I call upon the WC gurus for this!!!

OK, this has been happening since I took off my Exos-2. I've JUST gotten a Laing D5, BIXII, Micro res, A8N32, and 7900 GTX. Kept my storm but took off the NV-68 from the loop. Installed everything, cut a hole on top of my p180 for the BIX mounted and the connected everything else. Leak tested for 24 hours and excitedly proceeded to put in the new mobo.

I plugged it all in, double checked connections and prepared to start my new beast. Rubbed my hands and turned it on with a big smile..... Nothing. The fans and pump turn on, I hear the minor sloshing sound of trapped air in the storm (only way I know that water is flowing). But no display, no sounds of HDs spinning up and no beeps from my rig telling me something is wrong. Well, ok I thought. Maybe I forgot a cable. Double checked again. Nope everything is fine connection wise.

Disgruntled, I disconnected everything except the water system and tossed the board on the bench and began to check everything. Caps, signs for water and the usually. Everything checks fine I tossed the stock fan on and boom. POST screen shows up. OK. Put everything back in reinstalled everything including storm. Again, no boot.

OK... Put the stock fan on while mobo is in the case. and again. Up pops the A8N32 slash screen with a big smile. How could the storm cause my whole system not to boot? Is it possible for the pump to cause a small short to not allow it to happen? I've been trying to figure this out for the past week and I'm about to give up . I've went as far as to buy a new CPU and PSU thinking they might be the problem but thats not the case. I don't want to give up on watercooling cause once summer comes I plan on getting an 8800 and I've heard they put out a huge amount of heat and being in a desert during summer I can't afford it to have that fry on me.

Any and all suggestions welcome.

as far as I can tell it's not directly about WC, from what you tell us it's more in case Vs caseless, there is probably a problem with grounding. Maybe caused by backplate, standoff pins and such...

EDIT: NVM Thanks Tekko for the advice. Yuo are my new Best friend of the week... Next to Electrical tape, Duct tape and Dr. Scholl's Gel soles

Did you disable the CPU fan failure shut down mode in the BIOS?

My second WC rig also had a crazy grounding issue like that, I ended up ditching the case/project. What did you end up doing that fixed it?

Springbok said:

My second WC rig also had a crazy grounding issue like that, I ended up ditching the case/project. What did you end up doing that fixed it?

Click to expand...

Taped up the backplate, standoffs and behind the backplate (for extra measures) with electrical tape.

Back to the drawing board. Had it running while i was at work today. Came home, it was still running figured "Alright. lets close up the case and put it all back together." Did that went to turn it back on and once again... No POST, no boot. If its the standoffs causing it to ground out, what can i use to seperate the board from the case?

I cannot see possibly how the standoffs (or the backplate for that matter) can be grounding the motherboard. You could always get some plastic standoffs to use if you want to try that. The more likely culprit is a bad wiring connection somewhere when you mount the motherboard. I would take a voltmeter and check all of my molex connectors and the MB power connectors to make sure they are getting the proper voltages.

Also, since you didn't reply to the question, did you disable the CPU fan monitor in the BIOS?

Another thing to check for would be to make sure that your CPU waterblock is not bowing your MB when you have it mounted. A CPU waterblock that is mounted way too tight may be able to bow the MB and cause an issue like this.

When I was able to get it to post the first hing I did was make sure to turn off the fan monitor just to make sure that wouldn't be a probelm later.

I thought maybe it would have been a bad PSU but it happens to 2 that I have.

I use the stock backplate to mount the WB (didn't think it would work but it does )

I don't have a voltmeter, maybe I'll pick one up this weekend. it seems to only happen in the case though except last night all day today til I decided to move it. Out of case it will do fine.

I'll have to dig out my old case and see how that does. We'll see tomorrow...

Except for the case I have the same set-up as you're trying. I don't see how it could be the stand-offs either, or the back plate - both worked as expected.

Try running the stock cooler inside the case. If it boots once try moving things a little and try again to make sure all the connections are tight. Be sure to check the RAM and video card seating.

What did you do with the 7900 GTX when you had the MB out?

batboy said:

Did you disable the CPU fan failure shut down mode in the BIOS?

Click to expand...

I still have not seen a response to this - I know my Abit board squeals like a pig if no fan is connected - no boot either... I have to put a fan on and go on the bios to disable it...

ctrl_alt_del_ said:

I still have not seen a response to this - I know my Abit board squeals like a pig if no fan is connected - no boot either... I have to put a fan on and go on the bios to disable it...

Click to expand...

I have disabled it and my mobo doesn't beep or anything saying that it cannot detect a fan. The thing is it works fine out of the case but once its screwed on the case it doesn't even go to POST. fans, pump and mobo light is on but thats it.

do you have fibre washers installed between your standoffs/screws and your mb?? that might help as well

Neither of my boards has fiber washers and everything is fine here. Man, I haven't used those things in a looong time.




Have you tried the stock cooler in the case?

Did you use the 7900 GTX when it was out of the case?

QuietIce said:

Have you tried the stock cooler in the case?

Did you use the 7900 GTX when it was out of the case?

Click to expand...

Yes and yes. Stock cooler works fine, its just when i have the storm on there when its in the case it doesn't boot right. Maybe I'll just run it out-of-case till I can find my old case or buy a new one next week. This stumps me though.

Next time you "boot up" try wiggling the vid card a little bit. Maybe the tubing or something is pushing down on it a little too far so it's not making good contact in the horizontal position.

Just tossing out ideas ...

I don't have any of the tubing touching the vid card. But I'll try anyway.

QuietIce said:

Just tossing out ideas ...

Click to expand...

Any constructive idea that postpones my idea of just taking a hammer to it is welcomed.

Is the backer plate behind the cpu metal? Maybe the extra mounting force is causing a short.

Another thing to try is plugging in your cpu fan even though the waterblock is mounted on the cpu and cooling it...just to check and make sure that the bios is reading your setting right (or there's another setting to change).
You could use any 3 wire fan, maybe use it to cool your ram or power mosfets a little extra.

Last thought...have you tried powering your water loop even though the fan/heatsink is cooling the cpu? A weak power supply might be having fits under the increased load of the pump and rad fans.

Hope that helps, and hope ya get it running.

The back play is metal, though I've got that wrapped in electrical tape as well as the area behind it on the tray. Also have tried with the fan on while the block is on. that was a no go. right now i have it running caseless. I'll probably leave it be until i can pull my old case from storage this weekend

Eh, it was worth a shot. I don't trust those metal plates at all. If mine were metal, I'd laminate it in fiberglass because the points on the back of a mobo can get pretty gnarly. Tape isn't much of a defense.

Looks cooler that way anyway...in a rebel sort of way.