New build - hardware problems...help please

Neill_J · 14 Mar 2009 at 20:50

Hi

Help please!

Building a PC for a friend, plugged it all together last night and guess what - it didn’t work!

Main Specs:

CPU - Intel 2200 dual core (using Intel heat sink)
MB - Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L/S3L
Mem - 2GB of DDR2 6400
Vid - Nvidia 9800GTX+
HD - Samsung 750gb
PSU - Corsair 500W

When it is turned on there is no video signal to the monitor
The fans (CPU and GPU) are both running
The hard disk is whirring so that seems to be ok
However there is a set of phase LED's near the memory which the manual says indicate CPU loading (more LED's = more cpu load)
Looking at these I can see 2 green, one orange and one red LED - which I guess indicates some issue with the CPU - overheating?

My first thoughts were to check for the following:

A short circuit
I only had one power plug into the top of the GPU (there are 2 x 6 pin power points)
The CPU cooler was either not fitted correct or there was no thermal paste

Now I have built the PC on a desk - the same problem is happening as when it was in the case

By building out of the case this should eliminate the short circuit possibility (unlikely anyway)
I have now added a 2nd GPU power plug so that there are 2 of them (the GPU does not come with any instructions at all for hardware installation!)
I took the CPU cooler of (it seems it did have some thermal paste on it any way (but not much)) I have added some artic silver 3 to this and reseated it, It seems to be down and seated fine now from what I can see

However why is the pc still showing these phase LED's and not booting up
What have I likely done wrong or overlooked?

Thanks, Neill

bremen1874 · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:09

Are both motherboard power plugs connected?

Are there any POST beeps? Make sure you have a speaker attached.

Neill_J · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:11

bremen1874 said:
Are both motherboard power plugs connected?

Are there any POST beeps? Make sure you have a speaker attached.

Hi

Yes - both motherboard power plugs are connected (the large and smaller one)
The speaker connecter is attached to the motherboard - there are no POST beeps at all

Thanks, Neill

bremen1874 · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:18

Try both sticks of memory on their own.

Try removing all of the memory and check that you at least get POST beeps to indicate a memory problem.

sketch145 · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:37

Try reseating the CPU in its socket (take it out and then put it back in) also check that the heatsink is seated right and that the thermal paste is in contact with the CPU.

Kennysevenfold · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:44

i doubt the cpu could be overheating STRAIGHT AWAY and giving no output,

did you remove the old thermal paste before adding the new stuff.? only a drop the size of a grain of rice is needed, and always remove the old stuff from the cpu and cooler first.

with no beeb codes to narrow things down, i would go for the bench testing approach mate...

strip the pc down, on the mobo box (or some sort of cardboard box) place the motherboard, 1 stick of ram, the cpu and cooler, the power supply,(P1, cpu, graphics card connectors) and the graphics card (if you have on board graphics dont insert the grpahics card) and plug in just the keyboard and monitor, and try to boot up

if you can enter the BOIS,

shut down and add things one by one and try booting up each time.

i usually go with..

mouse, aditional ram moduals, hard drive, extra hard drives one by one, dvd drives, optional pci adaptor cards, (NIC, sound card etc) then graphics card.

good luck mate

sketch145 · 14 Mar 2009 at 21:55

Yeah thought it was unlikely to be overheating, but the mixed thermal paste seemed a bit dodgy to me, bench test it as kennysevenfold suggested and perhaps try individual components in another PC if this is possible.

Kennysevenfold · 14 Mar 2009 at 22:01

sketch145 said:
Yeah thought it was unlikely to be overheating, but the mixed thermal paste seemed a bit dodgy to me, bench test it as kennysevenfold suggested and perhaps try individual components in another PC if this is possible.

Yeah after a bench test test the suspected component in another pc just to make sure, and we can go from there

Neill_J · 14 Mar 2009 at 22:05

update:

as suggested tried to remove a stick of Ram at a time - the first one I removed allowed the PC to boot, will now try the ram the other way around and see if it is a didgy stick

The phase LED lights are now of also which is better
I did clear of the old thermal paste btw before adding the AS3

Thanks for the tips everyone, will work on this now to try and pin down the faulty part (if it is faulty)

Neill

Neill_J · 14 Mar 2009 at 22:13

Right:

With both Ram sticks in it will not boot
With Stick 1 in on its own it will boot
With Stick 2 in on its own it will not boot

Me thinks this could indicate a dodgy stick of ram!

One RMA coming up Monday

thanks for all the help

Neill

sketch145 · 14 Mar 2009 at 22:22

glad too see you've sorted the problem.

Kennysevenfold · 14 Mar 2009 at 22:33

Neill_J said:
Right:

With both Ram sticks in it will not boot
With Stick 1 in on its own it will boot
With Stick 2 in on its own it will not boot

Me thinks this could indicate a dodgy stick of ram!

One RMA coming up Monday

thanks for all the help

Neill

hope all goes well mate,