one needed by your RAM (specified by the manufacturer).

 

[house70]

I bought a genuine windows 7 dvd to try out and even tested it using another dvd drive which i know works, but i keep getting the same problem...

you mean, you tested on another system, or attached another drive to the same system?
Testing on another system would allow you to rule out (or confirm), a disc problem, as opposed to a system problem.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

What RAM exactly, some G.SKILL Sniper are low voltage some high. Try with only one stick of RAM. In the BIOS manually set the memory voltage to the one needed by your RAM (specified by the manufacturer).

I have the 1.5 volt sticks, the voltage was correctly set in the BIOS.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

you mean, you tested on another system, or attached another drive to the same system?
Testing on another system would allow you to rule out (or confirm), a disc problem, as opposed to a system problem.

I tested the disc on another system and it works fine. I also hooked up another optical drive that i know works to my system and i run into the same problem.

 

[mosox]

Are you sure you mounted the CPU and the heatsink correctly?

 

[house70]

Is this a SATA or IDE DVD drive? If it is a SATA drive, try hooking up an IDE one, set it as master by jumpers, make sure it is seen in BIOS and try again.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

Are you sure you mounted the CPU and the heatsink correctly?

I followed the directions in mounting the cpu cooler backplate, applied a small amount of thermal paste, and mounted the cooler. Is there something else that i needed to do?

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

Is this a SATA or IDE DVD drive? If it is a SATA drive, try hooking up an IDE one, set it as master by jumpers, make sure it is seen in BIOS and try again.

It's a SATA optical drive. I'm pretty sure the drive is ok since i've tried using a different optical drive, which i know works, and i get the same problem. I don't have an IDE drive lying around...

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

I'm pretty sure the problem has to do with either the motherboard or the cpu since i've tested out all the other parts individually and they seem to function correctly. Should i just rma the mobo and see if that fixes it?

 

[mosox]

Yep.

 

[house70]

At this point it looks like the mobo is faulty. RMA sounds like a good idea.

 

[Crimsonwrath22]

Ok, i'll do that and see if it fixes it. I was hoping to not have to do that since i heard the rma process takes a long time. sigh...

Thanks for all your help though!

 

[house70]

No problem, let us know if more issues.