Help! New Gigabyte 7VAXP is a no go! No video, power sut off, etc.

[purduealum91]

Well lets just say I am pissed. I spent hours trying to get my newly assembled pc to work. I powered the system on, the drives powered up ((a cdrw set to master, a dvd-rom set to slave (both on ide 2 connector)) and 2 hard drives (one set to master, the other slave (both on ide connector 1)), then nothing. No video. I am using a new Radeon 8500 LE. Damn. Replaced memory (took out elixir PC2100 and replaced with Samsung PC 2700) - nothing. Then I start to smell something burning. Then the power shuts off. I tried to determine the cause of the power supply cut off. I thought maybe I fried the cpu. I took the entire system apart, checked the cpu, reapplied thermal paste and put system back together with the bare min - cdrw, single hard drive, a couple of fans - nothing. power did go back on. i noticed when i took the motherboard out my floppy drive cable has a burn mark on it (it is of the new round type). by the way, everytime i powered up, the access light on the floppy drive never lit up. i am using a new antec 330 watt power supply. i am also wanting to use four case fans.

So, any ideas? Is it a faulty power supply or motherboard or video card? I tried my old Radeon which I know works - nothing. By the way, on the front of the case, I am able to power the unit up buit pushing the same button will not shut it down. I dont think my reset switch worked. I believe I correctly matched all the plus signs on the board with the colored wire for the hard drive led for example.

Help! Thanks!

Tom

 

[mechBgon]

First question: did you get the heatsink on in the right direction? They have a step cut into one end of the base. That step must be over the solid section of the CPU socket that's not covered by the CPU itself or you will be in trouble.

Secondly, you might want to take the board out of the case, double-check that there are no "extra" motherboard supports installed and shorting out the underside of the board, and try operating the board out of the case with just the video card, no drives, to confirm/deny whether it will POST or not. Make sure the video card has made it past not only the first row of contacts in the AGP slot, but also the second row... sometimes motherboards have stiff contacts when they're new, and they fool you.

edit: I also wonder if you got the power cable plugged into your floppy drive upside down. It's not easy to do that, since it's keyed, but it HAS been done before and might spell trouble for your drive, cable and/or motherboard.

 

[purduealum91]

Thanks for the quick reply. I did make sure I placed the heatsink on correctly. I also made sure there are no extra supports.

 

[mechBgon]

What kind of heatsink do you have, would it happen to be a Volcano7? Those come unassembled and it's possible to get the heatsink on properly but then reverse the clip, so I thought I'd mention that notion too.

Of course, it could just be a bad motherboard, period. Or a bad power supply. Do you have any other power supplies that you could try just to test with? Trying the board outside the case still might be worth a shot too.

 

[purduealum91]

i have the heatsink that came with the amd processor - it was purchased at retail

 

[kaolin]

Change the PSU's to another one and tell me what happens but you might be SOL already. If nothing comes after changing psu's check the components to see if anything else was fried.

artout

PS Survivor of a bad Antec PSU