Defective Motherboard or No?

[kyledawg92]

Okay, my friend and I started assembling his new PC build. He got one of the new AMD FX processors, and the motherboard supports it according to Gigabyte's website. However, I get no video display after turning it on. The fans for everything run fine. I tried both PCI slots, same result. I tried using my video card, nothing changed, plus I tried his video card in my PC and it ran fine, so it's not that. I tried different memory configurations also, no luck.

I learned later that I may need to update the BIOS to use FX processors (the motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 by the way). So we ran over to another friend's house and tried his processor in order to update the BIOS, which was an Athlon II X4 I believe (maybe Phenom, shouldn't matter though). Same problem with that one. No display at all.

Is the motherboard defective? Even though all the fans run fine, and both PCI slots present the same problem?

 

[mightymaxio]

Try plugging the monitor into the integrated port on the mobo. It may have default settings to boot from there the first time you get it which then you can change in the BIOS itself.

 

[kyledawg92]

There's no integrated graphics on the motherboard, so it should run fine with a PCI card. Neither mine or the one my friend bought displayed anything however, though they both worked in my PC.

 

[mightymaxio]

Is there a molex plug you forgot to plug in on the motherboard itself? I know some mobos these days require you plug in the molex for added PCIE power for the graphics cards.

 

[kyledawg92]

One video card didn't require any extra power. For the other one, yes, it did come with a molex adapter. I tried using both that and a PCI-E power cable that came with the power supply. The fans came on in both cases, but still no display.

Is that what you're referring to, or was it something else?

 

[mightymaxio]

One video card didn't require any extra power. For the other one, yes, it did come with a molex adapter. I tried using both that and a PCI-E power cable that came with the power supply. The fans came on in both cases, but still no display.

Is that what you're referring to, or was it something else?

The molex looks like in this picture but not necessarily in the same spot.

 

[kyledawg92]

Hmm... I'm looking over an image of the mobo and don't see anything. Could you perhaps give it a quick look as well. Here is the link.

 

[kyledawg92]

Ahh. Could it perhaps be the 8 pin port labeled "ATX_12v"? I don't recall ever connecting a cable to that. Would that cause this problem? Unfortunately I don't have the PC in front of me anymore, but I'll call my friend if this is the case.

 

[mightymaxio]

Hmm could be a motherboard issue then, i would say that if you had a PCI video card not PCIE you could try booting off that incase PCIE is disabled as a boot option.

Another suggestion would be to try and reset the CMOS by taking out the CMOS battery and clearing all the settings for bios and maybe that would work.

 

[mightymaxio]

ah yeah that one is important thats the CPU port 0.o without that you cant provide power to either the CPU or the CPU fan. It should be on your PSU. If your PSU doesnt have an 8 port CPU plug your going to have to upgrade to a newer PSU that supports it.

 

[kyledawg92]

Okay, if it's to power the CPU then that's likely to be it, since the other CPU didn't work either despite being supported by the BIOS.

Thanks for your help.

 

[mightymaxio]

No problem hope you get it fixed, it would suck to have something new not work right.