Within the past month I bought all new parts for a new build except for HDD, ODD, PSU, and wireless card which all worked well on a previous machine. After building and trying to boot, everything appeared to be powered up, all fans were lit and working, case fan/light controls working, GPU power light was on and fans were spinning, CPU water cooler sounded like it was working, optical drive opened and closed, but I had no signal on my monitor which was plugged in via HDMI to my GPU, and there was a bright red light on my motherboard next to "BIOS_B_LED1." I don't have a motherboard speaker so I didn't have any boot sounds to clue me.
Not knowing what this light meant and unable to find anything online about an issue like that, I tried to narrow down hardware issues. Since I knew my PSU worked and was plenty powerful, and knew I was very careful with the brand new CPU and installed it correctly after double-checking the pins, I tried every possible combination with and without the GPU. Tried HDMI, VGA, DVI, tried just the onboard motherboard DVI, re-seated and re-plugged the GPU, no changes. I re-seated the RAM, nothing, tried with one stick of RAM, tried with RAM from a previous working PC, no changes. Tried with no hard drives plugged in, no change. Took everything out to double-check the seating and I found a loose standoff in the bottom of the case. This worried me that something on the motherboard may have shorted. Assumed that regardless something might be screwy with the motherboard so I sent it back for an RMA.
Almost two weeks later, just got the replacement motherboard (or what I would assume was a replacement), re-installed everything after triple-checking for anything loose or sketchy in the case; everything's clean. Double-checked all connections, gave it another go, and absolutely the same exact thing as before. No signal to monitor, bright red light next to "BIOS_B_LED1." What am I missing or doing wrong, or what should I suspect is bad hardware-wise? I need to figure this out soon so that if it is a hardware issue I can get it replaced quickly as time is slipping away since the original purchase.
Specs of everything in the system are as follows. Unless notated, everything is brand new -
Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Mid Tower Case
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 Processor
CORSAIR Hydro Series H75 CW-9060015-WW Water/Liquid CPU Cooler 120 MM
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-
ASUS DirectCU II OC R9290-DC2OC-4GD5 Radeon R9 290 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Video Card
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 1x nm Samsung Toggle DDR 2.0 3-Bit MLC NAND Flash Memory (400Mbps) SSD
Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s HDD (Worked from previous PC, 3 years old)
RAIDMAX RX-850AE 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (Worked from previous PC, >1 year old)
SAMSUNG DVD Burner SATA Model SH-224DB/BEBE - OEM (Worked from previous PC, >1 year old)
Zonet ZEW1690 PCI Wireless Adapter (Worked from previous PC, 3 years old)
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, already installed on HDD, disc in the ODD, not installed on SSD yet (since I can't even get to BIOS)
To recap my troubleshooting thus far -
1. Checked, re-checked, re-connected, re-re-checked power to CPU, motherboard, GPU, monitor, PSU
2. Checked and re-seated GPU, RAM
3. Tried HDMI, DVI, VGA connections to GPU, tried without GPU with onboard graphics
4. Triple-checked motherboard seating/standoff placement
5. Tried booting with one stick of RAM, and one stick of RAM that had worked on previous PC
6. Double-checked seating/installation of CPU, verified that no pins are bent, no excess thermal paste anywhere
7. Made sure that I was well-grounded when handling installation and was careful with components
8. Followed front panel plugging in as closely as I could tell as far as polarity etc.
9. Double-checked that no lose parts are laying around in the case or anything
10. Tried booting with no hard drives plugged in
11. Replaced (presumably) motherboard, no change
This is my first complete solo build (I've had help on a couple previous builds) so I'm not the biggest expert and if I'm missing something having to do with BIOS settings I simply don't know better. I have seen and participated in plugging in and installing multiple PCs though and am confident in how everything is put together. I just don't know why it would not even get signal to the monitor at all when it looks like everything is working and have no idea what the red LED means. Something tells me it might be something to do with a weird way the BIOS is set up or maybe some hard drive configuration or something, but I came here because if it has something to do with that then I am pretty much lost as far as how to fix it and could use step-by-step help from people who know what they're talking about.
Thank you so much in advance to whoever can try to help me out.
Not knowing what this light meant and unable to find anything online about an issue like that, I tried to narrow down hardware issues. Since I knew my PSU worked and was plenty powerful, and knew I was very careful with the brand new CPU and installed it correctly after double-checking the pins, I tried every possible combination with and without the GPU. Tried HDMI, VGA, DVI, tried just the onboard motherboard DVI, re-seated and re-plugged the GPU, no changes. I re-seated the RAM, nothing, tried with one stick of RAM, tried with RAM from a previous working PC, no changes. Tried with no hard drives plugged in, no change. Took everything out to double-check the seating and I found a loose standoff in the bottom of the case. This worried me that something on the motherboard may have shorted. Assumed that regardless something might be screwy with the motherboard so I sent it back for an RMA.
Almost two weeks later, just got the replacement motherboard (or what I would assume was a replacement), re-installed everything after triple-checking for anything loose or sketchy in the case; everything's clean. Double-checked all connections, gave it another go, and absolutely the same exact thing as before. No signal to monitor, bright red light next to "BIOS_B_LED1." What am I missing or doing wrong, or what should I suspect is bad hardware-wise? I need to figure this out soon so that if it is a hardware issue I can get it replaced quickly as time is slipping away since the original purchase.
Specs of everything in the system are as follows. Unless notated, everything is brand new -
Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Mid Tower Case
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 Processor
CORSAIR Hydro Series H75 CW-9060015-WW Water/Liquid CPU Cooler 120 MM
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL10D-
ASUS DirectCU II OC R9290-DC2OC-4GD5 Radeon R9 290 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Video Card
SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 1x nm Samsung Toggle DDR 2.0 3-Bit MLC NAND Flash Memory (400Mbps) SSD
Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s HDD (Worked from previous PC, 3 years old)
RAIDMAX RX-850AE 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (Worked from previous PC, >1 year old)
SAMSUNG DVD Burner SATA Model SH-224DB/BEBE - OEM (Worked from previous PC, >1 year old)
Zonet ZEW1690 PCI Wireless Adapter (Worked from previous PC, 3 years old)
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, already installed on HDD, disc in the ODD, not installed on SSD yet (since I can't even get to BIOS)
To recap my troubleshooting thus far -
1. Checked, re-checked, re-connected, re-re-checked power to CPU, motherboard, GPU, monitor, PSU
2. Checked and re-seated GPU, RAM
3. Tried HDMI, DVI, VGA connections to GPU, tried without GPU with onboard graphics
4. Triple-checked motherboard seating/standoff placement
5. Tried booting with one stick of RAM, and one stick of RAM that had worked on previous PC
6. Double-checked seating/installation of CPU, verified that no pins are bent, no excess thermal paste anywhere
7. Made sure that I was well-grounded when handling installation and was careful with components
8. Followed front panel plugging in as closely as I could tell as far as polarity etc.
9. Double-checked that no lose parts are laying around in the case or anything
10. Tried booting with no hard drives plugged in
11. Replaced (presumably) motherboard, no change
This is my first complete solo build (I've had help on a couple previous builds) so I'm not the biggest expert and if I'm missing something having to do with BIOS settings I simply don't know better. I have seen and participated in plugging in and installing multiple PCs though and am confident in how everything is put together. I just don't know why it would not even get signal to the monitor at all when it looks like everything is working and have no idea what the red LED means. Something tells me it might be something to do with a weird way the BIOS is set up or maybe some hard drive configuration or something, but I came here because if it has something to do with that then I am pretty much lost as far as how to fix it and could use step-by-step help from people who know what they're talking about.
Thank you so much in advance to whoever can try to help me out.
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