Not posting

[Josh_aussie]

Good afternoon everyone!

I recently built my own computer, no problems on the first night, posted first try. The next morning I tried to turn her on and got nothing. I will be specific; the case fans and PSU fans would light up and spin for a few seconds, but then turn off.

I have the following;

Thermaltake EVO Blue 650Watt PSU
Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
ASUS P8H67-M-LE-V3 DDR3 MOBO
Thermaltake V9 Case
Gigabyte 1GB 5770 PCI-E VGA Card

LG SATA Black DVD RW
Kingston HyperX Blue 4GB Kit
(2GBx2) DDR3 1600
WD 1.5TB Caviar Green HDD

After trying a differant PSU (same problem) and re-seating the motherboard / CPU as well as trying to run it out of the case, I got frustrated and short of time so called a local geek. The local geek told me that I had fried my mobo + original (shitty) HDD. So I went out and bought -

Artic Silver 5 Thermal Grease @$15.00
OCZ 120G Vertex II E Series SSD @$233.00
Asus P8P67 PRO L1155 P67 4x DDR3 SATA3 SATA2 eSATA RAID Firewire USB3. @$235.00
Western Digital 2TB SATA3 64M Black(WD2002FAEX) @$182.00

The local geek put it back together and now has the same problem.

I have not had the chance of looking at the new mobo installation (I will tonight) - but does anyone have any idea about what I could have done wrong? Take into consideration the computer did not move at all from the first time I started her to the second.

On the first P8H67 motherboard the green power LED would lite up to indicate the board is getting power, then the red LED next to the 16pin connecter next to the ram would light as I pressed the power button (and then the whole thing would shutoff)

I have read the steps and am confident that I have done nothing wrong - I get the strong feeling that this is a PSU issue. However due to the fact I have tried a differant PSU with the same results, I am probably wrong.

Any help would be great!

 

[Proximon]

I'm not familiar with that particular PSU, but it's not one of the known good Tt PSUs. Thermaltake sells a lot of junk PSUs as does CM..... Well, I looked it up and while I don't have any reviews it is a CWT built unit. So it should be anywhere from poor to good, but not junk.

You shouldn't be throwing money at it until you know what's wrong though.

Kingston makes lots of RAM. Is this a compatible kit? 1.5V or 1.65V?

You say you tried a different PSU on the old board after it failed. What PSU did you start with on the new board? If it was the PSU that damaged the old board it would likely damage the new one as well.

Have you attached a motherboard speaker to the board to get any beep codes? Tt cases normally ship with one I think. It's a little thing plugs right into the system speaker header.

 

[jsc]

Good afternoon everyone!

I recently built my own computer, no problems on the first night, posted first try. The next morning I tried to turn her on and got nothing.

Have you tried flowers? Sorry, couldn't resist.

After trying a differant PSU (same problem) and re-seating the motherboard / CPU as well as trying to run it out of the case, I got frustrated and short of time so called a local geek. The local geek told me that I had fried my mobo + original (shitty) HDD.

You need to find a better quality of geek.

Among other things, there's nothing wrong with the WD Greens. They are a poor choice for boot drives, but that is a separate issue unrelated to quality.

Work systematically through our standard checklist and troubleshooting thread:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems
I mean work through, not just read over it. We spent a lot of time on this. It should find most of the problems.

If not, continue.
The following is an expansion of my troubleshooting tips in the breadboarding link in the "Cannot boot" thread.

I have tested the following beep patterns on Gigabyte, eVGA, and ECS motherboards. Other BIOS' may be different, but they all use a single short beep for a successful POST.

Breadboard - that will help isolate any kind of case problem you might have.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262730-31-breadboarding

Breadboard with just motherboard, CPU & HSF, case speaker, and PSU.

Make sure you plug the CPU power cable in. The system will not boot without it.

I always breadboard a new build. It takes only a few minutes, and you know you are putting good parts in the case once you are finished.

You can turn on the PC by momentarily shorting the two pins that the case power switch goes to. You should hear a series of long, single beeps indicating memory problems. Silence indicates a problem with (in most likely order) the PSU, motherboard, or CPU. Remember, at this time, you do not have a graphics card installed so the load on your PSU will be reduced.

If no beeps:
Running fans and drives and motherboard LED's do not necessarily indicate a good PSU. In the absence of a single short beep, they also do not indicate that the system is booting.

At this point, you can sort of check the PSU. Try to borrow a known good PSU of around 550 - 600 watts. That will power just about any system with a single GPU. If you cannot do that, use a DMM to measure the voltages. Measure between the colored wires and either chassis ground or the black wires. Yellow wires should be 12 volts. Red wires: +5 volts, orange wires: +3.3 volts, blue wire : -12 volts, violet wire: 5 volts always on. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The gray wire is really important. It should go from 0 to +5 volts when you turn the PSU on with the case switch. CPU needs this signal to boot.

You can turn on the PSU by completely disconnecting the PSU and using a paperclip or jumper wire to short the green wire to one of the neighboring black wires.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FWXgQSokF4&feature=youtube_gdata

A way that might be easier is to use the main power plug. Working from the back of the plug where the wires come out, use a bare paperclip to short between the green wire and one of the neighboring black wires. That will do the same thing with an installed PSU. It is also an easy way to bypass a questionable case power switch.

This checks the PSU under no load conditions, so it is not completely reliable. But if it can not pass this, it is dead. Then repeat the checks with the PSU plugged into the computer to put a load on the PSU.

If the system beeps:
If it looks like the PSU is good, install a memory stick. Boot. Beep pattern should change to one long and several short beeps indicating a missing graphics card.

Silence, long single beeps, or series of short beeps indicate a problem with the memory. If you get short beeps verify that the memory is in the appropriate motherboard slots.

Insert the video card and connect any necessary PCIe power connectors. Boot. At this point, the system should POST successfully (a single short beep). Notice that you do not need keyboard, mouse, monitor, or drives to successfully POST.
At this point, if the system doesn't work, it's either the video card or an inadequate PSU. Or rarely - the motherboard's PCIe interface.

Now start connecting the rest of the devices starting with the monitor, then keyboard and mouse, then the rest of the devices, testing after each step. It's possible that you can pass the POST with a defective video card. The POST routines can only check the video interface. It cannot check the internal parts of the video card.