Faulty PSU or motherboard?

[mashie]

Hello, I just assembled my new computer from parts I got from OcUK. First let me list all the parts used:

ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO)
HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-069-WD)
FSP Sparkle FX700-GLN Epsilon 700W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-001-SK)
Liteon SHM-165P6S-09C 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM (CD-048-LO)
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
AMD Opteron UP 180 Dual Core San Diego 2.4GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-154-AM)
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)

All is installed in a LianLi PC-777B and connected to a Dell 30" (not bought at OcUK btw and working just fine on a different PC).

Now the problem, when booting up the PC I have only managed to get the system to boot at all about 6 times, twice with the full setup, twice only running the Master Cards and twice running the XTX. In between I have had 50+ attempts between the various configurations where the screen stay black, no beeps and no attempt to read any media (HDD nor CD). The limited faultfinidng I have been able to do is mainly entering BIOS where I have noticed the +5v is at 4.9v, all other voltages seems correct. All AI overclocking stuff is disabled.

During one of the successful boots I tried to install XP but it died horribly with a BSOD after 10 min while formating the HDD.

Also when it booted I could hear a beep in the speaker so it is plugged in correctly, after that I have never heard it again.

Soo, which parts do you suggest I RMA to get this £3500 pile running? PSU, motherboard or both?

 

[DaZzZa]

look in the mobo manul and it might tell you whats wrong from the kind of beep your getting

other than that you could be overloading one if the 12v rails on your psu because its got 4x 12v rails with only 15a each and you could have to much on one rail best bet would be a powerfull single rail psu. try different cable configs to see if you can balance them

or even bad memory try running each of the sticks seprately

you could try restting the bios see if you can get into boot setup and set fail safe defaults

 

[BigDom]

Ouchie 15A does seem low for a 12V rail especially if you've accidently loaded two 'things' onto one rail. I've firmly in the single rail camp myself and the best PSU I know of for single rail is the selectable Single/Dual rail Tagan's.

 

[mashie]

Unfortunately the manual has no entry for "no beep" which is the occurance when th esystem doesn't boot. All that happens then is that the fans and the HDD spin up.

As for the power rails, I would be really surprised if any were overloaded with only mobo, one videocard, hdd and cdrom installed considering each have dedicated lines out of the PSU.

I will test using a single memorystick as well when I'm back home after work.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Could be a faulty board, my mates just returned his Asus due to it being DOA, the led's would light fine, but the CPU fan would just jerk, then nowt, and it looks like another faulty one in the motherboard section, as there someone in there with what looks to be a faulty board to, starting to look like a faulty batch to me.

 

[mashie]

Could be a faulty board, my mates just returned his Asus due to it being DOA, the led's would light fine, but the CPU fan would just jerk, then nowt, and it looks like another faulty one in the motherboard section, as there someone in there with what looks to be a faulty board to, starting to look like a faulty batch to me.

Thanks, good news, will try and RMA the board first then.

 

[DaZzZa]

my bet is on the psu still

450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system) for a single 1900 you only have half that

fact that the power supply is 700w means nothing

 

[fornowagain]

I very much doubt it's the PSU assuming its workng correcty. Looking at the spec it says 4 rails, with about 43A/12V combined. A popular misconception, but the vast majority of PSU only have a single 12v source. In reality a "rail" is a 240w current limiter. And some of those are not implemented anyway or set higher than the ATX 2.0 240VA limit. The Epslion, is made by an excellent manufacturer, with one of the strongest 12v I've seen.

 

[mashie]

I have solved the boot up problem now, it was one of the Mushkin sticks that was dead.

 

[wam7]

It's unlikely to be the PSU. The 15A rating on each of the 4 rails has just been ratified as 18A and in actuality the OCP is 20A. The combined 12V rating is 50A.

Guy over on XS forum had problems running crossfire with an OCZ Powerstream 600W. He was told to try one of the Epsilons 700W by Macci and that immediately solved his problems.

 

[DaZzZa]

I have solved the boot up problem now, it was one of the Mushkin sticks that was dead.

ahh well least one of my sugestions was right

 

[mashie]

ahh well least one of my sugestions was right

Indeed, however the box isn't stable yet though. When I play EVE-Online I can have three clients running in 1920x1200 windows just fine for hours, however if I decide to run a client at fullscreen 2560x1600 it will spontaneous reboot after 3-4 min.

I will need to gt a few more games running to see if this is a software or hardware problem.

I'm running on two 512MB Corsair PC3200 LL sticks at the moment btw.

 

[mashie]

Quality, I returned the Muskin memory yesterday and I must admit that they did deal with it quickly, maybe too quick considering I will receive a PSU tomorrow...



So now I will have two PSUs and no memory, hooray.

 

[Steves_pc]

i'd do a swift edit on the blasphemy bit of your rant unless you want a holiday from the forums to go with your psu!

Trust me i know where youre coming from with the contact us bit after explaining the same thing to about 4 different people and still it was wrong...

Anyhow hope you get it sorted soon, Sweet system it'll be.

 

[andyr]

i had to rma my mushkin aswell , also was one dead stick although it didnt beep just wouldnt boot , anyways got two different sticks and been ok since

 

[mashie]

i had to rma my mushkin aswell , also was one dead stick although it didnt beep just wouldnt boot , anyways got two different sticks and been ok since

Lol, I wonder if I got your old sticks then...

 

[mashie]

Allright, I just got the parcel and I was surprised it actually contained the Mushkin sticks and not the PSU as stated in all the paperwork.

Can't wait to test it out after work.

So apparently the webnote system works but it can be really confusing.

 

[andyr]

Allright, I just got the parcel and I was surprised it actually contained the Mushkin sticks and not the PSU as stated in all the paperwork.

Can't wait to test it out after work.

So apparently the webnote system works but it can be really confusing.

Hi , good news then Are you oc ing , if so can you post how high you get that redline and what timings ect
Thanks andyr

 

[mashie]

Hi , good news then Are you oc ing , if so can you post how high you get that redline and what timings ect
Thanks andyr

Well, I got the same sticks back as I RMA'd, one of them has received a red tick from a pen so I guess they figured out which was broken though...

Just pure luck I have a spare set of mem here so I at least can run the box until thi smess is sorted.

 

[andyr]

bad news , so i didnt get your sticks after all , when you get it sorted can you post those clocks