New motherboard boot problems

[Ysidro]

I recently had problems with my old system and after testing most everything, decided it was the motherboard. Mainly because I knew it was going to go soon anyway.

So, new one arrived and I hooked it up. Turned on the power supply and it instantly tried to boot. It didn't boot, it just tried. Sat there. Drives were running, fan was running, no go.

Unplugged everything, reseated CPU, RAM, and graphics adapter. Eventually I got it to occasionally boot. Not always, just sometimes. When I'd try to boot all the way it would give me a STOP 7b. At least once it just decided to go out while I was in BIOS setup looking over some settings. Still only occasionally tries to boot, still ends up doing nothing other than shutting off again or giving me the Stop code.

Any ideas what I should check? I have two sticks of RAM and have tried them seperately but no extra AMD2 CPUs or PCI-E graphics cards laying around to swap out those.

Also getting some error beeps when it does try to boot. Usually one short followed by three short. Sometimes two. Can't even find the BIOS for the mobo online and I haven't gotten far enough to tell when it POSTs.

[kbm99]

Beep codes vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. IF you can let us know what make & model motherboard you installed we can probably find out what the beep codes are trying to tell you.

Off hand, my first guess would be a problem with the RAM, since you moved everything from an older board to a new one. Try booting it with no ram in it at all - if you get a consistent beep code pattern that way you will know that's the right avenue to pursue.

[Ysidro]

Ooops, I didn't include any model info, did I? It's an MSI K9N SLI-F V2.

Could RAM problems keep it from even POSTing most of the time?

Honestly, I hope it's not RAM because it's likely it's the Motherboard's slots and not the sticks themselves. Don't want to have to mail this back, damn it!

[kbm99]

I built a new game box at home recently with Windows Vista-64 and a whopping 8 gigs of ram. I had to spend considerable time tweaking stuff like the northbridge & ram voltages before I could get it to post. So yeah, it *could* keep it from posting at all, but that's something of a corner case I think.

[Ysidro]

I built a new game box at home recently with Windows Vista-64 and a whopping 8 gigs of ram. I had to spend considerable time tweaking stuff like the northbridge & ram voltages before I could get it to post. So yeah, it *could* keep it from posting at all, but that's something of a corner case I think.

Here's hoping for a "corner case". Tweaking I can deal with, RMAs will just piss me off. :D

Edit: And I still want to know why it's trying to boot when I turn the power supply on but the front panel doesn't do anything. That bothers me the most, I think.

[DGM]

Here's hoping for a "corner case". Tweaking I can deal with, RMAs will just piss me off. :D

Edit: And I still want to know why it's trying to boot when I turn the power supply on but the front panel doesn't do anything. That bothers me the most, I think.
Are you sure of the connections from the MB to front panel? I messed them up once (pin diagram was some what confusing) and all sorts of things went weird. Just a thought to look at.

[GodMark2]

Ooops, I didn't include any model info, did I? It's an MSI K9N SLI-F V2.

Could RAM problems keep it from even POSTing most of the time?

Honestly, I hope it's not RAM because it's likely it's the Motherboard's slots and not the sticks themselves. Don't want to have to mail this back, damn it!

The MSI K9N SLI V2 uses an AMI BIOS.

1 long, 3 short Conventional/Extended memory failure CH000996

http://www.computerhope.com/beep.htm

Are you sure you have the right type of memory for this board (DDR2 667 or DDR2 800)?

[Ysidro]

RMAed the board yesterday. Now we play the waiting game....

And yes, I've checked the front panel connections multiple times and I have the proper memory (DDR2 667). Played with some other stuff. No go. In fact, it was getting worse.

If the new new one doesn't work then I'm just going to start upgrading everything else while I'm at it. Mainly because it's then more likely to be graphics, CPU, or RAM even though I don't currently believe that to be true.

[a_unique_person]

If you thought the old mother board was playing up, and now the new one is too.........

I might be tempted to think it's not the Mobo.

[Ysidro]

If you thought the old mother board was playing up, and now the new one is too.........

I might be tempted to think it's not the Mobo.

True, but given it doesn't reach the point where other things would allow the mobo to give errors....

If it's not a bad second one (it happens), then it's only possible to be a few other things.

[-Axiom-]

I had a similar problem with one of my boxes recently.
Asus P5K Deluxe, I built this box a little over a year ago and all worked fine for over a year.
For no apparent reason it started to have the same issues you are describing.
After extensive testing and trouble shooting I turned out to be the ram.
This is extremely odd since it is the same ram that I built the computer with originally.

I tested this ram in another computer and there is nothing wrong with it at all.


Your issues could be the psu, video, motherboard, Hard drive, or ram.
Yes I know, pretty much everything...
Sounds mostly like the ram to me.


For my motherboard 1 long beep immediatly followed by 3 short beeps is "no video".

Edited to add: check the voltages on your ram and manually set them in the bios, same with the timings.
Some ram requires a higher voltage than what the motherboard will provide at default settings.
In some cases you may need to get a different stick of ram just to get into the bios to change the voltage.
What type of ram do you have, be specific as possible.

[Ysidro]

Yeah, the only reason I thought "motherboard" first was the case fan power port failed a week or two ago and somehow an input got plugged into an output.

Considering I'm the only one who touches that thing, I'm greatly concerned. I either had a moment of "let's plug things in and forget about it" or I have gremlins.

Anyway, if the next motherboard also doesn't work than I'll start from there. Probably graphics, since it's easier to get ahold of a card, and then CPU and RAM after that. Unfortunatly, I don't have any spares that fit what I currently have.

That being said, I didn't have any change when I tried one stick of RAM at a time. Yeah, they could both be bad but it's less likely than a new motherboard being damaged, IMO.

ETA: Oh and I can't edit the bios because I can't even get that far. I did a couple times but that stopped before I gave up and sent the board back. No time to actually try that.

Well, I have nothing to do but wait for the RMAed board to get to California, checked over, and a new one sent to me.

[Ysidro]

Oh great, NewEgg decided to refund my RMA instead of replacing it. No restocking fee, so I assume they just don't have any more of that board. They're not clear on the matter.

So I went over to TigerDirect.com and bought an even better board and some better RAM while I was going nuts with money. I should be up and running by Wednesday unless it's a CPU problem.

[Ysidro]

Bah! It was the CPU all along! I have a nice shiny AMD quadcore now.

Screwed up my system hard drive though. I recovered all the important and sentimental stuff that wasn't backed up, but had to do a clean install of Windows on a different drive. There's a sector I just can't recover. That drive is going into the closet. If I need it, I'll do a complete reformat of the drive.

For now, I have 1.5TBs of drive space. I don't think I'll need another .25TB for a month or two. :D

[a_unique_person]

Bah! It was the CPU all along!


;)

[Ysidro]

;)

Not. A. Word.