Motherboard Problems - help?

BoB3rt

BoB3rt

BoB3rt

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Joined
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Liverpool
I have seen a few people around various forums having the same issue and as i recall its almost always Asus... but never found an answer.

The issue is; when I power up my PC It may take between as little as 1 restart or as Great as 18 restarts before it will actully start....but then usually the OS will stall on the loading screen anyway (yet another restart). It has done this with 3 OS's on Diffrent HDDs. so i cant be a bad install or HDD fault.

All Fans, Optical Drive, HDDs and Graphics card all power up... but nothing happens, the monitor stays blank (standby) and the CPU fan is going at full whack (around 3000rpm)!

I can tell if its going to work because after a second of starting the CPU fan will drop to about 1000rpm and surely enough the MoBo boot screen will come up.

I have had this problem for such a long time and narrowed it down to the MoBo... I have tried:

1- Testing the ram i had (ocz) 1 stick at time for couple weeks.
2- Changing the ram from ocz to current (as i heared ocz and asus have issues sometimes)
3- testing my gfx in another pc and a diffrent one in mine.
4- i bought a new HDD also with fresh OS
5- Updated the BIOS.

All of the above failed... and it is still doing it.
yet not a problem when it finally runs !?!

Believe me if i have the money i would be Changing it out but i would like to solve this given time am stuck with it.

Can a motherboard be 'Re-formatted' as it were? or try previous BIOS?

sorry for long description wanted to be clear as no one seems to have an answer....
(Spec is in my Sig).

Thanks
 
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Have you tried a CMOS reset? I fixed a similar error doing this as the mobo refused to detect the HDD (it was detected sometimes but otherwise it would just hang)

~Scotty
 
BoB3rt said:
when I power up my PC It may take between as little as 1 restart or as Great as 18 restarts before it will actully start
Click to expand...
That doesn't sound right at all? :confused:

Most ASUS boards will restart *once* and only if you have customised the BIOS and disconnected the PC from the mains . . .if its a soft start (using the On button from the case) it should boot straight up . . .

Is the ASUS P5KC in your sig? and is everything running at bone stock?

BoB3rt said:
....but then usually the OS will stall on the loading screen anyway (yet another restart)
Click to expand...
If it takes up to 18 auto restarts and then your O/S fails to load you got serious problems lol! :D

WTF have you done to that PC! :o
 
No No, sorry u miss read or i was unclear... it doesnt auto restart.

It is the Asus P5KC.
When i start the pc... it just hangs, even thought the power is on and all fans running... nothing happens! so i have to press restart (or hold power to shutdown)... when it finally runs and starts to boot up, the OS can stall at the loading screen = another restart.

...
look into the CMOS now thanks.
 
I have now reset the CMOS and the same problem is still occuring.
Its strange because it is not as if it plays up once the system is booted up and running... its just the initial starting and it appears to be getting worse.
Could it be a power problem??
why would the board start up and do nothing ?!

Frustrating!!!
 
Hey BoB3rt,

I've re read your posts a few times looking for clues and nothing is really leaping out at me, it did sound ram related but you said you tested the original OCZ ram one stick at a time and also replaced the OCZ with some new Kingston Hyper-X, didn't fix it . . .

You said you swapped out GPU's still didn't fix it?

Hmmm, the problem seems to be your computer *failing* to POST and is a sure sign of something being wrong. Once the computer has POST'ed it seems you are alright although there have been some problems with the O/S successfully booting?

Is this a build you did yourself? as in can you track all the hardware from being bought new? . . . did this problem always happen or is it something that has started happening over time?

The only other area that needs checking out is the PSU . . . . now I know a Corsair 520HX isn't likey to be faulty but it could be? I have the same PSU as yourself bought used from OcUK Members Market and its a great bit of kit however I remember another forum user (C64 I think?) was having aweful problems with his system and it turned out to be his 18 month old Corsair 520HX! :(

PSU's on their way out can be a real PITA! :p . . . . most people think a PSU either works perfectly or goes *BANG* and doesn't work anymore . . . . from experience I have found out this isn't always the case. Sometimes a PSU can become *Undead!* :eek: . . . it should be dead but some evil spirit gets inside and keeps the PSU shuffling along . . . The CPU/Case fans, disks etc all come on but the machine doesn't always POST, sometimes it POST's but doesn't load the O/S, sometimes it POST's, loads the O/S but will crash in games . . . . all this could be an *undead* PSU!

Do you have a PSU tester/Multi Meter or a spare PSU? . . . easy to use custom PSU testers can be purchased for about £14 and are very useful bits of kit in situations like this . . .

Your starting to run out of options, get the PSU tested, then your looking at having to take the machine to pieces and rebuild it *outside* the case using a barebones configuration (minmal wires/hardware) and failing that we have to consider the motherboard may actually be faulty . . . . hasn't happen to ever but its gotta be possible! :cool:
 
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Thanks Wayne for the intrest... (Rare)
This is a problem i have had from a very early stage of building the system but not a first from what i can remember... although it has definatly progressed from the start.

All hardware was bought brand new from OCUK apart from the GFX which was second hand and been tested in other systems and has no problems - for about a week. So i can track all hardware from new that is a possable of being faulty.

My next move was the PSU, and I am guilty of thinking it either works or doesnt.
Also to add to this often i would kill the power to the system (psu switch) give it a moment then try again... it could work more often than to be a co-inncodence (cant spell lol) but still i figured it was a MoBo or RAM problem... as i had tested GFX.

Now i have new RAM i was focusing on the MoBo but that appears to work fine as soon as it has booted up... although as mentioned an 'undead' PSU the system does not crash or stall in games or once Windows has booted up to desktop, the PSU would appear to be doing its job great.

More recently it has beeing occuring more often, by this i mean taking silly amounts of restarting even killing the power before booting up.
I am getting more anxious to solve this as the amount of restarts can not be healthy on my hardware... HDD's powering up and down etc.

I do not have a spare PSU at least nothing above 350watt or even compatable with my mobo/gfx, I shall ask a friend though.

Many thanks.

nor do i have a tester, i may pop down my local store and see if they have one to test mine for a small price.
 
BoB3rt said:
This is a problem i have had from a very early stage of building the system but not a first from what i can remember... although it has definatly progressed from the start
Click to expand...
Hmmm. how old is the build then?

Trouble-shooting is the weirdest activity, that's why I spend ages running a system at stock once its first built, just getting familiar with it, how it works, does it have any quirks etc . . .

When you power up the PC is should POST every time, even if you were to sit there for hours powering it up, powering it down, powering it up, powering it down . . . . . should POST perfectly every single time! :D

There are lots of *invidual* reasons a computer won't POST or doesn't POST sometimes but all of them would eventually reveal themselves under close scrutiny from a rigorous trouble-shooting/swap out process . . .

And that's dealing with only *invidual* problems, lord help you if you got a double or triple whammy going on . . . . that would be two of three separate hardware issues, could drive you potty! ;)

Just as an example I know we have kinda ruled out the memory being a problem because you have done some testing and also swapped out sticks, a double-whammy in this case would be where both sets of RAM were faulty/incompatible with your set-up, very unlikely I know but it possible, basically don't assume anything, just take note of your testing . . .

The PSU tester I have is an nice litte LCD jobbie, cost about £25 and has paid for itself many times over. Apparently if you know how to use a Multi-meter you can achieve the same same but I'm not that clever! :cool:
 
The build is now on its 2 year line.... but only the PSU CPU and MoBo have not been changed now.
just so were clear I have to restart it x amount of times before it will even POST (presuming that means the MoBo's home page) then it can stall on booting OS (sometimes) if so then after another restart, more often than not it will work perfectly . so strange....

Keep you updated.
Thanks
 
Have you tried with just a single stick of your latest memory? the Kingstin Hyper-X running at bog standard [SPD] DDR2-800 5-5-5-x ?

If you do some single stick testing and across all the slots you can pretty much rule memory or memory slots as a problem . .

Two year old Corsair hmmm, you did say the problems were dating back to when it was first built?

Could it be a case/case-standoff short of some sort? . . . . have you got a firewire case header plugged into a USB motherboard header?

It's gonna be a bare bones build for you soon if the PSU is ruled out!
 
case-standoff? lost me a little there lol... if u acctuly mean the case i have had 3 diffrent cases for this system. problem still stands, so no shorts in that sense.

yeah i usually have a fireware header plugged in to usb pins....
am very much douting the memory as i have had it in other asus p35 boards that i built for friends to check and all ok.

yeah the problem started about 6 months after it was built.... i will test psu next.

thanks
 
It has Definatly got to be the motherboard!!!!

I have my PSU in this computer now and vice-versa... This has booted up 3 times from cold perfect on my PSU.
BUT:
First attempt of turning my PC on and it did NOTHING, as usual (using a 500w OcZ stealth) but given that could be a coincedence though, i am going to leave the PSU's swapped for about a week.

if it is the MoBo though (likley) it could have nothing to do with the CPU right? the Motherboard would still start up an display an error with the CPU rather than do nothing???
Otherwise it's off to testing the CPU next... this is painful process.
But i am geting there!

thanks
 
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