Silverstone FT03 Mini Build problem

[hsienchiu]

Hi guys hope someone could help me out as I'm in a pickle somewhat. I've been build rigs for a while now and this is the first time that I encountered a build where the graphics won't work somehow when inserted into the motherboard.

BTW this build is for a client of mine and was ecstatic at first that I get to build an SFX gaming rig.

The parts that I used are:
Silverstone FT03 Mini Case
Silverstone ST45SF-G 450W 80+Gold PSU
Silverstone SOD02 DVD ODD
Intel Core i5 3570 (my client opted for the non-K as his budget was at its limit)
Asrock Z77e-ITX
Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB Kit 1600 CL9
Corsair H60
2x OCZ Vertex 3 60GB
EVGA GTX660Ti 3GB FTW + Backplate
MS Windows 8 Pro

Setting up the system was surprisingly challenging due to the small workspace since I'm used to building big bulky rigs. The smallest that I got the chance to work on before this was the Bitfenix Prodigy next to the Silverstone FT03.

Anyway during the first run nothing showed on my LED/LCD screen..Just displayed "no signal" that floats around the vast black space. I tried using both the HDMI port and one of the DVI port to no avail. Made it to work at some point twice but the system just reboots itself after a few seconds then I'm back to the "no signal" sign which became permanent..

I removed the graphics card and used the mobo's DVI port and everthing worked fine. I inserted the graphics card back in and again "no signal". Removed it and everything was normal, so I thought that the card might be faulty.

The next thing that I did was again removed the graphics card and inserted it to my own FT03 rig (Asus Maximus V Gene, Intel Core i5 3570K @4.2, Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB 1600 CL9, Corsair AX650, Crucial M4 128GB) and it worked! I suddenly thought that it might be the board itself or the PSU so i put everything back in and inserted my bro's old EVGA GTS450 FTW and everything worked just fine..swapped the other 6pin pci power for the graphics card with the other and still it worked.

I was scratching my head by then and thinking WTH was wrong with the build that I was doing. Again I removed my client's graphics card out of my rig, reset everything to how it was with the Mini and powered it back on with all fingers crossed. Sadly still no go.. and now I'm stuck and don't know what to do..

Hope someone could help me out..I can't RMA parts that seems to be working..

 

[rwpritchett]

A very curious problem. Well, assuming you've verified that the card is truly seated in the slot properly, has the auxiliary power plugged in, and you've tried the different video output ports on the card, my next suggestion is to see if there is an updated BIOS for the motherboard.

Maybe explore the PSU a bit more. The 660Ti will want more power than the 450. Pull the PSU and see if it will power the 660Ti in your Maximus Gene system. Perhaps the PSU is not putting enough juice out through the auxiliary 6-pin.

After exploring all that, it may be that the PCIe slot is faulty on the board.

Strange problem...

Edit: Another shot in the dark, but in a recent Tom's article they found their ASRock Z77 motherboards were very sensitive to overtightening/weight pressure placed on the motherboard by an aftermarket cooler (link). If you've torqued down the cooler too much, you can get some weird problems.

 

[larkspur]

Some thoughts:

When you put the 660ti in the known-good system, did you run a bench or some stressful games with it to make sure it was fully functional and stable? Just booting into the OS might not show all potential issues.

When you put the GTS450 in the new system, did you do the same as above?

Did you bench/stress the new system without a GPU installed to make sure it is stable by itself?

Have you reset the CMOS on the new system using the jumper (see the manual) and checked for BIOS updates?

Normally I'd think PSU, but I've done a few mini-ITX systems and know that the 450w gold units from Silverstone are excellent. However, the symptoms (i.e. you got it to sometimes work for a few seconds then it reboots) point toward a bad card or inadequate power to the 660ti. Since the GTS450 works in it (assuming you stress-tested it and have the newest BIOS) it probably isn't a mobo thing.

Going forward, I'd pull the board out of the case and get it running bread-board style during your testing just to make sure you aren't somehow shorting something against the case. Hope something there might help, good luck!

 

[hsienchiu]

thanks for the input guys though i haven't done any bench/stress testing yet and honestly haven't done something of the sort since everything just works with every build that i made and this is the first time that something went wrong somehow wish i could do the breadboard thing but sadly i don't have a test bench.

i might try pulling out the psu and see if it could power my maximus v gene setup together with my gainward gtx670 phantom.

re: the cmos jumper, is that different from the cmos button located at the back of the board?

 

[rwpritchett]

Bread boarding can be done on a cardboard box or wood table (watch for scratches from the solder points though!). Anything non-conductive. Even the anti-static bag will do in a pinch.

 

[larkspur]

Bread boarding can be done on a cardboard box or wood table (watch for scratches from the solder points though!). Anything non-conductive. Even the anti-static bag will do in a pinch.

^^^this! But if you haven't stress-tested the 660ti in the known-working system, do that first (since it's easiest). Play some games for a little while with it (monitor temps using GPU-z or whatever method you choose). You can also run Furmark but watch those temps! The easiest thing would be that you find the card is unstable in the known-good system, then you know what the problem is and you've got a good reason for an RMA.

Also - I didn't mean to imply that the PSU wasn't the problem, it very well might be. I just meant that it was an excellent PSU well-rated to handle even more than a 660ti. Even great PSUs can be defective.

Regarding the 'jumper' - the button is the same thing yes. So pushing the button will clear the CMOS thus resetting the board completely to defaults. Occasionally that can help.

Edit: What about the mobo BIOS? Is it the newest version? Check on the ASRock support page.

 

[hsienchiu]

thanks again guys, i'll try and do all of those today, it's a pain removing the graphics card as it is 10" long and need to remove the mobo first then the card putting it back together requires the same hassle lol.. but this is one sweet case.. the more i look at it the more i want to replace my big ft03 lol. the only downer was not being able to make it work really appreciate my client for being understanding despite having already paid for it in full and was expecting it yesterday. sigh.

 

[hsienchiu]

omg! finally made it work! i suddenly had this idea but still is weird..what i did was set the bios default to onboard graphics, turned the pc off, inserted the graphics card and booted using the onboard graphics. i then proceeded to install the gtx660ti driver which thank god went through and then after rebooting i transferred the cable to the graphics card itself. after a 3-5 seconds of the "no signal" floating around the screen came to life. did a reboot and again "no signal" but after a few seconds it's ok gonna finish setting this up today thanks again guys btw, strange thing is even without installing the driver the card should work out of the box on first boot right? even without any OS you should be able to use any graphics card right? weird..

 

[hsienchiu]

ok just curious again since i'm pretty sure even though it's now working something's still not right. when i booted with the EVGA GTS450 FTW previously it went straight to the bios menu but now that i have the EVGA GTX660Ti 3GB FTW installed it takes around 3-5 sec for it to come to life and that's already past the windows 8 logo so i can't see the bios menu or even the blue windows 8 logo thingie. Thinking of updating the bios but a bit concerned that i might mess things up and make things worse.

 

[larkspur]

Yeah, pretty weird issues. To answer your question, the nvidia driver isn't necessary to boot a clean copy of windows. Windows will use a generic legacy driver that can handle basic display output on any modern card. But obviously you will still want to install the newest nvidia driver.

It is odd that the card is taking a while to initialize the monitor, however 3-5 seconds doesn't sound too bad. If you press the key to enter BIOS (usually delete) during POST, will the card display the BIOS screen eventually? You probably have "quick boot" or "fast boot" or whatever on. That feature skips a lot of the tests for a quicker boot. And a fresh copy of Windows on a new SSD boots very very fast. So I guess as long as the system is fully stable (do some stress testing) it's probably fine.

But either way, I'd definitely check for a BIOS update. If you follow the directions from ASRock you should be fine. Since it's still behaving strangely, I would do the BIOS update on the integrated graphics with no graphics card installed.

 

[hsienchiu]

the bios update did the trick i'm not sure but probably because the mobo's bios is old. i browsed the mobo's page on asrock and saw that update 1.4 gave some updates for better discrete vga support. mine was 1.3. updated to the latest 1.8. thanks again guys