Help Pleae with new motherboard

[alguzman]

Hi everyone,

I need some help with placing my new mother board into the towercase. I have a AsusA7v333 motherboard and want to place it into the towercase. I read about mounting it on standoffs then screw in the motherboard on the standoffs. They say to take out the mounting tray from the case.

The case I have, the mounting try does not come off. I just mounted the motherboard on it and screwed it in.

Do I have to use standoffs or is does my case allow me not to use the standoff screws? I'm new to building pcs so any help would be great. Thanks.

PS I don't know what brand the case is and it is not marked anywhere on the case either. I purchased the tower case at a pc show.

[Ammok]

As long as it is fixed securely, and not loose, your mobo shoulb be fine. The spacers or standoffs might help with airflow but not much else, if you look closey at the thro holes you should see that they are plated to make electrical contact with case screws etc and could be used to ground those points to the case.

My tower is a no-name five bay and my msi mobo sits directly on top of the chassis, no spacers.

[alguzman]

Thanks for the info. Here's a new question.

I put in the morhterboard Asus A7V333. Connected the power supply and the HD etc... Try to power it up and nothing. I know the Power Supply works because I just purchased it and tested it with the ATX Powersupply tester and everything was ok.

I get no power going to the board.. Any thing I should try...

[Ammok]

How do you know there is no power to the board?

In your mobo, before you oput any power in, you should have a video card, memory sticks, cpu, and you can even leave out the floppies and hard drives and it will still POST, Power On Self Test.

but as everything is new I would also connect up the hard drives and floppies and cd roms.

Your ATX supply should just plug straight into the board. you better have a heatsink and fan on that cpu or your going to be sorry.

What should happen is this, fans should come on proving power supply is at least giving out power, the leds on the cd rom should go on and the hard drive leds should go on. Now you should hear a single beep and the POST screen should already be on your monitor.

[AllGamer]

i agree with Ammok

and there's really no need to take the whole case apart

unless your hands are waaaay too big, and you don't have a skinny hand, then there's no need to unscrew it all apart to just put the mobo over

everytime i setup a new mobo, i do it with the case on and evertying.

:t

[deadkenny]

So let me get this straight. You've installed your mobo into the case without standoffs? That does not sound like a good start to me. Are you sure that the backside of the mobo isn't making contact with the case at any point? Before you do anything else I would suggest that you remount the mobo using standoffs. It might already be too late if you've tried to power it up as you might have fried something.

[alguzman]

How do you know there is no power to the board?

The AsusA7V333 has a little green light on the mobo that indicates it is getting power from the power supply. You don't need the monitor hooked up. If the green light lights up then the mobo is getting power.

deadkenny wrote:
It might already be too late if you've tried to power it up as you might have fried something.

I took out the mobo and found a burnt spot on the under side of the board.

It is fried :( My mistake I believe is that the mobo supports AGP Pro 1.5v card and I installed a AGP 3.3v card. I'm home now and the computer with the parts are at work so I have to double check to see if the Video card is 3.3v connector. That is the only mistake I can think of other than not using standoffs. Expensive mistake...**** i'm pissed
:mad:

Looks like I have to buy another board. Thanks for all your replies.

:(

[rlpos]

Lets see if I understand this. You bolted the board to the case with out standoffs. Does this mean you bolted it straight to the mounting plate with the underside of the board actually made contact to the case( you know all of those little solderd joints could have been grounded out). and the advice was to do this. I may be under a mis-conception here but I thought the stand-offs were to keep the bouard from grounding out on the case. If I am wrong someone please explain how I could have mis-conscrewed this theory all of this time.

[alguzman]

I learned a very expensive lesson. If I was sure not to mount the motherboard without standoffs I would have never posted a question in this forum.

I'm new to building and the motherboard manual does not really get into detail on how to mount your board.

That's why you try and learn for yourself. lesson learned and will never make that mistake again.:t

[deadkenny]

Originally posted by alguzman
...
I took out the mobo and found a burnt spot on the under side of the board.

It is fried :( My mistake I believe is that the mobo supports AGP Pro 1.5v card and I installed a AGP 3.3v card. I'm home now and the computer with the parts are at work so I have to double check to see if the Video card is 3.3v connector. That is the only mistake I can think of other than not using standoffs. Expensive mistake...**** i'm pissed
:mad:

Looks like I have to buy another board. Thanks for all your replies.

:(

Actually the problem is likely that you installed the board without standoffs and, as I suggested, the back of the mobo made contact with the metal case and shorted out.

[Ammok]

My msi bolts straight on to the chassis. There are six screw holes all made of brass the mobo screws into. No spacers came with the case. however, none of the backside of the board touches the casing, there is at least a gap of of about five mm between the back of the mobo and the casing it self.

I am truly sorry if my attempt to help you has cost you this board, because as is stated if the solder points on the back of the board were laid on a conductiver surface they would all short out.

But I have never seen a case where you can do this, they all without fail have a minimum of the the brass studs on them to take a variety of board formats and yes I have seen the ones with additional spacers to raise the board level. If you you can put your finger between the board and the case it can't have shorted out. But if on the case is the same mark as as the board then deadkenny is right.

I am really very sorry if I have cost you this board. It is not a good idea to put a 3.3v drain onto a 1.5 supply as this could cause the exact same damage. Not trying to get out of it, if what I said was wrong, email me an address and I shall try to assist with a small donation to new board.

[TARP2]

I 'm building a case with that same board right now.
Before you panic try these few things.
Be sure to use the standoffs, 3 or 4 are enough.
Don't tighten the mounting screws past finger tight.

You may not have fried the board, I'm guessing it was just grounded, and it won't post that way.

Make sure you have the front case connections on correctly. The power switch & the reset switch & the speaker are all we need right now. Double check you are on the correct pins. The manual has a pretty good illustration, but it takes some close scrutiny.

As was previously mentioned , make sure the HSF is seated, and plugged into the cpu fan conn.

I needed to reseat my Graphics card very firmly, so check that. Put in one stick of ram.

With the Psu unplugged from 110v, remove the battery, and short the two small pins(cmos) with a screwdriver for a few seconds(see manual for location). Reinstall batt, plug it in an give it a try. I hope this helps.

Tarp

[AllGamer]

i doub't it's your suggestion that killed the mobo

since i mount all my mobos without those brown circle things too.

as long as your main 6 screw slots are using those brass (usually) screws then it's good

and yes it was ment for that for grounding. (as far as i know since way back in 286, XT)

so i think it might have been due the Power OVERLOAD in the AGP (re: 1.5v vs 3.3v)

That charred burned out spot he was refering to, was that anywhere near the AGP or aproximately where it was located?

[Roy Wilkins]

ammok, youre such a nice person to volunteer yourself. Im proud of you & salute is what I can offer. ;)
ps; If your a girl ,Iwould like to meet you, if you dont mind:-@

[AlexGee]

Long time ago I killed a board this way, first PC I built by myself, I just didn't know you couldn't screw the thing directly into chassis -I had a burn spot too, the board was dead

[alguzman]

ammok please don't worry about it. I have a happy ending.

I called Asus and they informed me that I had a two year warrenty on the board. I was not aware of that since I purchased the board at a PC show in New Jersey and the company that sold me the board did not mention to me about a warrenty. Anyway they said to send them the board and they will either try to fix it or send me another one free of charge.

Also don't feel guilty because I had already mounted the board a couple of days before I posted the question. So I shorted the board way before you gave me any advice.

I'm real glad I'm a member of sysopt because you guys/girls were so helpful. Thanks Ammok and the rest of those that replied.:p

[AllGamer]

hey that's sure is good news
at least in 2 weeks time you'll get a new mobo back :)

[Ammok]

If I was a girl would I have an avatar like this? Come to think of it, If I looked like this I would take myself out.:)

I'll make sure I understand the question next time. (I hope):eek:

[Roy Wilkins]

All this time I thought that was you in avatar, I heart fell for it. lol:x