2nd PC build... Help please it's not booting!

trogdor

trogdor

New member
Hey guys,
I built my first PC last year, an athlon 2100+ etc. from newegg and all went well.

However, I bought some parts off of newegg this week to upgrade my little brothers machine and I'm having some trouble. He had a 600mhz emachines pc from best buy...
So we replaced the motherboard, processor, and ram, and basically plugged everything back in. The only difference was the power switch/led cable from the front panel. It was a different configuration from what was on the biostar motherboard that I bought. So I ripped out the two wires from the 'power' button and plugged them into the right pins since he didn't really care about the power LED's.
I connected everything and put in the processor (athlon 2100+) and it booted the first time to windows (i didn't format the HD beforehand) and started installing all of the hardware for the mobo.
It wasn't seeing the CD drives, so I tried to get into BIOS but all i got at boot was a BIOSTAR splash screen and then it booted to windows (there was no "hit F2 to enter setup").
Anyway, I got it completely booted to windows and it was working, until I rebooted it once more (after all of that hardware was installed) and then at the splash screen i started hitting all of the "F" keys to see if one would take me to BIOS. bad idea. The system just froze. And then when I manually turned it off and then on, it didn't even post anything.

Now when I turn it on, the cpu fan starts, the cd drives and hard drive start whirring, and it basically makes like it's on. However, the monitor doesn't even blink (let alone make that click that acknowledges that you've turned on your pc).

Is there any probability that I fried (or got a faulty) something?

I tried the manual but it's absolutely terrible. If anybody can help me with this that would be wonderful.

[edit]

i forgot to mention that I also put in a new power supply. It is an emachines micro atx case, and only had a 120w supply, so I stuck in a 200w one that I figured would be sufficient, along with 512mb DDR RAM.

trog
 
nope, no beeps... The old one beeps. What is the significance of the beep?

everything just starts powering up...but nothing comes up on the monitor.

I'm trying to rule out what the problem might be.

Would it power up like this if the motherboard was bad?

Would it still power up even if the CPU was bad?

the memory?

That was basically all I put in...

Oh yea, it also has onboard video, for which it installed drivers the one time that it booted. It also installed drivers for the pci video card that my brother installed. so there were two video cards. tried plugging the monitor into both, but got nothing.

Could the system still be posting, but not coming out of the video card for some reason?

and what are some tests I can conduct to determine if anything is bad?
 
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The heatsink on the processor is still heating up which would seem to indicate that the CPU is still working right?


I read a few reviews on newegg of people who had to RMA their motherboards (some for my model as well). But I want to determine for sure what the cause of the problem is before I do that.

Is it still possible to boot to BIOS without memory and cpu installed on the motherboard? Or do you need at least a cpu? I would like to test the mobo somehow.

Sorry for the lack of knowledge...it went a lot more smoothly on my last build!
 
As usual, make sure all connections are tight. I suppose you could've stumbled on something that alters some bios settings, but dunno. Try taking the battery out of the board and letting it sit for a while without it.. or enabling the cmos reset jumper. Then reinstally the battery or set the cmos jumper back to normal. If it's an n-force baord I think all Nforce boards can be booted at default fsb speeds by holding the insert key while powering it on. If you get it to post again, getting into the bios is done by hitting the delete key.
 
I recently had a similar problem

I upgraded the BIOS for my PC

Rebooted (I did the upgrade in the OS with my MOBOs bios updater.

Windows loaded everything was okay- rebooted one more time just for whatever.

The system started but the monitor didn't recieve any data, I'd turn off the monitor and back on and it would say 'shutting off in 5' (when my monitor goes to stand by it brings up the 5 sec warning)

I restarted the machine same thing.

I turned off the PC opened the case and took out the battery and turned the system on- tada it's back on everything checks.

Now...can I turn off the PC, put the battery back in and load successfully?

I test it, turn off, put in battery, press power- ah ha success!!!

No problems since then, I tried a lot of things before I pulled the battery out, even changed out my Graphics card for my last one- that obviously didn't work.

Whenever it comes to doing stuff to the MoBo be ready for some sort of pain in the ass.
 
The beep or beeps you hear when you power on the PC is the power on self test (P.O.S.T.). If you don't hear any beeps, something is wrong. Otherwise the series of beeps you hear is a code to tell you the status of the system. The manual should help you decipher the code.

If you now have no video, you've got problems (if you didn't already know). I would remove all the PCI cards except the video card, reseat the processor and RAM, manually reset the bios to the default settings(there should be a jumper on the mobo to do this), and power back on. Try the delete key to enter system bios. Doesn't the manual even tell you what key to hit for bios? If you still get no beeps and no video you've got a bad mobo or processor assuming you've installed everything correctly.
You might want to verify that video card in another machine first just to make sure that it's not the culprit. A defective PCI card of any sort could cause the system not to boot.


Twist
 
Thanks for the help everybody...

I tried resetting bios to no avail, and tested the other components too...and still no beeps from the motherboard. I decided to just get an RMA and send it back to Newegg for a replacement since they are apparently pretty good about that sort of thing.

got my fingers crossed...
 
yeah- the delete key should get you into the BIOS. I allways install the bare minimum stuff to make th puter run when i build until i get a stable boot and OS runnin. That means no PCI cards, if you have onboard video- use it until you get a solid boot- leave out modems network adpaters etc. that you dont need to start and install an operating system- Once you get a solid runnin machine "upgrade" all that other stuff- ...install your soundcard etc.

Good luck to you sir
 
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