Atom System Problems

[pennywise]

Ahoy,
I recently purchased one of these fine Intel Atom motherboard/CPU combi's, but I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on. It'll power up, but won't boot, as in, every component is getting power, but nothing will display on the screen. A little info...

- I bought this along with a picoPSU and a 120W power brick, 1GB RAM, 120GB 2.5" hard drive and a slim laptop DVD writer.
- Everything is connected up fine as far as I can see, i.e. all components have power. The picoPSU didn't come with an ATX_12v power cable, so I bought one from [a potential competitor ] and hooked it up, thinking this was the problem. This also didn't work
- I thought maybe the power supply was faulty or insufficient, so I hooked everything up to my main PC with a 530W PSU (Hiper Type-R). Strangely, this worked and everything seemed to be fine, I was getting my boot screen and everything was loading up as it should. I plugged the picoPSU in again, and once again all I was getting was activity from the actual components; nothing on the screen.
- Again, thinking it was the power supply, I grabbed a 250W PSU from an old case I had in the garage... no response from this at all. I know it works since it was powering an old AMD system over the summer.
- After dismantling this again I plugged the picoPSU+power brick in again... fans, activity from the components... nothing on the screen.

I've probably overlooked something extremely basic but it's doing my head in... has anyone any advice for me? Any help at all will be very much appreciated.

 

[pennywise]

it defo sounds like a faulty power supply or adapter. Out of interest what case and power supply are you guys using?

I know GT is using a flash hoojum one im basically wanting an atom based system that can run 2 x 3.5" HDD and one ide lappy drive for the os, so I need a psu and case to suite.

A case with 2 x 3.5 and 1 x 2.5 is impossible to find.

Heh, I'm using no case at the minute (just the mobo on an anti-static bag on a wooden desk) but I'll be building one from lego soon since I couldn't find one that suited my needs either
The power supply is a picoPSU 120W and a 120W rated power brick. I'd post links here but I'm not sure if the site that sells them would be classed as direct competitors or not :O

I'll try to RMA it anyway and hopefully they'll replace it for me; I've been sitting looking at this thing for the past 2 weeks and it's been doing my head in not being able to get it up and running

 

[pennywise]

Indeed I am. I'm taking my inspiration from this guy...http://www.poseidonguild.com/legos/

Mine will obviously turn out horrendous looking in comparison, but it's the only way to get everything that I want fitted into a small case

Oh and I almost forgot - Thanks for the advice everyone

 

[pennywise]

Bump... problem is still going on, changed RAM sticks, tried yet another PSU... the board can't be dead since it still works with my main PCs PSU! Ahhh...!

 

[pennywise]

Thanks for the responses again folks, much appreciated.

I set them flat on my wooden desk after the initial foray with an antistatic bag, but still the same thing. I tested the full ATX PSU when it was still in my case, I just pulled the cables out and hooked them up with the mobo sitting on the desk. I might dismantle the whole thing tonight and try various combinations to see if I can get some response, but I'm feeling less and less interested with the whole thing as time goes by... I tried it with YET ANOTHER 120W power supply last night that came in my InWin mini-ITX case, but still the same response :| I'll give my 530W PSU a try later on when I get home, just in case the last time when it worked I wasn't dreaming or something...

Oh, and thanks for the advice GT - I'll see if I have a spare lump of DDR2 lying around and give it a try, if I can.

 

[pennywise]

Update - tried it with my main PCs PSU again, both inside and outside the case, same thing happening now

I don't have any spare RAM around here since it's my Uni house and I won't be home until the weekend, so I can't try gt's idea quite yet.

I've got a pal at work who's going to run a PAT test on the motherboard to see if there are any problems on it. If there are... it's getting RMA'd, since it hasn't worked properly since the day I got it. If not... I'll RMA it anyway and hope for the best.

 

[pennywise]

Another update - my mate in work tested the board with his PAT tester and it came back saying that there was some sort of problem with the graphics chip, which would explain why it displayed on the screen once then never again.

Arranging the RMA tonight, hopefully it gets replaced pretty sharpish.

 

[pennywise]

Bad luck fella! At least you tracked down what it was.

You going for a direct replacement or refund?

gt

Aye I'm glad I've found out where the problem lay, and at least I have something useful to say when I send in the RMA form other than "it's broke!"

I'll probably just go for a direct replacement tbh, I could try for a dual core since the price difference isn't all that great but I'm not really that bothered; I'm looking for something that'll run a few hard drives and download a ******** of stuff (and do it efficiently), not a number crunching monster.