building my own

[malachi]

Hey, I am building a new computer, using an asus a7a266 motherboard, with DDR Ram from crucial and a 1.33 amd athlon. I put in the processor, ram and video card and gave it some power while hooking it up to a key board and a monitor, just to make sure it worked from there. It checked the processor, then the ram and then i saw at the bottom 'Hit delete to enter setup', but it never did anything, it just frooze. I restarted and nothing would come up on the monitor. I turned off the power supply, and the turned it back on (just the power supply, not hitting the power button on the case) and the fan on the processor would come on, too. Again, nothing would come on the monitor either. I tried a different power supply and different video card but always the same results.

In looking back to try to find any other possibilities, I did have a bit more trouble getting the ram in than I thought I would (just had to push a little harder than I thought I would, but it seemed to be fine once it was in, and came out easy).

However, now the retailer has shipped me a new motherboard, though, and I am curious did I mess up the other one, or is there something i need to do to make sure this does not happen again? I tried with just the processor and video card, thinking i could still get to the bios without RAM, but still nothing comes up on the monitor (and when i turn on the power supply the fan on top of the heatsink starts to go, too.) Any help would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

[Kelledin]

I've heard reports that early revisions of some ALi MAGiK 1-based boards had this problem; I believe it was a BIOS issue. It's also possible that you had an extra standoff with no matching hole in the motherboard, grounding some leads on the motherboard's backside.

Motherboard holes intended for metal standoffs will generally have a ring of solder around them, or a circle of ten or twelve solder dots. If a hole doesn't have that, then don't use a metal standoff on it (plastic standoffs are ok though).

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."