MSI K8T Neo2 No POST with new/old CPU, help!

[PVJZEN]

Hi, please help me diagnose this issue.

I had this configuration running for 26 months:

1) MSI K8T Neo2F (6702E Version 1)
2) Antec 380W PSU
3) Athlon 64 3200 939
4) 2GB (512 * 4) DDR 400
5) Geforce 6600GT
6) 2 x SATA HDD in RAID 1
7) 1 PATA HDD
8) 1 DVD RW, 1 DVD CDRW
9) 1 FDD, 1 memory card reader.
10)1 soundcard

So this ran well for over 2 years. Then I decided to upgrade and bought an Athlon 64 x2 4600. I put in the CPU with the heat sink and fan, started it up and it didnt POST, the D Bracket error for Early Chipset Initialization (1Green,234Red). I took the CPU out, put it back and the same error showed up.

To troubleshoot, I put the old Athlon 64 3200 back in and now it didnt boot either, same error message.

The power led, optical drive lights light up, the PSU, System and CPU fan start working but no POST, only the Early Chipset Initialization error. I removed the SATA drives, optical drives, 3 memory sticks, reset the CMOS, took the battery out but there's been no change in the error message.

What could have happened? What should I try next?

thanks,

PVJ

 

[PC_Side_Line]

sounds like the 6600 went bad on u, did u try replacing the vid card yet?

when u have no video or a black screen for 15 min or more, always try the vid card first, if that doesn't respond then it could be the memory.

If still no response from video with new card and new mem then u renew the whole motherboard.

very rarely is it the drives or CPU that gives a problem, assuming u did excellent daily or weekly maint on ur hdd's that included multiple a/v scans, and malware removals with firewall(s) installed.

And assuming that u never dropped the pc more than 1/4 of an inch on a hard surface, then the drives shouldnt fail.

 

[Hawkeye22]

MSI's web site says it supports X2 processors. You may need a BIOS update.

 

[kshipper]

You are very capable tech PVJZEN. I would go just a little further. Take every precaution to avoid static electricity. Static is a silent killer of computer components and can cause major headaches. To avoid static discharge touch the case of the computer often to equalize your electrical potential.

Remove everything attached to the motherboard. Take the motherboard out. Set the motherboard on the bench (A rubber mat is ideal or a wooden bench in a pinch) with nothing hooked up to it. Remove the BIOS battery and let it sit for 10mins to de-energize. While you are waiting. Check the MSI site for BIOS updates and get the latest one. They offer BIOS upates that you can do from within Windows and those are the easier ones to use if you are new to BIOS flashing. Check the motherboard manual for the proper procedure to reset the BIOS. Sometimes it comes in handy to know what jumper needs to be moved to reset the BIOS in the event you don't have time to do it the long way (Removing battery and de-energizing the motherboard).

With the motherboard still on the bench. Install one stick of memory (in the correct slot - see manual for that too) install the CPU (Your old 3200) & heatsink (don't forget the thermal paste) Hook up the heatsink fan to the correct spot on the motherboard (Some systems won't start without a signal from the processor heatsink fan). Hook up the PSU and then flip it on by shorting the two pins that are normally hooked up to the PWR switch (again...consult the manual for their location). You should get POST beeps from the internal speaker (most modern motherboarda have the speaker built onto the motherboard, if yours doesn't you can hook up the external speaker that is built into the case) These POST beeps tell you you have working components but you have a graphics card failure (we expect this, since we didn't install the graphics card yet). Power down, unplug the power cord, wait 1 minute and install the graphics card. Power back up and see if the POST beeps dissapear. If they are gone, power down and hook up the mouse/keyboard/monitor. Power back up and you should see video of the POST and BIOS. If you don't or you hear POST beeps again...obtain a known good graphics card to try. Rinse and repeat. If you still get errors. Remove the graphics card and try a different memory stick. If after rotating different memory sticks, 2 different graphics cards and even swap out the PSU doesn't enable you to get it to boot. The last thing it could be is the Motherboard.

I know I was a little wordy but I couldn't be 100% sure how much detail to give you. I will leave the thread open my desktop to check up on your progress.

 

[techgeek]

Have you tried clearing your CMOS yet? The CPU change may have bunged up your CMOS. Clear it and put in the old CPU. If this gets you up and running, verify that you are running a new enough BIOS version to work with the X2. If not, as suggested by others, flash the BIOS to the newest version. Then remove the old CPU, clear CMOS again, and then install the new CPU.

 

[PVJZEN]

Thanks for all your replies every one. This is what I did and this is the final result:


MB on cardboard box, one memory stick in socket closest to CPU, PSU connected to MB, heatsink and fan, DLink, AGP card with molex.

I cleared the CMOS properly. I think the PSU is working because the CPU fan, PSU fan and the AGP fan start up.

No lights on DLED at all.

I have the old CPU in place. I had used arctic silver on both the new and old CPU.

I tried the above without the DLED as well, no POST in this case either.

I could try putting the MB back in the case maybe? When it was in, atleast the DLED was working though resetting the CMOS and all that didnt get it to start.

I'm not sure what to try now. I used a handvac on the CPU socket to try and clean that off.

I repeated the above without the video card as well.

So in summary,

PSU seems to be working because of AGP/CPU/PSU's own fan running on shorting the power LED's.

Parts of the MB must be working since the CPU fan gets power via the MB.

I dont have a videocard to check with and I hope the drives and RAM are still pure and unsullied.

I dropped the PC at a local repair shop to have them separately check the CPU's, PSU and then try and resurrect the MB.

If they cant, I have one of three options, which would you suggest seems better?

1) Buy a new AGP-socket 939 MB if I can find one (newegg doesnt have these) and get this system working.

2) Buy a socket 939 PCIE MB and a new videocard to go along with it. Hopefully it'll support PC3200 DDR 400.

3) Return the X2-4600 CPU, buy a E6300, new PCIE videocard, inexpensive video card and new memory.

thanks again, I'm waiting to hear from the repair shop as well.

PVJ

 

[kshipper]

OK the DLED not working: You mean the Hard drive LED right? Yah, that isn't going to work because I had you take out the motherboard. If the whole rig is starting up but you can't hear POST beeps and 'no video' even when you try it with the video card. You mention the Dlink...I assume you meant you left the Network card installed? I would have taken out all expansion cards during the test on the card board box. Another thought: It could be a dead BIOS battery (should be a healthy 1.5volts). If you have to buy a new mother board and you don't want to spend a lot of money check out http://www.asrock.com/ for a socket 939 board that will work with your DDR 3200. I expect you can buy one for $75 US. They are usually a mini ATX board so they are smaller, just check your case for screw holes for a mini ATX board. It should likely fit it ok. Those AsRock boards have crash proof BIOS that reset themselves when they can't POST.

 

[kshipper]

A quick check:

I found an AsRock motherboard that supports your old AGP video card and your old DDR 3200 (only 2 slots though). You could return the AMD processor and grab a CORE2 6300 and then later you can upgrade to DDR2 667mhz memory and a PCIe (PCI Express video card) video card. This board supports it all. This board should stil be under $100.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=4CoreDual-VSTA

 

[PVJZEN]

Hi,

By DLED, I meant a diagnostic bracket that MSI puts on its motherboards. Its a little card sort of a thing with 4 LED's for diagnostics and 2 USB ports that sits near the PCI slots. So this DLED thing was showing an "Early Chipset Initialization" error when the MB was all in the case. When I took the MB out of the case, put it on the cardboard box then the DLED stopped responding as well, no lights on it at all.

I'll go look at the MB links now, thanks again.

PVJ

 

[kshipper]

OH. I have seen this on some Dells. ( I never look at them!). I wonder why that stopped working though? It is probably powered by the motherboard. Very odd. A common mistake when moving a motherbaod out (I didn't mention it before) is forgetting to hook up the 4 pin power connector (It's usually near the CPU) to the motherboard. Even the most experienced techs miss that from time to time, but we always figure it our before long. =)

 

[PVJZEN]

Hi everyone, so the story ends like this.

The pc store couldnt get the MB to post at all, but both CPU's and the PSU and the GPU worked fine on another 939 board. So I bought that Asus A8N 5 MB for $90 and then the cheapest PCIE card they had, a 7300GT for $80 as well. For $30 more, they're going to reassemble my comp. and I'm going to try and sell a used but working Athlon 64 3200 939 and an equally used but working 6600GT AGP soon.

thanks for your help. What did the MB in hasnt been resolved.

PVJ

 

[kshipper]

Sorry to hear it turned out to be the mobo =(

You should seriously look at the 7600GT minumum if you are a gamer. (If you are not a gamer the 7300 is fine).

Glad it's all behind you now. =)

 

[PVJZEN]

Thanks for the tip. My thinking is that to seriously game on maybe a 1080p 37" Westinghouse LCD or something, rather than getting a new case and PSU to house a GeForce 8 series card and risk getting bottlenecked by the X2-4600 or the DDR400 RAM, I'll be better of doing other things in life for a while, before making a new PC with a C2D base.

My current desktop (X2 4600, 2GB DDR 400, SATA RAID 1) should be more than enough for all my studying/research work.

Thanks for all your help.

PVJ

 

[techgeek]

Sorry to hear about the motherboard... a moment of silence for the passing of a dear friend... Must have been static, it's the only thing that makes sense if it happened so quickly.

 

[utaka95]

I know it's kinda late now, but I had an MSI KT4 that 2 different techs pronounced dead - then a geeky neighbor kid told me to wiggle the ram sticks and then try to boot it. And guess what - it booted right up! So as long as no one touched anything inside the case it worked, try to remove a card or clean it out and you had to wiggle the ram again to get it to start. Needless to say that was the last MSI board I ever bought.

 

[piratepast40]

This is bizzare !!!! The same thing happened to me with my ASUS A8V motherboard while upgrading my 3200 to a 4400. I ended up with a Foxconn mATX board and was dragged kicking and screaming into the PCIe world. Funny part about my experience is that the 3200 is dead now. ASUS did replace the board but that was after I bought the Foxconn so now I have the AGP mobo in the closet (with the other unloved toys). I also upgraded the PSU. My best guess is that it was static since I pretty much ignored all the precautions about ESD.

Good luck with recovering the RAID array. If the controllers are the same on the 2 boards, it might work.

 

[PVJZEN]

So I did buy the A8N and the X2 4600. But I can RMA my MSI MB since its well within the 3 years.

What should I do with it then? I'll have the working Athlon 3200, the 6600GT AGP card as well as either a new MSI K8T Neo2 or hopefully something newer and better if they dont have a K8T to replace it with.

Then I'll do something clever with it.

I got lucky with the hard drives though, I had backed up every thing onto an external and burned DVD's before doing the upgrade so the store will format the drives without any worries.

PVJ