need help; new system won't even make it to BIOS

[kef7]

I'm trying to build a system with a gigabye 6WMMC7 mobo (810E chipset). The mobo is either a system pull or refurb so that in itself might be the problem.

Anyways, so far it won't even boot to BIOS-- speaker doesn't make a sound so no beep codes indicating something wrong.

Hard drive and cd-rom seem to initiate after power-up, but then nothing.

Hooked up to the mobo is: (mobo is REV4.0, also has a assem E-1 marking on it)
floppy, cd, hard drive
256mg mem (also tried 128mg)
533 celeron (i think the old style ppga which MOBO should support?)
monitor and speakers via the onboard video and sound
keyboard and mouse

I have done some messing around with the jumpers (fsb speed--auto detect and 66mhz; clear cmos--clear and normal; safe mode--normal, safe, and recovery) but nothing seemed to help. Would the system not boot if the battery was dead?


Any suggestions?

thanks in advance,
kef7

 

[kef7]

nevermind, didn't have the CPU lever all the way down. now at least it gets a little further before it hangs!

kef7

 

[kef7]

well, it is gets to a splash screen which says "SYSTEMAXtm" and "press tab to show POST screen, DEL to enter SETUP. Neither tab nor del does anything.

On my first email prior to discovering I didn't have the CPU seated I had adjusted jumpers related to the 3 safes modes and also the jumper to clear CMOS. Could that now be causing my system to hang even though it previousily hadn't booted very far due to the CPU issue???

I have downloaded the newest BIOS from the gigabyte and want to install it...

WAIT a minute!!! I let the system just hang at the splash screen and it finally started to boot; that must have been at least 20 minutes!!

It is now displaying a POST screen but has some message I don't understand:
Updating ESCD........Success
Verifying DMI Pool Data..........Success
Can someone clue me in to what those mean?

Now it seems to be hanging again because there is no OS on harddrive and no cd in drive. I put in a 98SE boot disk but it seems to have locked or is really slow. I'll reboot with the bootdisk in and see what happens.

Sorry for the rambling post. Hopefully I'll be able to boot to DOS and flash the BIOS. My guess is that this Sytemax splash screen means some type of proprietary BIOS which is causing the long boot time.

kef7