newly-built PC won't boot!!!

[elgilicious]

I built a computer with the components in my signature below--except that the RAM was crappy generic stuff. With the mobo, hard drive, fans, video card, and monitor connected, I turned on the PC. The fans spun, but the power LED would not turn on and there was no video on the monitor, which I know is operational. I was told by tech support that my PC Chips motherboard is picky about the RAM brand used in it, so I upgraded to Samsung.

Either the RAM, the video card, or the motherboard are causing this problem, and I've acted on the RAM possibility. What do you think is wrong with my set-up?

Also, how can I get the power LED to light up when the mobo only has two pins for that wire and the power LED wire has three holes?

Finally, what should my system bus setting be for the Athlon XP 2100+ processor? 100 or 133?

[smily_03]

Hi, and welcome to Sysopt! :t

Ok, first things first. The Athlon XP 2100+ will run at a bus speed of 133MHz DDR (hence the theoretical 266MHZ bus speed, it can perform operations twice per cycle (technical stuff but you dont need to worry about that.))

Since it is a new system, I would try doing the following:
first, clear the CMOS. this way if there is any settings in there from testing at the factory, etc., they will be cleared out, and you can set what you want when you get in the BIOS. This can be accomplished by changing the position of a jumper somewhere on the motherboard.

I would also try booting the system only with the mobo, video card, and one stick of RAM. Preferrably using known good components but I know that's not possible.

As for the power LED, it is easy to get them reversed. Double check to make sure that it isn't hooked up backwards, as LED's will only emit light when hooked up correctly. Generally, the three-pin setup is correct; they will have a positive, negative, and no/contact form (eg. +0- ) with a blank spot (eg. no connection) in the middle.

Give those a shot and let us know what does and doesn't happen...

Good luck!

[elgilicious]

Are you saying I should just use the 133 jumper and let the internal multiplier determine itself, so to speak?

Also, I ordered Samsung RAM. Do you think that will allow the system to boot up? The manual said that it was "tested" with Samsung RAM...

To clear the CMOS, do I just move the jumper from "normal" to "clear CMOS" and then turn the computer on?

Regarding the power LED, how do I determine which way the little label on the plug should face? Also, how do I fit a three-hole wire into a two-prong connector? Should I contact the motherboard manufacturer? Finally, if I reverse one wire, should I reverse them all?

Please help! I have to build this **** thing before college starts in August :(

[TiGgErDbC]

I think it will be up and runnign before collage ;)

but if you borad waiting for more post, check out my thred 3-4 down.. same problem last ngiht!!!!

try when you boot up taking your mobo out of your case! and put it on liek you mobo box or something that does not conduct electricity... then do it with your cpu ram and vid card..... thats where i would start.... but good luck to you

and i have a question for anyone who knows... k for the 266 mobo, the fsb is 133..... but what abotu the 333, in my thread i set my fsb to 166.... witch i know know is way to much.. btu how does it run at 333 then??? when the fsb is 133?

[elgilicious]

hahahah, yeah I read your post...misery sure loves company ;)

Right now I'm just going to wait for my Samsung RAM to come in. That should fix my boot up problem given all the things I've heard and/or read. I could care less about a light whose color I don't even like (blue is better, heheh) and a speaker I won't even use (I'll get my sound from a SB Audigy Platinum).

I've been told that multipliers set themselves automatically in BIOS. If you set to 100, the BIOS might set to 3.3. Of course, you could always tamper with the processor, but I can't even get my **** thing to start so I don't recommend it :)

smiley_03, what could you suggest in our dilemmas?

[TiGgErDbC]

well yes the prosseser has a multiplyer, but you can't change it.... UNLESS, you tamper.. and i heard tampering with the XP AMD's is a little difficult.... anyways, yes you want your fsb to 133, cause then your multiplyer will make your cpu run at the 2100 rating.. sorry if i sound confusing. lmao. anyways, if you set your fsb to 100, witch will run... your multiplyer will be the same if you fsb is 133, so you will probably lose about350 mHz.... (**** can't rmember the Mhz of the 2100 or i would be more clear in what i'm saying)....

but why dont you take your mobo out of your case and try that instead of waiting for yoru ram and being stuck in the sam senerio>????

[elgilicious]

It's okay, I understand what you said. I set the jumper correctly after all.

I already sent the RAM chip to the company for exchange. When I get it back, I'll run it out of the case--but what good would that do?

What should I do about my "power LED" and "speaker" black wires? I can actually work with those now and maybe alleviate the number of problems I have.

[smily_03]

(multi-post answer)

elgilicious:

I do think that, initially at least, you should set the FSB jumper at 133MHZ; it's best to use the defaults when you're starting out with a new computer thatj's giving trouble. That way you can rule out incompatabilities with the system settings as what's giving you trouble.

It may, or may not, solve your problems by using Samsung RAM. Yes, sometimes systems can be very particular about what grade of RAM is installed, and it is generally better to stay away from the generic stuff, especially in today's high-performance systems. And since your board was tested with Samsung and (I'm assuming) that it's recommended by the mobo maker, it'd be a good bet.

To clear the CMOS, you'll move the jumper from "normal" to "clear cmos", wait a couple of seconds, then back to "normal". This can also be accomplished by removing the battery for a while (generally about 30 minutes to an hour).

[smily_03]

Continued:

In my experience, the label on the lead for the LED's generally goes toward the top of the motherboard, although there are exceptions to this. There should be a diagram in your motherboard manual which explains which pin is positive, and which is negative. If you need to rearrange which holes the wires go into on the connector, I've found a sharp thumbtack is useful for holding up the little plastic clip on the connector long enough so you can pull the wire out. As long as the other things such as the hard drive LED and the speaker are working correctly, you shouldn't need to reverse them if you end up needing to reverse the power LED. With things such as the power switch and reset switch, it generally does not matter how they are hooked up as long as the right pin is getting the right wire.

When you clear the CMOS, it sets the motherboard to "non-optimized" defaults. For example, on my system it detects that I have an Athlon XP, and sets the CPU frequency for a 1500+ processor, which is the lowest XP CPU that there is. This gives it the right voltage and bus speed settings for my processor. Then I can go into the BIOS and load optimized settings, and it then sets up for an 1800+, which my system is.

Sending your RAM back can be a good idea; in one case fairly recently I had a stick of Crucial DDR SDRAM go bad and my system wouldn't even post, even though there was another good DIMM in the system. I removed the bad RAM, and it booted fine. a quick RMA and I was back in business.
Running your computer with the MOBO out of the case can let you check for several problems that can show up when you run it in your case. First of all, it keeps the strain of being screwed down off of the motherboard. If it is slightly warped, screwing the mobo down tight can mess with the tiny little connections on the board. It also eliminates the possibility of the board being grounded in the wrong place (eg. if a screw hole isn't lining up correctly and is touching an adjacent area it shouldn't be).

The little speaker in your case is basically just for your POST beeps. This is used when your system has a problem that won't allow the video card to display text error messages or codes, that way the system can communicate what the problem is.

As for DDR333 RAM, it has two different issues here. The first is when used on a system that doesn't officially support DDR333 RAM, it is good for overclocking and stable at higher bus speeds. A lot of the time, memory won't cope well with higher bus frequencies that result from overclocking a system, and higher speed DRAM eliminates this problem.

As for if your system supports the DDR333, it is enabled by changing the multiplier settings with your BIOS. In general, the base bus frequency on systems is that of the PCI local bus, which runs at 66.6 MHz by default (non-oc'd). For example, my system, which runs PC2100 DDR memory and a non-oc'd Athlon XP, runs with a system multiplier of 4:4:1 (CPU:Memory:PCI). This takes the base PCI bus frequency of 66.6 MHz and multiplies it by each of those multipliers to get its running frequency. To get the bus frequency for the CPU, it takes the 66.6MHz and multiplies it times the first multiplier of four in the trio to get the 266 MHz CPU bus frequency (66.6 x 4 = 266). For memory, it does the same thing, except with the second multiplier (66.6 x 4 = 266). In the case of 333 MHz DDR memory, this multiplier would instead be 5 (eg. a system multiplier of 4:5:1 (CPU:Mem:PCI)). This results with the memory frequency of 333 MHz (66.6 x 5 = 333).

Hope that clears up the whole memory speed frequency question. Also note that, unless your system supports the 333 MHz memory, or your system is oc'd, you won't see any performance improvements using 333 MHz memory over 266 MHz memory, because the memory will actually be running at 266 MHz. It would be the same thing as running an Athlon XP 2100+ in a system that only supports an Athlon XP 1500+: even though the potential is there, it won't be realized because the system doesn't support it.