Building a computer

[gojackets246]

Help!

I am building my first computer and I'm having a lot of problems. I put everything together and I booted the computer. Sometimes the computer gets hung up on the "Asus MB" screen and other times it will post but won't do anything else. I've hit delete repeatedly and sometimes the it says "entering setup". But it doesn't change the screen.

I'm not getting any kind of error messages.

Here are my specs:

Asus P5ND2-SLI DELUXE
POWER SUPPLY ANTEC TPII-430ATX RTL
CPU INTEL|P4 650 3.4G 800M 775 2M R
HD 320GB|WD 7200RPM 8MB WD3200JB%
MEM 1Gx2|GIGA 240P GR2DD8B-K2GB/667
VGA ASUS EN6200TC256/TD/64M RTL

Any advice would be appreciated. I would like to get this thing working before school starts back up.

THANKS!

 

[montag451]

Hi,
First thing would be to clear the BIOS back to defaults by using the CLRCMOS jumper - look in mobo manual.
Make sure the system is unplugged before you do it.
Retry - if no luck......
Next, make sure everything is plugged in well - including heatsink/fan, vid card, RAM.
Take out all pci cards.
Disconnect kb/mouse.
Do things one at a time - see if you can isolate the problem,
for instance plug in all cables/necessary hw properly,
retry,
disconnect drives from mobo and power
retry
etc etc

Welcome to the forum.

 

[gojackets246]

Thanks for the tip on clearing the BIOS. That helped me make some progress. I had to take everything off the MB except the video card, the memory and the CPU. I cleared the BIOS and then rebooted. I can enter setup but the computer hangs up when I tell it to save and exit( or just exit). When I try to re-boot again, I get my same weird error messages. I am now convinced that something is wrong with the BIOS. Is there anything else I can do? Do I have a bad MB?

Thanks!

 

[theMan]

try pulling out the bios battery, and leave it out for like 30 minutes. see if that does anything.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Here's a few things to check

1. Make sure the square 4pin 12v aux connector, and the 24pin main connector are both securely plugged into the motherboard.

2. Make shure the CPU HSF is mounted properly and securely, and that the 3pin fan wire is plugged into the motherboard securely.

3. Clear the CMOS again

4. When you can get it to boot and go into bios, check the ram timings and voltages that the board is setting as default. Sometimes boards don't recognize the proper ram settings for particular ram which can cause the problems you describe. If the timings and voltage doesn't matched whats listed on your ram, change the settings manually to match.

5. Try booting with just 1 stick of ram in slot 1, if it doesn't work switch to the other stick and try again, it's possible to have 1 bad ramstick.

5. As a last resort to eliminate the possibility of the motherboard shorting out, take it out of the case and set it on a cardboard box and mount just the CPU/HSF, 1stick of ram, and the video card and hard drive and try and boot up.


And remeber to clear the CMOS on each failed attempt resulting in lockups or errors

 

[gojackets246]

 

[gojackets246]

Whoops hit reply accidentally.

Anyway, thanks for the tip about the memory. I've done just about everything you guys recommended and I didn't have any success. I even took everything out of the case and still no luck. Then I decided to check more closely if my MB and memory were compatible(the MB does recognize the memory in the CMOS). The ASUS website says that ECC memory is not compatible with my MB. Newegg does not say if my memory is ECC or NON-ECC, and GIGARAM's website does not even have my model listed! However, I notised on gigaram's website that alll the ram sticks with Model numbers beginnning with GR2DD8B are all ECC memory. I've posted on gigaram forums and e-mailed their tech support(their 1800 contact number is worthless). After I confirm that the memory is ECC memory, I'll return it to newegg, minus restocking fee, and then purchase the right memory.

Is there any other way I can confirm that my memory is ECC or NON-ECC? I googled with no success.

Thanks for all of your help!