[WIDOWMAKER99]

ok i posted i built a new system .. it's runing sweet

my nephew sees it .. buys the exact same stuff ..other then DVD drive .. he buys LG i bought sony ...

same CPU same motherboard same vid card same case same PSU ..same ram ..regular CPU intel cooler rather then my huge ass one (tuniq tower 120 )..temps are fine .. welll under 40 C on boot ..not 32 c like mine .. but around 35 C hittin 44

i build it today ..posts .. but will not let me into the bios ..posts .. just goes to a blinking dash on screen (do that 50 billion times )

unless i pull a ram chip !

ok now in bios .. set bios up with 1 gig of ram in ..

set ram timing to 2 .3.3.6 what the same corsair mem in my system is running @

spd setting is 3. 3 .3.8 ..if i try that still no joy!



..system will not boot to cd rom ( IDE ) to install OS ..just a f#cking blinking white little line on top left of screen

IDE DVD /cd rom shows up fine as does sata harddisk in bios as detected

tried so far

rewire system

pull vid card and use agp (used an old ass geforce 3 ..same i i used when i built mine and my 9800 gt got lost for 4 days in shipping ) rather then pcie ..board has both agp /pci-e

no post ...

cpu has decent amount of thermal paste ..check cpu cooler .. done

still will not let me in bios setup ..once i get in and reboot .. cd rom will not boot OS cd ..or OS dvd

check CPU ..? not pulling my CPU ..yet

check cables they work fine

could it be bad mem ?

he bought 2 sticks of corsair XMS ddr 3200 .. same as i bought

i tried some older /supported pc 2700 same issiue ..

gotta be bad mem ..right ?

i mean CPU is working .. board is working as far as i can tell it is reporting every component correctly as being there
if board was fried or bad it would not do that right ?


am i right .. it's gotta be the MEM

not getting any weird beep codes either thats the frustrating thing ...! ahhhhhhhhh I HATE BUILDING COMPUTERS !

HELP!

[Weirdoman]

If you think it's mem, put yours in his box and see what happens. I thought I had a bad board when it wouldn't do anything, turns out the printer attached via usb was the big shit-my-system'er. I told the gf that lexmarks are expensive pos's and boy did I high five myself when I found that. It meant getting rid of that crapper.

And what sequence is the beep code?

http://www.pchell.co...beepcodes.shtml

[WIDOWMAKER99]

thats the weird ass thing there is no beep codes

and i t will boot to bios ..with only 1 1 gig stick of mem in .. but then the cd rom will not boot .. to load os

gonna pull the dvd drive and try mine and some corsair VS stuff i have in my sony box

[White Tiger]

Try pulling the CD-rom????
use one that you know works????


its either something is bad or something is Kinda damaged and thats hard to figure out.though i couldnt think of what would allow you to get to Bios and no further. i'd switch out his ram with yours completely

[Iron Monkey]

Barebones it Wid...as my IT mentor (Mr. I served in the Navy on Nuclear Subs) grilled into us, start with the basics.

Remove EVERYTHING but power, CPU & memory. Wait for beep code. Add one component at a time.

I can vouch that 20 identical systems with identical components, 1 of them will have some kind of failure. Happens all the time.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

still get no beeps .. it;s gotta be bad MOTHERBOARD ..mem checks out as does everything else in another system

fucking board wont even boot to a floppy drive to allow me to flash the bios

he just got a dead one ..

[Iron Monkey]

Ye know, I read through a lot of mobo revs on Newegg, and noticed a high incidence of DOA boards recently (within the last year), even for models that've been around for a few years.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

oh this gets even better we cant rma the board as he threw away the pack list and receipt !

so we ordered a new board ..intel this time ...

THEN .............oh this SUCKS!

the kid talked my dumb ass into useing my old backup p 4 board

and old case & PSU (board is a gigabyte 8sg 667 socket 478 bought it off bubba .. worked great for years..was one of the best systems i built a few yrs ago .. i gave up on it only cuz it didnt support 800 mghz fsb )

all so he could play some warcrack on it ..

i built it useing his old agp card X1650 XT 512 meg AGP

his 80 gig maxtor 80 gig HD and 8X dvd burner

his p 4 2.6/400 .. installed win XP ...played far cry on it .. was working perfect here for hours

he takes it home .. within an hour he blew it up ..board is smoked

cpu = smoked

my old 2 X 512 meg pc 2700 ddr ram = smoked

no boot .. no beep codes ...fans run .. and dvd and keyboard both blink ..so PSU is still good i guess somehow .. tho i doubt i will ever use it again ..

told the bastard he'd buy a better Power strip ..before i finish his new rig ..still waiting on the new motherboard for that

fucker smoked one of my fav boards ..geeze glad now i didn't put in my back up X800 GTO card


funny part is ....again i see no blown circuits or resistor caps and i know that board worked .. hell i played far cry on high settings on it for over an hour Saturday afternoon after i built it !

[WIDOWMAKER99]

new mb does not post

WTF IS GOIN ON ??????????

ram is compatible .. check .. cpu = ok but only if it have bios version 031 .. it might have 028 WTF !

son of a bitch it wont boot to tell me !

could it be he has 2 bad motherboards ? in a row ? ..different ..but the same somehow ?

and yea i booted the system ..no drives

not shit .. even tried an old pci diamond card to get the bastard to boot .. ahh .. no joy

for the new board i pulled corsair VS series out of my old system .. it works fine .. in my 865 PERL ..corsair says yes thats supported by this intel board ..WTF is goin on ?

ok cant be vid card as i tried a pci card

cant be CPU as on the foxconn it boots !

but will not allow boot to cd to install OS even after clearing bios .. or pulling bios battery ..then ya get the shit bios setup screen .. with no options!
pop in the intel 915 motherboard .. no video

this is pissin me off to no end ..as i have that same foxconn mb in here right now ..and it worked perfectly..winblows was installed in under an hour !

same cpu .. same series CPU /SL number matches up
same PSU ..same case

and we thought it was a smoked MB?

this board wont boot on shit ..WTF do i try next ?

connected are only

board +cpu +mem

outside of case i have

monitor

keyboard

power cable ..umm that should be basic enuff to get a bios beep code out of either one of these boards

WTF!

if i pull all the mem i get beep code

if any mem is in .. i get nada ..jack shit .. nothing ..

pull vid card .. get no beeps ...WTF ? nothing ..?

fucker should beep there RIGHT ?

[Iron Monkey]

That's just...bizarre.

Only two things I can think of, and it's from years of dealing with this crap (meaning I've had it happen at one time or another)...

Power cord (to the computer)...I had one that just flaked out. Took a while to determine it was the cord. Even so, I couldn't figure out how or why. No tension on it, the user never touched her desktop (except to power-on, that's it).

Power-supply: Maybe it's just flakey enough?

I'd shoot for the cord first tho'....take a known, good cord (I keep those old thick cords around, like the extra copper, more stable). Who knows?

[WIDOWMAKER99]

found the issiue

foxxconn board = DEAD IDE and sata drives do not function .. nor does the floppy

bad Southbridge chip ? dunno DOA anyway

INTEL BOARD CAN NOT READ 3.4 Ghz CHIP..till bios is updated !
so no shit it wont post .. it cant find a fucking CPU ...the bios is older then the CPU

got a 2.8 Ghz 0n order ..wait an see i guess

good part is the 2.8 ghz chip only cost $27 (p4 521)

bad part is once i use it install windoze and use the intel windows flash utility .. i have a 2.8 ghz to pull so i can finally put the 3.4 GHZ in where it's supposed to go

at least star micro was cool about it they said i can return the cpu if i wanna
and they did verify that both CPU's i have are the right sSpec number for use on this this Intel board

[WIDOWMAKER99]

bump for the edits

and yea i think this will work out now .. if the new CPU comes tomorrow or monday

and i will post a review of the motherboard

dont look too bad for a older Intel chipset tho

[Iron Monkey]

Wow, that's nice that they'll take the CPU back. Especially an older OEM. Have to check out the place.

[WIDOWMAKER99]

yea we picked a 60 day warranty on the cpu's ..only adds $6 to price

ended up yea the p4 3.4 was bad .. wont post on the intel board the 2.8 works fine ..
i installed the 2.8

installed win Xp
all the drivers
then flashed the bios on the board so it was totally up to date and should support a P4 650 chip .. (supports all the way up to 3.8GHZ P4 670 chip)

matched up with the sSpec # too on top of the cpu

according to Intel's Specs .. the 3.4 CPU ... no post... popped in the 2.8 model 521 it worked perfect

but yes use star micro .. they were quite nice on the phone ..tho they have no toll free number .. so for tech support and checking sSpec numbers of what they have in stock you do have to pay for a phone call .. tho they are starting to list that sSpec number on the newer CPU's they are stocking ..and yea they seem to sell only NEW cpu's as i saw no wear on any one i bought from them ..guess they found a way to buy up old lots of leftover cpu's that were never sold

nicks gonna send back the 3.4 this week ..told him just go for it and buy the fucking 3.8 ghz model (pay the difference too ) and get a huge ass after market cooler like i got ..they have a 3.8 GHZ P4 670 for only $120 bucks that will work just fine on his board now i updated his bios ...

scary part is

his board was only 19.99 and is made by INTEL

well FOXCONN most likely .. but it is an Intel branded motherboard
and came with the original Intel cd /no manual ..it's on the cd ..just a sticker to show the pin outs and connectors to put it together... /plus a sata cable /ide cable /floppy cable and the back plate for the case

works good for a $20 motherboard tho

[Iron Monkey]

Just felt your pain today. Remember that Shuttle XPC (P4) I was given by a client? Worked great...spent a few weeks cleaning it up, swapping out parts 'n such, thinking to set it up as an HTPC (has SPDIF out built-in...yowza!).

Welll...set it up, plugged-in to the TV (S-Video), fired it up...nothing. Zilch. Nadda. Spent about half an hour pulling parts...zero, nadda. Board just died out of the blue. ARGH! Would've been nice. Oh well...'least I've got some good memory/HDD/Optical drive!