Hi there, im new to the building lark and my missus is going spare cos it wont work and im\getting the 'i told you so'

ok, its a k8n neo with amd 64 3000. with a radeon 9800pro. it has a 20gb hdd with win 2000 on it. its connected to ide1 and a cd/dvd rom and dvdrw connected to ide2. the psu is 400w with 12a on the 12v lead. er what else do you need to know? oh 1bd corsair value ram (2 x 513).

im having probs with the front cables for starters as the colours don match the ones on the board so im not 100% they are fitted correctly.

i turn it on, it powers (fans spin etc) then stops and the hdd light just flashes.

hope you can help.

thanx

tony

Do the fans stop spinning?

So it turns on and all the fans spin then the HDD light comes on and then it just freezes right?

What is one the HDD right now?  If its blank then you need to alter your BIOS to boot off of CD then put your Windows XP CD in and partition/format the drive.  If you got the wires wrong at the front its likely it wouldnt power up.  You cant go to wrong with them as they usually have what they do written on each pin and you just match it up to what the mobo book says.

- speaker should work when connected the wrong way around...
- LEDs are mounted the right way around as they light up...
- Power and reset switches are impulse contacts, so that won't matter either...

Things you should check:
- Master/Slave settings of the drives. HD should be master, and in your configuration on a non-shared IDE channel (use IDE1, NOT the RAID controller as Windows won't startup whitout messing with the setup disks)
On IDE2: DVD Rewriter as master, CD/DVD ROM as slave (drive letters can be changed afterwards anyway)
- CPU fan connector, if it has 3 pins you should use a 3-wire connector or it won't boot.
-  Does the thing have a 'speech diagnostics' option? set it to english and plug headphones in or set it to run on the chassis speaker.

The following will help isolate the problem.

Start with a basic POST test with only CPU, RAM, power switch (see below) and POWER connected to the mainboard.

Power and Front Panel connectors:
Also, only have the power, reset, and speaker wires connected to the panel connectors, you need to get these right .... the manual will show what pin is positive and what is negative. The coloured wire is positive, the white is negeative usually. Make sure the speaker wires are connected at the case speaker and not pulled loose!

Attempt POST: (Turn it on)
The CPU fan should be spinning and the speaker should start beeping a POST code. If this fails, it's a Power, RAM, Mainboard or CPU problem.

After a successful POST:
Add Monitor and Keyboard, see if it still POSTs.... At this point, you should see a screen and have access to BIOS. A healthy POST should beep once with most BIOS's.

Next add Mouse, Floppy, Hard and CDROM drives and check for POST.

Next add Addon Cards/Devices as required.... check for POST. (Or install Windows first, then add peripherals)

If you isolate the problem to one of these stages and still need help, please gives details of how far you got etc.

power switch only works when the mobo is in 'running' mode. it won't work on 'pre-start' m(i.e. when the processor hasn't started) mode.

c,

i have swoped ram around and no joy. i notice a chap has the same probs (on the msi site) so will see if he has any joy.

last time i build a pc!!

any other boards good with a athlon 64 3000. might just send this one back.

Tony

I hope when that cpu fan's not spinning, the motherboard & cpu are not getting power, if so, I don't rate the survival chances of that processor!!!

I have a 3.2ghz p4 Prescott cpu sitting on my desk as testament to the last time I forgot to connect a cpu fan power lead! - Its a very small expensive piece of scrap after approx 15 seconds of power with no fan.....  

Its soon to be replaced under warranty but I'm being economical with the truth (!) to get this achieved!!!!  

Quote:


OMG....... not you too!    Actually this happened to me at a friends house when his son and I were over-zealous about trying out a new mainboard or something.

We both looked at it, and gave it the thumbs up, powered on ...... and fried it, well, it lasted 6 months and ran hot.... until it died.

Fortunately I don't think this is mav's problem.

Maverick, Don't despair, when you get the system running, you are going to be amazed at how awesome it is. It's probably something silly and easy to fix.

Try resetting CMOS, there will be a reset jumper on the mainboard somewhere.

REMEMBER!!! The jumper cap isn't supposed to stay on! just cap it for ten seconds or so (make sure the power is off to the mainboard), until it resets and take the cap off and hang it on one pin only for storage.

That will reset the CMOS/BIOS to mainboard defaults and see if it will then fire up.

Go over the mainboard manual carefully, if none of that works, you need to take the PC into a technician/Shop for a quick test, taking care not to void any warranty.

Like I said, it's probably something simple you overlooked.