Black Screen on first boot, Help!!!

[g4graham]

Just put this together last night: Asus K7M with an Athlon 600, 128 mb RAM PC100, Creative Annihilator GeForce2 MX, & WD Cavier 6.4GB@7200 rpm (from my just last system, FDisked with no partition yet). Modem, Sound card, and NIC are not yet installed. When I power on the computer starts (power, HD makes its normal access noise and the light comes on showing activity) but the monitor screen is entirely black. Nothing, No RAM count, No BIOS information, and the BIOS is not accessable. Just a Black screen. I've gone over all the connections and tried the RAM from my son's computer (Asus P5A with 256mb PC100) still just a black screen. I've tried my old video card also same results, black screen. Anyone have any idea?????

 

[Mem]

Double check the CPU is seated correctly ,my friend had the same problem as you, in his case it was the CPU not seated all the way down.You may have a dead board but you must double check ALL connections first.

 

[urbantechie]

Try it with only the RAM, CPU, Video. Re-seat the RAM and CPU. Reseat it again. Don't connect anything else including any drives. Make sure nothing is shorting the boards and the stand offs are on correctly.

 

[g4graham]

I've tried it with and without boards and drives, I've reseated the CPU, RAM, and the boards still nothing but a dark screen. Is there a way to test the mb to see if it is DEAD??? Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[g4graham]

Well I've been doing some reading at Asus' forum:
http://www.asusnetq.com.tw/English/Component/slota.asp
Subject : Dead board?
"I have a K7M and Athlon 700....."
I'm not alone, it's #10 in the top 10. This seems to be a problem for a lot of people. Even a bigger problem is that Asus is not responding to their long time following. Wonder if I should try an AOpen or Abit board and just send Asus back there K7M. As it seems it is not all it's supposed to be.

 

[xrayman]

Might sound dumb, but check that CMOS battery.
I got a new board once that had a bum battery with similar symptoms except it would start to boot once then quit and not start again. Days later it would do the same thing again.

 

[g4graham]

Thanks for the input. I tried changing the battery this morning,used a known good one from another system.The result was the same: Nothing. This is frustrating.

 

[AC]

Try running the bare minimum system outside the case on a cardboard box.

Bare minimum means:

• AMD suggested power supply
• motherboard
• known good cpu with good heatsink
• known good stick of RAM
• known good video card
• known good monitor

Plug those things things in and see if it'll work. If not, you might have a DOA on your hands.

 

[Nih]

It could be the agp setting. This could happen if the board has an incorrect manual setting . Try posting with a pci video card , that way you can reset the cmos to defaults and get your agp running correctly.

 

[g4graham]

Tried posting with my old ATI Mach32 PCI. No difference.

 

[blclay23]

Try safe mode..............then see if you can find an updated driver of your video card....I had the same problem with my GeForce......good luck

 

[g4graham]

AC: Asus called me yesterday and said the same. Tried it this AM and it took 4 or 5 tries but finally it posted.
A,C,D,and E are all present.

Now I have 2 different beeps going continuously.
Any ideas out there??

Thanks for all the input everyone.

 

[AC]

Link to AMI BIOS web site's beep_codes.pdf

It has troubleshooting tips.

2 beeps indicates that you memory probably isn't seated correctly, or that one of them is damaged, or incompatible with the motherboard, or the slot is damaged, etc.

 

[g4graham]

problem was the cpu fan lead was plugged into the "other" pins on the mobo. moved one pair over and they were history.

 

[AC]

lol, awesome dude. glad u got it fixed. i'll keep this in mind when i come across a problem like this.

 

[TrollMan]

I don't follow about the pins...

Have just got a Creative Geforce 2 Ultra, Asus A7V, 256MB RAM (PC133) and Thunderbird 1GHz chip as a bundle and same problem... but CPU fan clips into 3 pin socket marked CPU fan on mobo, no way it can go onto anything else... still no signal...

Until fixed running the GF2 Ultra, RAM and new PSU (AMD approved 300W) on Gigabyte 6BXE mobo, P3-450, no problems other than existing PC100 RAM not recognised (?)

Anyone got any ideas? Trying to ring tech support internationally isn't exactly easy...

 

[AC]

trollman: if you haven't already, try my suggestions above. it may seem like a huge hassle, but you will probably make more progress. also try unplugging everything from the mobo including the LEDs, cables, fans (have it run off the power supply connectors or don't run it; it won't produce much heat unless it actually works, so boot up/down cycles won't hurt), etc. (you can leave the power switch attached).

 

[TrollMan]

Tried that, no change Sometimes I can't even get the PSU fan to start if I have it connected (but green light on mobo still comes on)

Incidentally, I mentioned I was running the 256MB (PC133) strip in my old box at the moment, but it's only detecting it as 128MB! I have a PC100 128MB strip existing, so it shows up as 256MB altogether, but I'm getting none of the errors (eg registry problems, BSOD etc) I was getting last time I had some dodgy RAM - could this be linked to the PC133/PC100 difference or could it just be bad RAM, or what?

 

[AC]

go download <a target=new href="http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp
">DocMemory</a> to test your RAM

 

[TrollMan]

Thanks for the tip, downloaded it and tested it on 3 configurations -

1) Existing 128MB chip only
2) 256MB chip only (which is being detected as 128)
3) Both

Passes all tests on all 3 configurations!

Incidentally, on startup table lists SDRAM is rows 2, 4 and 5. Looking at the chips, its the existing 128MB in the middle (of 3) DIMMs being detected as only in row 2 (I'm assuming they go 0 and 1, 2 and 3, 4 and 5). Same pattern when chips moved about...

This is really stumping me now... I'm thinking of buying something where the mobo, chip and RAM are already set up and then going on from there...

 

[trots]

Saturday my PC started exhibiting the same symptoms. Would love to know if there's been a resolution???

I found two other recently-active threads here with others experiencing the same problem:

here

and here

Abit KA7
Athlon 950
Asus V6600 Deluxe, using NVidia drivers
nothing overclocked

 

[gtd2000]

The powering on but nothing else happening is something I have seen before also....and it was a failed 32MB RAM stick...had me pulling my bloody hair out too!!!!!!

Strange thing is it happened after flashing the BIOS and I thought I had screwed up.

I took the whole PC to pieces, and after failing to get it to work (hours, days, weeks, later), decided to put the spare 32 MB RAM stick in another PC which I knew was OK, before starting up I took the 64MB RAM from that computer and put it in my main system, when I tried to to start the system it was the same - power lights came on but nothing else! Changed the RAM back to the 64MB and A-OK.....

It's still sitting in pieces yet - couldn't be bothered to put it back together yet.....

 

[trots]

Actually, in my case, it goes black at various times... though it always does get through the memory test (and passes). It never gets all the way into Windows (W2K), but sometimes as far as the color screen with the MS logo where Windows is loading before going black. But, after letting it sit for two days and just on a whim trying it again, I now invariably get a &quot;CMOS checksum error... defaults loaded&quot; message, then it dies. I tried a new battery to no avail. A new mobo is (allegedly) on its way.