[SOLVED] Computer won't boot with SATA HDD/SSD plugged in

[vine.au]

I'm putting together a media server out of old parts and have run into a problem. The PC won't boot when I have a SATA HDD plugged in. It's an older ASUS Rampage III Formula MB that's been sitting in storage for about two years.

Hardware used:

• brand new 450W Corsair PSU
• old ASUS Rampage III Formula
• old i7 970 CPU
• old GTX 760 GPU
• old Corsair RAM

Things I've tried/eliminated:

• I've tried all the SATA ports on the motherboard, they all stop the PC booting.
• I've tried multiple SATA cables.
• I've tried booting with only the power connected to the drive: computer starts up fine.
• I've tried booting with only SATA connected: computer boots fine.
• Power plus SATA to the drive stops the PC booting.
• I've tried multiple drives, both HDD and SSD
• I tested those drives in a dock and they work fine, except the SSD which did work fine previously and now seems to have been fried, the HDD still work and show up in the dock.
• I've tested the RAM
• I installed a PCIe SATA card thinking that maybe the MB SATA was faulty but same issue.
• I tried multiple GPU as well as without a GPU
• I unplugged everything non-critical to the MB like fans, USB, network etc
• I'm not hot-swapping drives.

After some googling I found mention of +5 and +12 TVS Diodes going bad which sounds like it might be the issue.

Any ideas? I'm thinking the MB is faulty but any thoughts would be great. Thanks.

 

[jimmysmitty]

A quick note, no GPU would not POST either way as that board and CPU do not have a dedicated GPU. It is part of the HEDT lineup and Intels HEDT systems never had a iGPU.

As to your issue you have done pretty much everything I would recommend to try and if after all that it still fails to POST I would agree that the motherboard would be the culprit.

The only other thing I would suggest is to set it up in a test bed outside of the case if you have not already done so so eliminate the case causing some sort of short along the SATA channel.

 

[popatim]

The TVS issue is usually caused by trying to re-use existing cables with a new PSU.
You didn't do that, right?