Please help, I am stuck! Please!

[bluesugar]

Hi guys, let me preface this with a thank you for taking the time to read this. I posted this originally in the mobo forum, but maybe this is better suited here. To begin, a friend from work had asked me to take a look at her boyfriends old (2001) PC because they said it wasn't even turning on. I said I would take a look at it and try to fix it. I recently upgraded my PC and had my old EVGA 680i mobo, intel qx6700 and BFG 8800 GTX GPU card laying around, so I thought it would be nice to just throw in those parts and have her purchase a 600 watt PSU with OCX sli memory (4 gigs), so I could build him a "new" PC for Xmas.

Well that's where the trouble began. First off, the CD/DVD drives and hardrives all use the older conectors (ATAPI?), and the mobo only has one of those slots. so I figured, ok, I will just use the hardrives for now and get it to boot. Next, there isn't all the risers for the motherboard in the case, so there are holes with no screws (I am not sure how bad that is by the way and I can't ask him if he has the rest since it is supposed to be a surprise). So, I install everything, and it posts but doesn't boot. I assume that one of their hardrives is dead as well, and pull out some old drives that I know have a working copy of XP on them (one of them), and it posts and boots. But the mouse doesnt work, so I switch it to another usb slot and reboot.

Now this is where the main problem now lies. I reboot and the monitor starts flashing like the vid card isn't working (i.e. black screen and the power button on the monitor is flashing). Then I try to reboot and I keep getting random post codes (CO, A8, etc not a common occurence relating to the same issue like memory for example). So now I have a motherboard that wont post, and a day wasted, when all I wanted to do was something special for a friend, and it is turning into a nightmare.

I have thought about pulling out one of my sata hard drives from my personal computer that has a working OS on it, and swapping in my known working memory to see if these are the issues. I thought that maybe the power supply was too weak (600 watts should be enough right?) as well. I am at the point where if I can't figure it out I am going to pay my friend at work back the money for the PSU and the memory (both brand new) and give them back their PC with the newer parts and tell her that I couldn't make it happen. Any suggestions based on the story I provided? I am going to go home tonight and try again to make it happen. Thanks!

PS I will be checking this thread all day at work today so I can answer any questions based on my experience yesterday if need be.

 

[juane414]

Well... what kind of PSU do you have? Watts aren't everything you know. There are some high wattage PSUs around that are pretty crappy. To be honest with you it could be anything. However, if the motherboard, CPU, and GPU were all pulled from one of your working systems you can probably safely rule those out as the problem. It could very well be the hard drive, so if you have another one laying around, you should definitely give that a try. Otherwise, you might even want to just try loading a small Linux distro to see if you can get the system to boot. Other than the HDD, I would say the memory or PSU could be the culprit. If both are brand new, its possible that one or both is faulty. Try swapping out different memory sticks if you have some available, or try using one of the OZCs at time to see if one stick is defective. As for the PSU, even expensive and reputable units can be defective. So you might even want to try a different PSU if possible. Finally, make sure the motherboards bios is set to default for everything. If you previously had it in another system with different hardware, maybe some of your old settings are messing it up. Just a thought.

 

[bluesugar]

Thanks for your help!

The PSU is an OCZ, the 600 watt modular one. I got some feedback on the EVGA forums, that the mobo may be shorting out since it is missing some risers. I had working Hard rives installed with XP on one of them and was able to boot into the log in screen. That was as far as I got until I started to have the random post codes and then not being able to post into the bios. I was told to pull the mobo out of the case and try booting it that way to see if it was shorting out. I hate working with so many variables because so many things could be going wrong. I know they are going to have to get a new harddrive so they can use the ATAPI cable for a DVD drive anyway, and they aren;t made of money. I am not sure at what point it is going to be too much hassle and I shouldreturn the money and the parts and admit defeat. BTW I also used the jumper to clear the bios and pulled the battery and let it sit for about 20 minutes. Still no luck.

 

[Kendle6661]

well what I would do is remove the motherboard from case. install only the video card and memory then power it on but shorting the 2 pins for the power switch to see if the motherboard is shorting somewhere on the case. then get into bios and set it to default. After that I would slowly start adding the HD and dvd drives to see if any are bad

 

[juane414]

Yea, it shouldn't be shorting just because of a few missing risers, but running it outside of the case with only the ram and GPU is a good idea. One time a fan was shorting out my system because the prongs on the LED lights attached to the fan were contacting the metal of the case. Who would have thought? If you can post with just the ram and the GPU then you know those aren't the problem, which probably means you have a short in somewhere in the rest of the system. Could be a hard drive, optical drive, fan, etc...

Running the the motherboard, CPU, ram, and GPU outside of the case should definitely be your next step.

 

[bz2klag]

Don't worry, this almost always happens when you're trying to do something nice for someone.

As others have posted, when this stuff happens you have to strip it down to the minimal needed to post (CPU RAM VID), verify that works out of the case. If needed, re-insert the RAM to ensure a good tight fit. Add stuff back one at a time.

 

[bluesugar]

Thanks guys! I talked them into buying a new case, sata HDD and DVD burner, so hopefully all will work when it comes. Thanks for the input!

 

[bluesugar]

Hokay, now I am ****ed. I received the new case, dvd burner and hard-drive, and install everything. But now when I try and boot, I can't get past the -- code. I pulled one stick of memory in an effort to try and find the problem, and was able to get it to cycle to a C1 code, and then it hung again. When I rebooted it weant back to --. I swapped in my working memory and no go. I am at my wits end, and it is getting expensive. I am not sure if the motherboard is faulty, or if I killed the CPU somehow. The PSU is a 600 watt OCZ, and everything powers up when I turn it on, so I don't think there isn't enough juice. I have tried to boot with just the mobo and the psu and no go,down from removing things like hard drives and GPU one at a time. I don't know if I should buy another mobo and try that? I can't pull the PSU from my current PC because it is behind water cooling and I am not going to rip apart my working PC to swap the PSU.

I am at the point where I can a) buy a new mobo and try to get it to work, and if that doesn't work maybe buy another CPU or b) try a better PSU? These people dont have a ton of money to spend and this is becoming a money pit. What do you guys think? Maybe I should pay them back the 310 dollars and wash my hands of this before I spend now some of my own money to get a new mobo and retry the whole damn thing.

 

[OnDborder]

I'm sorry if I missed it, but did you clear/reset the cmos?

 

[bluesugar]

All the usual mehods, including pulling the battery and jumping the mobo. Well, it turns out after looking at the bottom of the board that there was a short as there were signs of electrical damage, and one of the transistor thingies underneath the CPU was brittle / snapped off. So it looks like a new mobo.

 

[juane414]

Don't sink a lot of money into a nice SLi board unless this is going to be overclocked and used for gaming. Just get them something inexpensive that works. Now that you've hopefully narrowed the problem down to the motherboard, you could save them money by returning the case, hdd, or dvd drive if you have used alternatives that they don't need to pay for.

Either way, assuming you get a new motherboard and charge them $400, that's still an awesome deal for a quad core cpu and 8800gts. Nice gift