Hi All,
Hoping you can help ease my frustration. I completed building my (first build!) computer yesterday and it won't POST. Here are the specs:
ASUS A8N-E mobo
AMD64 3200+ (Venice 939) CPU
2 x PC3200 DDR 512MB Crucial Ballistix
Antec Sonata II case
Western Digital WD1200 AT/IDE drive
Radeon 7000 PCI video card
The video card is pretty old and I'm using an existing IDE HDD because I want to get things running in 64-bit Linux first, and then I'll add SATA and maybe a better graphics card. Note that the card is PCI, and it's in the PCI slot, but this mobo has a PCI-e bus, so I'm a little bit leary about that... wonder if it might be part of the problem?
Here are the symptoms:
- No POST. No beeps, no video AT ALL, no BIOS setup screen.
- Front panel HDD LED lights amber. Stays steady, no blinking.
- The HDD doesn't even seem to spin up. Have swapped it out and back in to test it, and it works fine in another box.
- Front panel Power LED never lights up. I AM getting power to the mobo (its on-board LED comes on), and from the PSU (fans turn on). I also tried the power cable I was using on the HDD on a CD-ROM, and was able to eject the tray after power up, so I know the PSU is putting juice out on that cable.
- As I said, there is absolutely NO diagnostic at all -- neither on video nor any beeps. This seems very strange to me, though I'm a first-time builder, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect or suspect.
So... I've double checked all of the usual suspects, moved the video card around, reseated it, even tried a different PCI video card I had laying around. I've moved the memory around, tried it with only 1 stick (tried each stick). I've double checked the IDE jumpers. Tried 2 different HDDs. Tried a different cable.
I hope these symptoms suggest something to somebody. At this point, I'm rather desperate and considering
1. Today I am going to disassemble and reassemble the whole thing just to triple check all wiring, grounding points, etc.
2. Could the mobo be DOA? I *may* try to borrow another compatible mobo, though I'm not sure any of my friends have one I can try.
3. Could the PCI video card be hosing up the works? I'm not 100% sure I saw an official ASUS statement that a PCI video card WOULD work, but I didn't see anything that said it WOULDN'T, and I got some reassuring words on various hardware forums before buying the board that it would work. It IS a standard PCI slot. I'm just wondering... I *could* try to get a cheap PCI-e video card if there's some reasonable suspicion that this might fix the problem, but I'd sure like to get to the point where I get some kind of diagnostics out of the mobo before going off on a wild goose chase.
Hope this describes enough of the problem to trigger an idea or two. Any suggestions very welcome!
Cheers,
john
Hoping you can help ease my frustration. I completed building my (first build!) computer yesterday and it won't POST. Here are the specs:
ASUS A8N-E mobo
AMD64 3200+ (Venice 939) CPU
2 x PC3200 DDR 512MB Crucial Ballistix
Antec Sonata II case
Western Digital WD1200 AT/IDE drive
Radeon 7000 PCI video card
The video card is pretty old and I'm using an existing IDE HDD because I want to get things running in 64-bit Linux first, and then I'll add SATA and maybe a better graphics card. Note that the card is PCI, and it's in the PCI slot, but this mobo has a PCI-e bus, so I'm a little bit leary about that... wonder if it might be part of the problem?
Here are the symptoms:
- No POST. No beeps, no video AT ALL, no BIOS setup screen.
- Front panel HDD LED lights amber. Stays steady, no blinking.
- The HDD doesn't even seem to spin up. Have swapped it out and back in to test it, and it works fine in another box.
- Front panel Power LED never lights up. I AM getting power to the mobo (its on-board LED comes on), and from the PSU (fans turn on). I also tried the power cable I was using on the HDD on a CD-ROM, and was able to eject the tray after power up, so I know the PSU is putting juice out on that cable.
- As I said, there is absolutely NO diagnostic at all -- neither on video nor any beeps. This seems very strange to me, though I'm a first-time builder, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect or suspect.
So... I've double checked all of the usual suspects, moved the video card around, reseated it, even tried a different PCI video card I had laying around. I've moved the memory around, tried it with only 1 stick (tried each stick). I've double checked the IDE jumpers. Tried 2 different HDDs. Tried a different cable.
I hope these symptoms suggest something to somebody. At this point, I'm rather desperate and considering
1. Today I am going to disassemble and reassemble the whole thing just to triple check all wiring, grounding points, etc.
2. Could the mobo be DOA? I *may* try to borrow another compatible mobo, though I'm not sure any of my friends have one I can try.
3. Could the PCI video card be hosing up the works? I'm not 100% sure I saw an official ASUS statement that a PCI video card WOULD work, but I didn't see anything that said it WOULDN'T, and I got some reassuring words on various hardware forums before buying the board that it would work. It IS a standard PCI slot. I'm just wondering... I *could* try to get a cheap PCI-e video card if there's some reasonable suspicion that this might fix the problem, but I'd sure like to get to the point where I get some kind of diagnostics out of the mobo before going off on a wild goose chase.
Hope this describes enough of the problem to trigger an idea or two. Any suggestions very welcome!
Cheers,
john