Can I get into BIOS with what I have?

[Gabe Cain]

So I'm building a computer, first timer; I have most of my parts, PSU, Motherboard, CPU, RAM.

I am waiting for the GPU, SSD, HDD, and OS.

I unpackaged everything, grounding myself periodically, I installed the CPU, ram, plugged in the 24 pin and 8 pin CPU.

Turned it on, heat-sink is running, lights are coming on and everything appears to be in working order.

I want to get into BIOS to make sure all is well.

I plugged in an old VGA monitor after I tried an HDMI cable to my TV. I get no picture or anything.

The only sign I get from my old VGA is when I plug in the cable, the screen shuts off like it's in power saving mode. When I unplug the monitor it turns on and says no signal.

My motherboard has on-board video and sound.

MSI Z97 GD46 (MOBO)
Intel I5 Devil's Canyon 3.4 Mhz CPU
2x Gskill TridentX 2400 8GB RAM
Rosewill Lightning 1000W PSU

Can I get into BIOS with what I have here? Or do I need the GPU? Are there drivers for the on-board video that need to be installed?

I apologize if my question isn't clear and concise, like I said I'm pretty new to this, only started learning and researching 2 weeks ago.

My main concern is if my CPU is good and not defective.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Your CPU has a GPU built into it. Provided everything you have is correctly put together and working, you should have no problems getting into BIOS.

The one thing that looks a bit out of place is the 1000W PSU. If you aren't going to be loading the PSU enough, it could end up operating extremely inefficiently.

 

[Gabe Cain]

I oversized a little bit I am getting the Geforce GTX 970 which will pull ~150 watts. My future plan is to get a second GTX 970 and SLI them. Maybe I need to check to see if I have a case speaker in my motherboard box, and maybe try everything again to see if I didn't connect everything correctly.

How do I know if the CPU is bad?
I'm currently reading that now.

My motherboard also flashes a lot of debug codes. I remember some of them.

Early North Bridge Initialization
Early South Bridge Initialization
Early Memory Initialization

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

That isn't just a little bit of oversizing, even if you go with 3-way SLI the recommendation only goes up to 850 watts, but anyhoot, if you're getting all of those initializations, the CPU portion of the chip is likely fine...

Your dilemma is, you want to know if a particular part out of a bunch of new parts is bad, but you don't know if any of the parts are bad or good. You need to test each part to determine. Normally, if you want to test one part, such as the CPU, you need to either be able to pull BIOS codes with a board, a built in display, or install the CPU into a known good board to test it. It's pretty rare to get a bad CPU, so I wouldn't suspect it initially, although it's always possible it could have been mishandled or not installed quite right. Sometimes removing and reseating helps, silly as that sounds. Did you take a glance at the socket before installation to make sure none of the pin landings looked bent or out of alignment?

If the list of BIOS initializations fails at the memory installation, double check the RAM. Is it all the way in the slots? Is it in the correct slots? Is it on the list of compatible configurations as listed in your manual?

 

[Gabe Cain]

So I have been following the guides and here's what I found.

I took everything out, CPU was seated properly.

There is something suspect with the socket.
http://postimg.org/image/4bx1061kp/ (Picture of the socket, I can try to snap a better photo if need be)

I removed the RAM and a lot of those debug errors went away, unless I'm reading this board incorrectly which could be, the only debug code displaying is EO/E0 or 03/O3 which I'm unable to find anything in my manual for that code.

I plugged in a keyboard, it lights up when I power on, I can cut the number lock on and off.

Still no picture, I've plugged it into VGA, DVI-D, and HDMI, although on my last test run I only did DVI-D.

I don't have a case speaker to test with I suppose I should add that to my docket. I am of the mindset now that the CPU is good like you said, motherboard appears to be good as best I can tell except that suspect socket, RAM I'm unsure of because a lot of debugs went away when I removed the RAM. PSU still remains to be functioning properly. I will readdress the PSU down the road once I build an operational machine, thank you so far for your input.

I hope I'm giving you enough information, I'm off now to read some more troubleshooting.

 

[Gabe Cain]

Update. I noticed the pins were a little bent so I tried to gingerly move them back into place because I feel like Newegg will blame me for the damage. I realized if I was going to attempt this magnifying glasses would help.

Either way I tried to see if I could get anything from it this go around.

I did some trial and error and plugging one 8 GB RAM card into DIMM2 I was
able to get a boot screen!

So I did some more trial and error. I found that only when I have the one card in DIMM2 and if I try 2 cards it must be in DIMM1 and DIMM2.

So as far as I know things are alright for now, but I wonder, should I attempt to get a replacement motherboard?

Sidenote: To be in dual channel mode my cards need to be in DIMM2 & 4. I'm in 1&2 but that's the only way I can have 2 cards.

The boot screen says Single Channel 1333 Mhz even though my cards are 2400. I see I still have a lot to learn. Still I'm happy I managed to get a BIOS screen.

 

[Gabe Cain]

So just one more update.

I realized the socket pins on the motherboard were bent. I used a safety pin and just kind of combed between the rows carefully (it was hard to tell which way the pin was bent)

After straightening it I also noticed the pin that was bent is longer than all the other pins. It sticks up just a little bit past the rest on the socket. I'm not sure if this is a problem but I went ahead and seated the processor, cleaned the thermal paste, applied new paste, attached the heatsink.

Then I proceeded to put my RAM in it's proper channels hit the power button and it started up no problem. My only thing now is I can't figure out how to tell if it's in dual channel or single channel with the RAM. I think I'll be able to figure that out a little better when the rest of the parts come.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

For the RAM, you should probably go into BIOS and select XMP profile, so it will use the higher speed programmed into the SPD of the memory modules. Some BIOS screens will say Dual-Channel when booting, somewhere near the reading for memory count and speed. If you're getting a full screen logo instead of the regular POST screen, you may need to cancel the full page logo or splash screen to see what's going on there.

Always a good idea to verify pins on either a chip or socket before installation. Even new, you just never know. Glad you found the hiccup and got it sorted. I wouldn't bother returning the board if it's working.

 

[Gabe Cain]

Yeah, everything seems to be running quite well. I had some more trouble with my graphics card. The instructions were a little unclear. I have the GTX 970, and it has a 6 and an 8 pin connector. The instructions said connect the 6/8 Pin PCIe. To me that says 6 or 8 pin. So when the 6 was connected it would display telling me to connect the PCIe power cord. With the 8 pin connected the GPU would light up and fans would turn on. So I asked my brother were we supposed to hook up both power supplies. Long story short that was the problem, the GPU needs a 6 and an 8 pin power to run.

My latest battle was trying to restore an old hard drive. I've tried everything and have just come to the conclusion it's dead. I even voided the warranty (if I still had one) to check the heads to make sure they weren't stuck. If I remember I think the power knocked out once and I don't think I had my drive, an external at the time, on a surge protector. So I think it's just fried, I've worked on it for 3 days now with no solutions, going into command prompt, regedit, and back again and no success so I'll wash my hands and move along.

I'm debating on if I should get 2x 4TB HDD, or 2x 3TB HDD, people keep pointing in the direction of the Seagate Barracuda. It's the best value $/TB, but I just don't know, a lot of mixed reviews there. However, WD is not without its flaws. Ultimately I would like to hook the drives up in a RAID. I haven't decided which RAID would work best for me but ultimately I don't want to lose my data again so I think that RAID 5 will work for my needs, need 3 HDD for that though.

Anyway, thank you for your help, sorry for the long post, just putting my thoughts out there. Feel free to weigh in.

Cheers.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

When installing graphics cards that require PCI-e power, you need to supply all of the PCI-e power connectors with power, not one or the other. 🙂 If a graphics card only needs one connector, that's all it will have available to connect to.

RAID 5 will slow down your drive array with it's parity calculations and eats a lot of space when storing the parity along with the data (1 drive's worth.)

I wouldn't RAID at all, personally. If you need speed, go with an SSD as your primary drive. No spinning platter magnetic storage array will be able to keep up with it for the price. If you need redundancy, make backups, and keep them separate from the machine you are backing up. Leaving your backup drive attached to what you're backing up all the time, like some people I know, is a great way to lose your backup at the same time as everything else.

Only if you need real-time redundancy would I ever recommend someone to go with a RAID setup. In a business infrastructure, the extra costs involved with RAID are easily offset by the benefits. In the home, this is arguable. The features you need should determine which of the available RAID configurations you go with. On the other hand, if you're loaded, with money to spare, RAID away! 🙂

Even if you have a RAID array, this doesn't deprecate the need for good external backups. One good screw up and all the drives in the array, or enough to make it unrecoverable can be shot. If you're data is so important to you that you want to RAID some hard drives to protect it, I recommend looking into off-site backup, cloud storage, or at least external backup devices first.