New build. Booted first time and then nothing. Please help!!!

[stk34630]

UPDATE 5/28 12:12pm: I testing the PSU with the paperclip trick and it is working perfectly fine. I am only using 2 of the matching RAM cards in slots 2 and 4 as the board indicates use first. I reseated the CPU with a dab more thermal paste and rotated the fan 90 degrees to make sure it had good contact. I was reading around and I see people have issues with i5 processors and this board due to bios issues. Is there anyway i can get the updates from another machine and put them onto the new board even though it wont POST? or am i just stuck sending it in to MSI?

UPDATE 5/28/16 03:43am: So i took it all the way back to taking the mobo out of the case. i left only the CPU fan and 1 RAM chip and there is just the power running to the PSU and the power button cable. Still the same thing. I think it is safe to say the board burned out somehow unless someone can offer me a better solution

This is my first build so please forgive my noobness. I installed the PSU, mobo, processor and fan, RAM, and SSD. I plugged in my monitor, keyboard and mouse, turned it on and everything was good. Turned on and went to the BIOS.

I changed the boot order to look for the USB first, saved and turned off. I then added my GPU, HDD, DVD drive, and another RAM chip. I wired SATA 1 power to the SSD and the DVD drive. SATA 2 power to just the HDD. Original 2 RAM ships are in slot 2 and 4 and i added the 3rd chip to slot 1. GPU used VGA slot 1. I go to power on and nothing. Powers up for about 2 secs then turns off, repeatedly. I start removing components 1 by 1 and the same result. I made it down to the mobo, original 2 ram ships, processor and fan, and PSU and still the same thing.

What did I do wrong and where do i go from here?

MOBO: MSI Z97 Gaming 5
CPU: intel i5 4690k LGA 1150
PSU: EVGA 650 G2
GPU: EVGA Geforce GTX 760

 

[Paperdoc]

First thing I'd check is the standoffs. A case comes with threaded holes in the mounting plate, usually more than there are holes in your mobo. This allows adjustment for different mobo mounitng hole patterns. It also comes with stand-offs. These usually look like short brass posts with a threaded hole on one end, and a short threaded shaft on the other. They are screwed into the holes in the base plate and then the mobo is fastened to them with screws, through holes in the mobo. The stand-offs do two things. They establish a clearance space between the base plate and the bottom of the mobo so that there is NO contact to short out the traces on the mobo bottom. Secondly, the mobo is designed to be grounded to the base plate AT those special mounting holes and no-where else. Look closely at the mounting holes in the mobo for little metal "fingers" that the screw contacts as it is fastened down.

Now, sometimes the standoffs are in a bag and people fail to use them entirely. Sometimes the case comes with the standoffs already installed in holes, but quite possibly one or more is in the WRONG hole! Re-examine the places where there are mounting holes through your mobo, and where the stand-offs underneath are screwed into the base plate. There must NEVER be a stand-off in a place where there is not a matching mobo mounting hole, or that can cause a short circuit to ground. Ideally, there ought to be a stand-off under each mobo mounting hole, and a screw in that hole, to support the mobo fully.

 

[Flyfisherman]

I agree with Paperdoc above. Very important.
Second: make sure that all connectors, memory sticks, graphics card etc. are properly seated and mounted correctly.

I strongly suggest that you also protect the electronics from electrostatic discharge by using an ESD wrist strap which you connect to a bare metal piece on the chassis.

Best regards from Sweden

 

[Rogue Leader]

Pull the CMOS battery (make sure the system is unplugged) then put it back in (wait a couple minutes to be sure).

That will reset any settings you made in the BIOS. Boot it up and se if it works, if it does, don't set any settings, plug in the rest of your stuff except:

Don't install the extra RAM DIMM. I'm assuming since you have 3 that 3rd one is not the name brand/model/kit as the other two and it likely doesn't work with the RAM you have and probably set off this series of issues in the first place.

Then boot, go in and configure the BIOS with all your hardware installed.

@Paperdoc nice story about the importance of standoffs which I agree with, except if it was a standoff it never would have booted in the first place.

 

[Flyfisherman]

@ Rogue Leader
nice story about the importance of standoffs which I agree with, except if it was a standoff it never would have booted in the first place.[/quotemsg]

I beg to disagree.
There is no way to say what is happening when it comes to this. It could very well be a problem with that, just occasionally.
A stand-off mounted on the wrong place on the chassis plate for instance, which make contact with one of the passive chips (resistors and capacitors) on the mobos secondary side can have that effect.

Otherwise I agree with your post.
Best regards from Sweden

 

[Rogue Leader]

@ Rogue Leader
nice story about the importance of standoffs which I agree with, except if it was a standoff it never would have booted in the first place.

I beg to disagree.
There is no way to say what is happening when it comes to this. It could very well be a problem with that, just occasionally, and then there are problems.

Otherwise I agree with your post.
Best regards from Sweden

If a standoff is shorting the board, it would never have booted in the first place. It did boot up once. This is never an intermittent issue. If a standoff was not connected properly or out of place there is no chance it would have booted at all.

 

[Flyfisherman]

Please see my edited post above, and I still maintain my position on this. Since I have been working in the electronic manufacturing industries for more than 20 years, I have been through it all.
Best regards.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Please see my edited post above, and I still maintain my position on this. Since I have been working in the electronic manufacturing industries for more than 20 years, I have been through it all.
Best regards.

As have I. Generally missing standoffs are nearly always in the middle of the board or towards the bottom where the slots are and there aren't many if any resistors or capacitors. I've built hundreds of computers, I've encountered this issue many times. It works, or it doesn't. It is NEVER intermittent.

 

[Flyfisherman]

What? I have an Asus Z97 Deluxe motherboard and I can tell you, putting a stand off on the wrong place in my Antec P193V3 chassis motherboard plate will absolutely give a problem and perhaps not directly. There are several places on my mobos secondary side that will interfere with such a stand-off. Not necessary cause any immediate problem.

Best regards.

 

[Rogue Leader]

What? I have an Asus Z97 Deluxe motherboard and I can tell you, putting a stand off on the wrong place in my Antec P193V3 chassis motherboard plate will absolutely give a problem and perhaps not directly. There are several places on my mobos secondary side that will interfere with such a stand-off. Not necessary cause any immediate problem.

Best regards.

If you put a standoff in the wrong place the board will not POST/Boot.

His board did Boot, once, then he installed a bunch of stuff (one part of which was a dissimilar memory module), and now will no longer boot even after removing all of those things. But instead it does a 2 second cycle.

One of a few things happened, either that memory module completely threw off his BIOS settings (likely since it powers off and cycles repeatedly), one of those other pieces of hardware shorted something (unlikely since he removed them all), or he somehow damaged the board during the process.

His issue will likely be cured by pulling the CMOS battery, power cycling like that is caused by bad bios settings or bad hardware (memory, CPU, GPU). Since his CPU worked before, and he pulled all the new parts that he added since it worked, his BIOS is likely set wrong now.

He does not have a standoff shorting out the board.

 

[Flyfisherman]

Yes I agree that this i most likely the problem.
And put only one memory stick in slot #2 second from the CPU to start with.
Best regards

 

[stk34630]

Thank you all for all of your input! very much appreciated!

So what i did: I removed everything and started from scratch. All of the standoffs appear to be in the correct place and there is a screw into each of them. I realized i had the wrong screws in so i changed them out and moved on. It does not appear that the board is making contact anywhere with the case and i am working on an ESD mat so i do not think its that.

I took the 3rd RAM card out completely and just left the SSD an the 2 original RAM cards. Tried to boot up and the same deal. HOWEVER i did notice that if i try to power on with the HDMI cable plugged in vs. not it behaves a little differently. With the HDMI plugged in the 2 second cycle happens. With it unplugged its the same cycle but all of the fans start to spin then stop.

Also i have the battery out right now and i am giving it a few mins before i put it back in. I did also notice that in the case, there is 1 extra spot that is labeled for an ATX standoff but my board has no place for a screw. im wondering if that could be the difference? I don't really see how though since it booted the first time.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Thank you all for all of your input! very much appreciated!

So what i did: I removed everything and started from scratch. All of the standoffs appear to be in the correct place and there is a screw into each of them. I realized i had the wrong screws in so i changed them out and moved on. It does not appear that the board is making contact anywhere with the case and i am working on an ESD mat so i do not think its that.

I took the 3rd RAM card out completely and just left the SSD an the 2 original RAM cards. Tried to boot up and the same deal. HOWEVER i did notice that if i try to power on with the HDMI cable plugged in vs. not it behaves a little differently. With the HDMI plugged in the 2 second cycle happens. With it unplugged its the same cycle but all of the fans start to spin then stop.

Also i have the battery out right now and i am giving it a few mins before i put it back in. I did also notice that in the case, there is 1 extra spot that is labeled for an ATX standoff but my board has no place for a screw. im wondering if that could be the difference? I don't really see how though since it booted the first time.

As long as there is no standoff actually inserted and its not touching the board you are fine. I am assuming this is true since if it wasn't then it never would have booted in the first place, or power cycled.

I am assuming you accessed the BIOS via an HDMI connected monitor?

 

[stk34630]

Thank you all for all of your input! very much appreciated!

So what i did: I removed everything and started from scratch. All of the standoffs appear to be in the correct place and there is a screw into each of them. I realized i had the wrong screws in so i changed them out and moved on. It does not appear that the board is making contact anywhere with the case and i am working on an ESD mat so i do not think its that.

I took the 3rd RAM card out completely and just left the SSD an the 2 original RAM cards. Tried to boot up and the same deal. HOWEVER i did notice that if i try to power on with the HDMI cable plugged in vs. not it behaves a little differently. With the HDMI plugged in the 2 second cycle happens. With it unplugged its the same cycle but all of the fans start to spin then stop.

Also i have the battery out right now and i am giving it a few mins before i put it back in. I did also notice that in the case, there is 1 extra spot that is labeled for an ATX standoff but my board has no place for a screw. im wondering if that could be the difference? I don't really see how though since it booted the first time.

As long as there is no standoff actually inserted and its not touching the board you are fine. I am assuming this is true since if it wasn't then it never would have booted in the first place, or power cycled.

I am assuming you accessed the BIOS via an HDMI connected monitor?

Yes, it is an HDMI connected monitor

 

[Rogue Leader]

Ok then no worries about the missing standoff (generally cases have holes for different motherboards ATX, MicroATX, ITX, etc, not all are populated depending on the board).

Let me know what happens with the battery/bios reset.

 

[stk34630]

Ok then no worries about the missing standoff (generally cases have holes for different motherboards ATX, MicroATX, ITX, etc, not all are populated depending on the board).

Let me know what happens with the battery/bios reset.

Still the same thing. at what point do i consider that the board is broken? Why would it react differently from when the HDMI is plugged in vs. not? Could it be that the processor is not seated correctly?

This is really starting to bum me out. Everything was going so smoothly...sigh.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Try a single RAM DIMM first in slot 2, then in slot 1, see if it boots.

 

[stk34630]

Still no luck. I just tried jumping the CMOS and nothing so I don't think it's the bios. I'm really dumbfounded with this one.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I don't know how or why its possible but yes I do agree somehow the motherboard is damaged. Just wondering about the memory you used what is the brand and specs of all 3.

 

[stk34630]

I don't know how or why its possible but yes I do agree somehow the motherboard is damaged. Just wondering about the memory you used what is the brand and specs of all 3.

well im just not going to use the rogue card, but the other 2 are Corsair vengeance DDR3 1600mhz. 10-10-10-27. 1.50v ver5.21. 8gb each. Brand new

 

[Rogue Leader]

To answer your other question unfortunately there is no way to update the BIOS without it POSTing. You need to send it back to MSI or try the store.

It is possible the "rogue" memory DIMM caused this issue with the BIOS. When you get the new board go ahead and update the BIOS first but make sure all your hardware (except the memory youre not using anymore) is installed just in case.

 

[Paperdoc]

I will agree that the details of the RAM modules are very suspicious. However, I wonder how adding one (presumed defective) RAM module and then removing it would permanently damage the mobo.

I quite understand your argument that the standoff issue almost never is intermittent. My thinking was two-step: standoff misuse is a common error among first-time builders; and, the ONLY time the system booted was before a bunch of new components were added, thus flexing the board. MAYBE that operation bent it enough to make contact with a close stand-off. Now, OP has said all have been checked and there are no potential contacts. Then OP says there is one spot for a stand-off but no mating mobo hole. I assume (as Rogue Leader has) this means there really is NO stand-off installed at that spot. Correct?

I suggest the best procedure for troubleshooting is "breadboarding", which starts with only the bare minimum of hardware connected up and OUTSIDE the case on an insulating surface (e.g., dry flat wooden board, hence the cute name). For more info, read here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1753671/bench-troubleshooting.html

This process can help you establish whether the minimum hardware is working. If it is, it also can help you detect which added component starts to cause trouble.

 

[Rogue Leader]

He has done that already, it still will not boot properly.

 

[Paperdoc]

I did not read the posts as saying that OP had removed everything from the case and assembled the basic breadboard group on an insulating surface for testing. My understanding was that OP removed the mobo to inspect the standoff locations, then replaced it and started removing the added components for testing while the mobo was BACK in the case.