New build hangs during post- but there's more

[barna madau]

Hey, I've been googling this subject a lot, and this forum keeps coming up so I thought I'd ask here.

I just recently build my first computer- and it's having a couple of issues. Currently, if it's been sitting overnight, and I turn it on- it'll hang duringg post. then I press reset, and this time it might boot up, but if it doesn't, it'll make it further, just past the bios screen, and then hang- and now for sure, the after pressing the reset button the third time, it'll start up just fine and run great.

Is my PC cold blooded? I had a car like that back in high school- took a few tries to get it to stay running...

But seriously, could I have something set wrong in bios? I didn't change anything besides superficial stuff (no overclocking). I just set my drives in boot order, pretty much, and called it good.

I've got an email into gigabyte, and I'm waiting for their responce.

My build-
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P rev1.1 mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo Wolfdale 3.0ghz cpu
BFG Tech Nvidia GeForce 9600 512mb video card
Western Digital Caviar Black 500gb hdd
g.skill 4gb (2x 2gb) ddr2 1066 ram
Edimax wreless card
Thermaltake 750w psu
Antec 300 case

Thanks,
BM

 

[Proximon]

Well, yes it sounds as if your computer is cold-blooded.

What that actually means in this case is probably that the PSU sends its "power ready" signal too early, before the voltage is actually stable. The PC then attempts to start but can't because the voltages are out of spec.

It could be the board I suppose, and it could be just a communication problem between the board and PSU. I suspect the real problem is the Thermaltake however.

 

[barna madau]

That actually sheds some light on another oddity I noticed on my first power up... The case fans which plug straight into molex connectors off the powersupply were lazy to spin up. they run fine now, it just seemed odd to me.

I love intermittent problems...

Well, I did have another problem w/ regards to the motherboard. At first I tried to install the oe intel cpu cooler and ran into some trouble. I could not make myself push those idiotic push clips hard enough to make it click and retain the cooler properly. I got as far as having two diagonal clips engaged, picked the mobo up and sighted down the edge of it, and was totally shocked to see that the cooler was pushing down on the cpu so hard that it was holding the mobo bent. It was easy to see because there's a heatsink right there on the top of the gigabyte mobo. so, I removed it, asked some questions, tried a few more times, and finally gave up and bought a zalman unit. So, I don't know if I somehow damanged my motherboard?

Anyway, thanks for the input.

BM

 

[shortstuff_mt]

DDR2 1066 RAM can also cause strange issues until the RAM speed/timings/voltage are manually set to the manufacturers specs in the BIOS. I would try doing that also.

 

[barna madau]

Well, the spec on the gskill ram said 2.0 - 2.1v. My bios was set to 1.8v, so I set it to 2.0 and I'll see what difference it makes tomorrow when I start it again. Took like 4 tries to get it going this time,...

thanks,
BM

 

[barna madau]

Ok- diagnosis time is over.

Changing the voltage in bios didn't help any.

So, I started playing musical memory sticks and narrowed it down to this-

My mobo has 4 mem card slots, numbered 1-4, 1 being closes to the cpu. It turns out if either ram stick is inserted in either slot 3 or 4, it hangs. If either card, or both cards, are inserted in slots 1 and/or 2, it boots fine. I've got emails in to both gskill and gigabyte with my findings.

So, right now I have both cards in slots 1 & 2, and it's running good, as far as I can tell. The bummer is that for the dual channel memory thing to work, they need to be in either 1 & 3, or 2 & 4.

I really hope I don't have to send my motherboard back...which brings up another issue. Assuming I'll have to send it in for a replacement, I'll have to removed the cpu. I'm not sure if I saved the little plastic package that it came in. If I can't find it, how can I safely store the cpu until a new mobo arrives??

Thanks,
BM