Got my new build up and running, exept a few problems.

[Chaosblade02]

Also the reason you take it OUT of the case is because it could be a single standoff is missing and shorting something.

I tried what you suggested, and it does the same thing. Also went back through again and tried moving ram around individually in different slots, as well as GPUs. Even tried an old 7600 GS GPU (PCI-E) that is in my old PC that I know works, and it lined up in the slot perfectly and snapped in place.

I am missing a stand off under one of the motherboard holes, but other than that I got every other one holding it in place, and there are no stand offs out of place and under somewhere that they shouldn't be.

Another thing I noticed was I tried booting up the PC without the 8 pin connector in place, and it does exactly the same thing as it does when it is plugged in. Same error beep and everything. Just to check if my 8-pin chord from the PSU was bad, I had a 4+4 pin chord that I wasn't using for anything, so I plugged that in the 8 pin slot, but it didn't help anything.

Is it possible a bad board fried my CPU? I would be fighting a losing battle, just like it seems I am right now if it turns out my CPU is dead.

I am 100% certain that it is seated properly in the slot, and there are no bent pins, I checked it twice yesterday, and once again today. I even cleaned the thermal compound off the CPU and re-applied it, even though there was none on any of the circuitry.

Is there any way to check a CPU individually?

 

[Athadeus]

The only way to check a CPU individually is to put it in another known stable working system and see if it works.

 

[Chaosblade02]

The only way to check a CPU individually is to put it in another known stable working system and see if it works.

Well the problem is I have no way to do that. So I am just going to RMA the CPU and the PSU for possible bad connectors. And even then it is a probable guess at best. It almost has to be one of those 2 things because I have tested everything else.

Also, will DDR2 ram work in a DDR3 slot? Because I know I have some good working DDR2 ram, just in case I happen to have 4 bad sticks of ram.

 

[mfenn]

No DDR2 will not work in a DDR3 slot.

At this point since you have gotten many new motherboards, I would go ahead and return the CPU and PSU like you're thinking. If the ones ones don't work, I would return the mobo and RAM.

 

[Chaosblade02]

I can confirm that its not bad ram. My brother has some DDR3 ram in his PC and he pulled a stick out and put it in mine, changed nothing. That doesn't mean all my ram is good, its just means whatever is causing this is not ram.

.

 

[mnewsham]

I can confirm that its not bad ram. My brother has some DDR3 ram in his PC and he pulled a stick out and put it in mine, changed nothing. That doesn't mean all my ram is good, its just means whatever is causing this is not ram.

.

Looks like PSU or CPU

 

[Chaosblade02]

I had a full hardware diagnostic done on my rig, cost me $60, but it was well paid because I was just going to RMA the CPU and PSU to exchange them. If I had done so they wouldn't have worked either.

Turns out that an 850W PSU is way less than what I need to even boot this system up. They did the calculations and I need to get a very good 1200W PSU, modular and gold rated. Add an extra $130 onto the cost of the build.

I had no idea that my system needed that much power, but at least I know what the problem was.

I am still kinda confused, because I built my rig off a Tom's Hardware $2000 build, in which they use the same AMD GPUs, processor, and a similar MB and they used the same 850W PSU I got, which turns out is horribly insufficient for what I need.

Now I went with a gigabyte board instead of the ASrock. My GPUs are a little better than the ones they recommended which were MSI, I went with HIS IceQ turbo 6970s, better cooling and stock overclocked which use more watts. Also I have 2 more sticks of ram.

At least I figured out what the culprit is, and it was $60 well spent.

I just ordered this PSU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

Cooler master 1200W modular 80+ gold cert.

 

[mfenn]

Something must have been seriously wrong with your old PSU, because even while gaming, a 6970 CF system draws under 600W. How the shop arrived at a 1200W minimum is beyond me. You got fleeced.

 

[Chaosblade02]

Something must have been seriously wrong with your old PSU, because even while gaming, a 6970 CF system draws under 600W. How the shop arrived at a 1200W minimum is beyond me. You got fleeced.

I don't think that 850W PSU I had provides a consistent 850W at all times.

Its possible it was just a bad PSU. I will get the new one in Friday, and I will know for certain if that was the problem or not. Originally the PSU worked, but I think it could have gone bad as a result of the PC doing all of those crash resets.

If the PSU doesn't fix it then I am going to immediately box up the CPU and send it back.

I had my brother test the GPUs, and ram in his PC, and he told me they all work individually. Unfortunately he has an AMD board, and I got no way to test the CPU.

 

[mfenn]

A bad PSU is definitely one of the hardest things to diagnose. I feel for you.

 

[Chaosblade02]

I got the new PSU in and it still does the same thing......

I am not even 10% sure the processor is bad, but I mailed it back anyway. I examined the CPU very closely with a magnifying glass under a light to see if I could find anything out of the ordinary, and it looks like a brand new CPU to me with no damage at all.

Can setting a CPU in a motherboard with bent pins fry a CPU? And can a bad CPU fry a good motherboard? Is it possible a fried CPU can have no physical damage on it at all?

If the a new processor doesn't fix it then I am pretty much clueless as to what else could be causing this.

If Newegg shipped me 3 bad motherboards in a row, then I will NEVER buy anything from them again.

 

[mnewsham]

Can setting a CPU in a motherboard with bent pins fry a CPU? And can a bad CPU fry a good motherboard? Is it possible a fried CPU can have no physical damage on it at all?

Both are possible, not likely but certainly possible.

 

[mfenn]

Both are possible, not likely but certainly possible.

I thought that it booted up in the store??

 

[Chaosblade02]

Both are possible, not likely but certainly possible.

I think that is what I am looking at here as the problem, something that is likely but not common. I never imagined I would have such freakish bad luck on my first PC build. I guess for every 20 people that get their first builds running no problem, there is someone like me who goes through one thing after another trying to get theirs running, and it ends up taking more than a month to get to the bottom of it.

And Mfenn they originally told me they could test the CPU, but then told me later they have no way to determine it because they don't have an extra board sitting around that supports a next gen Intel Processor.

I think the fact that unplugging the 8 pin socket chord gives me the exact same result as when its plugged in directly points to either the PSU or the CPU. Or its possible the board is bad, but I doubt it because it lights up and gives me a single short beep on start up.

The new CPU will be in Tuesday or Wednesday and I will know for certain if it fixes it. I have almost lost interest in even getting this PC running, if the CPU doesn't fix it then I probably won't be motivated to continue to troubleshoot this any further. Yes I am beyond the point of being frustrated, and am now to the point of losing interest in this project.

Last resort would be that my Mother's friends Husband is a bench tech with over 20 years experience, and that he might be willing to take a look at it. If he can't troubleshoot it then I don't think anyone can. And he wouldn't have any motivation to try and swindle me. I have already had many sets of eyes look over this build just to see if I missed hooking up anything correctly, or if there was a short somewhere.

 

[Chaosblade02]

Turns out it was the CPU the entire time giving me problems. My assumption about a bad board frying the CPU turned out to be right.

I am almost certain that if a computer gives you the same results with the 8 pin connector plugged in as it does with it out that it is either the PSU or the CPU. And PSUs can be tested, if its giving proper current, then it has to be the CPU.

It posted right up after I put the new CPU in and hooked everything back up. Its installing windows right now. I hope this is the end of my hardware issues.....

The board I got has easy smart response setup so I don't see having any problems getting that working. It doesn't require me to install raid drivers via a flash drive. All of my specs in the bios look good, all my fans are working properly, and it recognizes all my drives. Also a much better bios utility with the Gigabyte than with the ASrock board I had. Both graphics cards work, I booted the system up from each one. All my ram is good, 16GB of it.

I don't plan on overclocking my CPU until my PC gets broken in for about a month or 2. With 2 powerful GPUs its unlikely I would need to overclock for gaming.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Mission accomplished!

 

[Chaosblade02]

This EZ smart response setup is misleading, because its not easy at all.

First of all I followed this guide here to the T.

http://download.gigabyte.asia/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_smart-response_e.pdf

And when I open up intel smart storage technology it doesn't give me the option to "accelerate".

Another thing I found odd is my drives are listed in Raid 0, but only show 118GB as being available, when I got a 1TB + a 64GB SSD. And this was the default setting when I switched it over to raid in the bios. And it doesn't explain anything about going into the raid setup.

This just doesn't work, period. Why is it so hard to get this setup? I might have to call quits on this if I follow a guide to a T and still can't get it right. I haven't found any solutions to this by searching.

When I installed the OS, it only had 2 places listed to install the OS, one was a system partition that couldn't be use, and the other was partition 0, only 118MB, it didn't even list the names of the drives. I got over 1TB of drive space, and windows didn't even recognize it after I put it in RAID mode.

I need a more in depth guide, more than the one I posted, because they obviously forgot to list a whole lot of other stuff you have to do to get this working.

 

[mfenn]

OK, so somehow your drives got set to a RAID0. That's the problem. 118GB = 59GB / 2. Remember that like all drives, a "64GB" SSD is not really that big.

You have to have the mobo in RAID mode, but do NOT put the drives in a RAID volume. You need to break the RAID volume in the BIOS and then reinstall Windows to the 1TB drive. Then after Windows is installed, you activate SRT.

 

[Chaosblade02]

OK, so somehow your drives got set to a RAID0. That's the problem. 118GB = 59GB / 2. Remember that like all drives, a "64GB" SSD is not really that big.

You have to have the mobo in RAID mode, but do NOT put the drives in a RAID volume. You need to break the RAID volume in the BIOS and then reinstall Windows to the 1TB drive. Then after Windows is installed, you activate SRT.

I did exactly what you said, but the problem is right after I broke them out of RAID 0, when I go to install windows it won't see my HDD. Did it go bad too? Both the bios and the raid controller still see my HDD.

And I am pretty sure this mobo combined the SSD and HDD by default in the RAID controller, and the official gigabyte instructions failed to say anything about that. I never touched the RAID controller until after I installed windows on it the first time and found out I had the drives in RAID 0.

 

[mfenn]

A couple of things to check:
- Can the Windows installer see your SSD?
- Is the HDD recognized if you plug it into another computer?
- Is the HDD plugged into the same controller as the SSD? (probably is, but can't hurt to check)
- Is the HDD set so that it isn't a member of and RAID volumes?
- Have you put the Intel RST "F6" drivers on a USB device (unzip them first) and loaded them into Windows setup?

 

[Chaosblade02]

Windows recognizes the SSD. And neither drive is a member of a RAID volume.

I have tried every file type, and unhooking the SSD just to see if windows would see the HDD.

And I did install the intel drivers previously, but that doesn't explain why windows can't see my HDD in AHCI, or IDE mode either.

I don't understand how just separating them from RAID 0 can kill a HDD. And it was a brand new one.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you want to make sure that the HD is wiped, such that the "tattoo" information from the RAID controller is gone, then unplug the SSD, plug the HD into a SATA port, and boot off of a DBAN disc. (Set the SATA port to IDE mode before you do this.) Wipe the drive completely, and then attempt to re-install Win7 onto the HD. Set the BIOS to RAID mode before you install Win7. Put the Intel RAID drivers onto a USB flash drive, it may be necessary to get Win7 to be able to see the HD in RAID mode.

 

[mfenn]

If you want to make sure that the HD is wiped, such that the "tattoo" information from the RAID controller is gone, then unplug the SSD, plug the HD into a SATA port, and boot off of a DBAN disc. (Set the SATA port to IDE mode before you do this.) Wipe the drive completely, and then attempt to re-install Win7 onto the HD. Set the BIOS to RAID mode before you install Win7. Put the Intel RAID drivers onto a USB flash drive, it may be necessary to get Win7 to be able to see the HD in RAID mode.

:thumbsup::thumbsup: Good suggestion! The Windows installer might be thinking that the HDD is still part of a RAID volume and refusing to do anything with it.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

mission not accomplished?

 

[mfenn]

mission not accomplished?

Just like Dubya, you landed on that aircraft carrier a little too early.