P8P67, fails to boot

[cmdr001]

Hello,
Just got today the parts for a new rig. P8P67, i5 2500K, Kingston 2x4GB 1600MHz.

Thing is being incredibly annoying. First time I started it, or when I reset the CMOS, the computer starts up and leads me to post stating I have to go in the BIOS to set things. I have tried several things including leaving whatever default options are there, but every time afterwards before the POST goes through the computer shuts down.

Ideas?

 

[jsc]

PSU?

First, check this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/274745-13-step-step-guide-building
to see if you overlooked something simple.

Second, 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.

Third, if no luck, continue.

The following is an expansion of my troubleshooting tips in the breadboarding link in the "Cannot boot" thread.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems

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 (standby power supply): 5 volts always on. The green wire should also have 5 volts on it. It should go to 0 volts when you press the case power button (this is also a good way to test the power switch and the associated wiring), then back to 5 volts when you release the case power switch. Tolerances are +/- 5% except for the -12 volts which is +/- 10%.

The green wire should be 5 volts whenever the PSU is plugged in and the PSU switch is on. It will drop to about 0 volts when the case switch is pressed and go back to 5 volts after it is released. This will also test the case power switch.

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 (unless you have on board graphics available). In that case, remove any card and connect the monitor cable to the motherboard connector.
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.

 

[cmdr001]

PSU is a Corsair 750W.

So, an update, the system now boots and works seemingly stable but I'll come to be more sure of this later once I start the stress tests to the CPU and VGA and later memtest it just to see if something turns up. Apparently the issue I overlooked was setting the 1.65V for the RAM.

Curious thing that remained however... I did the first half of Windows 7 installation and then before proceeding I turned off the machine for a while. Upon returning and powering the system again the first thing that happened was the machine not starting with the system check leds sequentially lighting up for about a second and being on this looping. Turning it off and then back on and the system was back to the first condition.

I killed the PSU power, waited a bit, turned it back on and started the machine giving me an error concerning OC and it had reset the BIOS. Now, some hints concerning the P8P67 involved the TPU and EPU being enabled on board, but given that I want to handle any OCing manually, I turned these off now and after re-setting things it all seems normal again. Computer reboots without issue, did a off/on cycle all OK. Could the TPU be responsible for this latest issue I stumbled on?

 

[vollman1]

There is a known issue with the p67 boards where they don't wake from sleep mode if the PLL Overvoltage is enabled. You either have to disable the PLL Overvoltage or disable sleep mode. I disabled sleep mode, since it is mainly for laptops to conserve battery power and isn't needed for a desktop.

The other issue that you may come across is a double boot issue, where the system will start, stop and start again when powered on. If this happens to you, it is because your BLCK is set to something other than 100. If you use the auto overclocking, it will always set the BLCK to 103. It is recommended to not use the autop overclocking for this (and other) reasons. Just manually OC and make sure the BLCK is set to 100.

 

[cmdr001]

Ah, yes guess that was the case. I did noticed the RAM at an odd speed for one and wasn't quite relating then that the frequency was the implication.

Had set everything to manual in the meanwhile. Any overclocking done I intend to do it under my specifications rather than automatic, so if that works best all the better for me. Thanks for the heads up.

In the meanwhile the system already seems perfectly stable, trying some weaker OC (4GHz) just to see if that bears any weight onto a crash, but so far all cores used 100% for a while and no error whatsoever. Hopefully it's all sign I'm saved of having to swap boards and chips or whatever.