no power problem

[bruin1970]

this is the closest forum relative to my problem i could think of. couple of well versed tech friends of mine are building a computer for me and came to a problem. the computer won't power up. as in,,,nothing, dead. no spark, no sign of life. they reviewed and triple checked all their steps and came up dumbfounded.

the only thing not done at the time when they powered up was they had not installed a video card,,,,,but they didn't think a Vcard was needed to TEST the computer. they ONLY wanted to power up,,,,that's it. so after that, they unplugged everything except the two power cables to the mobo. they felt this was all that was needed to simply "power up". nothing happened.

question is now,,,,must a video card be installed in order for the unit to simply power up? if not, then the only choice seems to be a non-working power supply or bad mobo.
unless someone here can think of something else. as i said, they triple checked all their steps.

abit IS-7. generic 500 watt power supply. lian-li case. plextor, sony, and seagate drives. plextor cdr-rw is master, sony dvd is slave. HD is independently connected. p4/2.8/833

 

[oolceeoo]

Tell your friends to check the back of the power supply and make sure that the switch is set to 115-120V. If it is set to 230 that will cause problems, possibly not allowing the system to post. Also, is it an ATX12V psu? Check the connection of the P1 connector(that big plug that goes into the mobo) and if its an athlong xp/64 or pentium 4 check the P4 connector. Another problem could be the AC outlet. Your friends need to check whether or not the AC outlet is supplying the proper AC current to the power supply. You can test this using a multimeter you can buy at radioshack for about 20 bucks. Also, check the Molex and P1 connectors with the multimeter. Oh, one more thing, a simple but often overlooked problem is check the power switch on the front. In some cases it becomes loose and you have to push it in again so you hear a click. Also check that the power on, speaker, reset connectors are also properly connected.

P4C 3.0ghz
Asus P4C800E-D
GeForceFX 5900 Ultra 256MB
2x512 MB corsair dual channel pc3200
200GB WDJB HDD
Nothing OC'd

 

[Crashman]

In addition to "what he said", make sure the board isn't grounded to anything. If it's mounted in a case, unmount it, I use a phone book as a test platform. Make sure the CPU and RAM are installed. And yes, you must use the power button connector on the motherboard, jumping it with anything for an instant (including a screwdriver) should start it up, connecting it continuously for around 4 seconds should shut it down.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>