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New AMD64 system won't work

D

d3nt

Junior Member
Looking for any suggestions here. I bought, among other things, an MSI K8T Neo with a Athlon 64 3200+, some Corsair DDR, and an Enlight case with a 360W PSU from newegg about two and a half weeks ago now.

When I got it in the mail, I put it all together, but the system wouldn't boot. The four LED's on the expander bracket almost always all showed up red. Very occasionally one would show up green for a second or two. According to the manual, all red means damaged or improperly installed CPU. The system was indeed powered, as the CD and HDD spun up, and the fans all went. However, nothing ever happened on video, and the lights just stayed red until I hit the hard power button on the back.

I did the usual troubleshooting things, including unplugging *everything* but the motherboard, CPU, and its fan. That includes the power and data connectors. Hell, I even unplugged the CPU fan for a second to make sure it didn't have a short or something. With nothing but the CPU and mobo in, it should have at least posted and flashed some green at me, but it did not. Of course, I also tried reseating the CPU and mobo a couple times to make that wasn't the problem.

This led me to believe that the culprit was one of: the PSU, the CPU, or the motherboard. Not having any other systems to test the parts on, I just made the assumption that the CPU was bad (it's an AMD, after all) so I RMA'd it.

Today, a week and a half later, I got my replacement CPU from newegg, and slapped her in along with everything else. The system booted, with graphics and all, which made me happy. However, the XP-64 installer freaked out pretty early in, so I rebooted to try again. This time, the system hung in the boot sequence.

I managed to get into the BIOS PC Health screen, and everything looked good there. The CPU temp stayed below 100F, and the voltages all looked okay. However, the health screen eventually hung as well, so I had to hard boot.

A few reboots later, and the system is exactly where it was before I sent the previous CPU back. I just spent a couple hours verifying that, again, either the CPU, motherboard, or PSU are broken.

Now, one would assume that the chance that both CPUs were broken is slim to none. That means the motherboard or PSU are the likely cuprits. What seems really strange to me is how my system's health deteriorated today. I went from a PC that would boot and load up the XP installer to a PC that won't even POST. Does this mean my motherboard is an Athlon killer? Do I now have to RMA both my CPU and the motherboard?

Anyone have any idea what I should do? Is there some incredibly dumb thing I've done that's causing my problems? Will Batman finally admit his secret feelings for Robin?
 
What Corsair modules do you have, and did you remember to plug in your ATX12V secondary power connector? Welcome to the Forums, hope we can help you straighten this out 🙂
 
The memory is 512MB DDR400 Corsair ValueSelect; it came in a twin pack. I should point out that I have tried both DIMMs invidually, and have also tried it with none at all (to see if the system would POST).

As for the secondary power connect, yes, it's in.
 
Next suggestions:
  • Check the rear of the power supply to confirm it's set to the correct input voltage for your area (115 volts or 230 volts as the case may be)
  • If you have front USB cables in your case, unplug them
  • Heck, take the whole motherboard out of the case and lay it on cardboard outside the case as a test surface, like this
  • Try a stick of slow, vanilla memory like Crucial PC2100, if you happen to have some you can use for test purposes. If this works, set the memory voltage to 2.7 volts in the BIOS, save & exit, let it proceed through the next POST so it knows the settings work, then shut down and put in the ValueSelect and see how it likes it at a higher voltage.
  • You can probably buy a new Antec power supply locally, so if you're really desparate, a nice basic Antec SL400 would be something to try. I like Antec a lot (3-year warranty, good support), but Enermax and Fortron are a couple other brands that get good results for people.
Good luck!
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Next suggestions:
  • Check the rear of the power supply to confirm it's set to the correct input voltage for your area (115 volts or 230 volts as the case may be)
  • If you have front USB cables in your case, unplug them
Click to expand...

  • Already done and done.
    [*]Heck, take the whole motherboard out of the case and lay it on cardboard outside the case as a test surface, like this
    [*]Try a stick of slow, vanilla memory like Crucial PC2100, if you happen to have some you can use for test purposes. If this works, set the memory voltage to 2.7 volts in the BIOS, save & exit, let it proceed through the next POST so it knows the settings work, then shut down and put in the ValueSelect and see how it likes it at a higher voltage.
    [*]You can probably buy a new Antec power supply locally, so if you're really desparate, a nice basic Antec SL400 would be something to try. I like Antec a lot (3-year warranty, good support), but Enermax and Fortron are a couple other brands that get good results for people.
    Click to expand...
Good luck!
Click to expand...
[/quote]
Thanks, I'll try that..

However, I just realized something new. I discovered in my mobo manual that the motherboard will "protect the power connection", and that when it does so, it will flash a blinking light on the power LED. I hadn't noticed this before, because I never actually put the front case panel on. Lo and behold, when I attach the front panel, the Power LED is blinking at a 2 second interval per the manual. I guess this means my PSU is by far the most likely culprit.
 
Well, to my surprise, the PSU on this old system I'm typing on now has a ATX secondary power connector and is 300W (good enough according to the motherboard manual). I took it out of the old system and put it into the new system, for no change. This means that either 300W is not good enough (doubtful, since none of the drives were plugged in), or the motherboard just has issues in general. I blame the motherboard. Anyways, still haven't tried taking it out of the case and running it on cardboard.
 
Tested the it all on cardboard with the same results. Guess that means it's not a short to the case. Also tested some old PC2100 memory, same results.

90% sure it's the motherboard now. My biggest concern now is whether my motherboard also killed my new CPU. Newegg ain't gonna like me sending back a second CPU.

Anyways, thanks tons for your help. If you have anything more to suggest, I'm all ears.
 
What about the CPU cooler? If the HSF and CPU aren't in good contact when applying power, you'd get instant overheating, and possible CPU damage.
 
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