Machine refusing to post.

[RimBlock]

Hi,

I have a machine I have built but sometimes it refuses to POST and just sits there with fans spinning and the monitor still on standby. After a couple of seconds it sometimes restarts and then just goes to the same stage and sits there indefinitely.

I have noticed that the drive light on my old Samsung 400GB drive seems to be constantly on even if the drive is not connected to the motherboard.

A lot of times I can get the machine booting again by pulling my LSI controller out the second PCI-e slot and resetting the bios via the jumper on the motherboard.

Last night none of this worked and the only way I could get the machine to boot was by ejecting all but 1 hard drive (8 in hot swap bays, one perm mounted). The machine is using a 650W corsair PSU (forget the model but the cables are hard wired and it has more molex than sata connectors).

Once the machine is up it is as good as gold. Starting is not constantly a problem but it happens enough that I have to make sure there are no hammers nearby.

The machine is running a c2d processor (775) on an Intel DP45SG Extreme Series P45 Desktop Board with 4GB of DDR3 ram.

3*WD Black 1TB
1*WD Green 2TB
1*WD green 1.5TB
1* WD Blue 320GB
1* WD scorpio black 320GB
1* Samsung 400GB
1* Fujitsu (2.5") 120GB

Any suggestions please.

Thanks
RB

 

[95thrifles]

sounds like its prob mobo

but run memtest on RAM, prime on CPU etc first, but sounds like mobo may be on way out, you could maybe try a BIOS update, doubt it would help but it wont hurt (as long as it doesnt crash during update)

Expect its the TX model PSU BTW

 

[RimBlock]

Ahh, I hope not.

The Ram is new, the CPU was fine on another board but the motherboard was second hand from the US as it is a nightmare trying to find socket 775 motherboards here in Singapore with two PCI-e*16 slots (it is a PC based NAS box).

The Samsung drive spinning (access light on) on boot and I sort of recall something about older models conflicting with some motherboards IRQ settings. Unfortunately it is the drive with the home areas mounted so I cannot just pull it. Need to backup and transfer first.

Have just bought a 2.5" drive to use as a new home area to see if that helps at all.

Oh, the machine is running Linux (Fedora 14).

Thanks
RB