Help: Installation Nightmare

[chluu]

Hello,

Can someone please help me with the installation of my PC. I'm building an AMD based PC with an Athlon XP1600+ CPU & an Epox 8KHA+ motherboard with Samsung 128MB DDR SDRAM. I am using a Thermaltake Volcano 6cu+ heatsink and fan.

I get everything installed but the PC will not boot. The CPU is properly socketed and the heatsink is properly installed as well. The DDR is locked into the DIMM socket. The only other card in the system is a Micronics Geforce2 MX400 32MB graphics card which is also properly installed. When I turn on the power, strangely the fan on the heatsink will not work and I have to immediately power down the system. The motherboard hast three headers for two case fans and a CPU fan. One header is clearly marked CPU fan and when I plug the CPU fan into that header, it will not work. However when I plug the fan into one of the other headers marked "Case Fan," then the CPU will work.

Do the AMD Athlon processors need a CPU retention kit like the Slot 1 Coppermines? My other Intel P3667 VC820 RDRAM system which has retail CPU needs a different retention kit than OEM cpus. This has something to do with grounding. Are AMD Socket 462 cpus like these? I've installed older AMD K6 machines without problems as well as other Intel sytems with problem as well. Can someone give me ideas?

Here's the rest of the stuff installed in the PC.

1. Micronics Geforce2 MX400 (32MBDDR)
2. Western Digital 20GB HD 7200RPM UDMA100
3. Toshiba 40X UDMA CD-ROM
4. Mitsumi 1.44MB Floppy Drive

Thanks,
Claude
claude_luu@hotmail.com

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by chluu on 01/23/02 07:07 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

sounds simple to me...
your CPU fan header is broken...

you can run the CPU fan through any header u want, but if you ant to be able to monitor it you must go thru one header that supports monitoring (check your motherboard booklet).

however, any special powerdown options in the bios that rely on the CPU fan speed will obviously not work.

so does the PC boot ok with the fan plugged in elsewhere?

if not, take the motherboard back. its a dud.

The lack of thermal protection on Athlon's is cunning way to stop morons from using AMD.

 

[o1die]

Before taking back your mobo, try moving the 4 pin connectors on your hardrive, cd, etc. One of the connections may be stoping your mobo from booting up. Sounds crazy, but it may fix your problem. Everytime I think I have a bad mobo, shifting the connectors or re-mounting the mobo usually fixes the problem.

 

[TheAntipop]

just a question: why would you build an otherwise nice system on only 128 MB of ram and a crappy graphics card? it seems if you were a gamer, you would need more of both and if you were just a power user you would at least need more ram.

Hard work often pays off in time, but laziness always pays off now.

 

[svol]

Looks like something is shorting, maybe because of the bad fan header, or it is because of no rpm signal can be read because of the broken fan header.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground .

 

[Guest]

Hi,
Some CPU fans documentation mention that they should not be plugged into the mother board (since they have very high power requirement. My CPU fan i.e globalwin fan has that requirement). Instead, they are plugged into your main power supply. Check your fan doc to see what it has to say.

REgards

 

[Guest]

Sorry, I forgot. Make absolutely sure that your AGP is seated properly. It does require a *lot* of pressure to push the guy in.

Regards