Computer Woes...

[Ellwood]

Hi everyone 1st post here so be gentle.
The other day I decided I was going to build a new computer instead of buying one at Best Buy. So I bought all my components on-line and tried to assemble them on Thursday night. Well we got it all put together and then hit the power switch. The screen that says hit <del> for setup came up and we tried hitting delete but nothing came up so we shut down and started it up again. This time we were greeted with nothing but an orange blinking light on the monitor power on indicator light. The fans are still running, CD opens, LED's are lighting up, but nothing is going to the monitor. My little internal speaker that would send me some sort of information got broken in shipping to me, and I don't want to spend more money in S&H to get a free one than a new one would cost me so I just didn't worry about the speaker, but am en route to get a new one soon. I bought an ASUS a7a 266 mobo, some generic 265 MB's of PC2100 DDR RAM that has the label 256 DDR PC 2100U-25330 on it and a Herculean 64MB SDR graphics card with TV/OUT on it. I am just wondering if anyone has any suggestions/experience to help me trouble shoot this. Getting the speaker is going to be the only way I can get info from the system now I guess. What problems could it be? Would it go to setup screen if the RAM were bad? the video card? We got the setup screen once then nothing now. Well enough with the longwindedness, please post any advice you would have. Oh yeah, its a 1.2gig Athlon too, don't know if that is relevant. Thanks.

[This message has been edited by Ellwood (edited 06-16-2001).]

[Imperion1]

This may sound like a stupid question, but some people have done it.
Do you have a heat sink installed on the cpu?
Also, are you using the pink sticky stuff already on the HS (pull off the plastic), or a thermal paste?

[Yar1182]

Well as you know you need to get into the bios fisrt so let's concentrate on that. I'd start by disconecting all the stuff you don't need first. Just the mobo, proc, mem, video card, and power to the motherboard. Eliminate all factors and see if you can get bios. then add things one or a few at a time like you floppy and hard drive and make sure bios detects it. Let's get that far first.

You may have a bad motherboard

[Ellwood]

I have a fan on it, it has a heat sink on it too I think, bought it from coolerguys, the chrome orb thing. Using the stuff where you peel the tape off. How long does it need to be on for it to overheat? We only had it on for like ~30 seconds.

There is a heat sink looking thing on the mobo, let me try and find a link to a pic of the the mobo if you are not familiar with it. Would shutting it down during it's intial startup be really bad, shouldn't components be made to handle that though?

[This message has been edited by Ellwood (edited 06-16-2001).]

[Ellwood]

Manufacturer's website
http://www.asus.com/products/motherb...266/index.html

Decent pic:

Couldn't find the one I wanted to show you but there is a small flat heat sink looking thing on teh mobo but I don't know if ti serves much of a purpose for the CPU. Thanks for the help... going to get a speaker now.

[Imperion1]

The hs/fan you're talking about is for the northbridge chipset, this will not affect the cpu.

Is the cpu overclocked?
Do you have the cpu settings correct, by the dip switch and jumper on the board? Dip switch sets the multiplier, jumper sets the fsb, either 100 or 133 depending on cpu.
After rechecking every connection, dip switches, and jumpers try booting up.
If it still doesn't boot up, remove all the cards, ram, and cpu.
Check the cpu for bent pins, reinstall if none. Be sure that the hs is on in the proper direction.
Reinstall the ram, make sure its seated good.
Reinstall the graphics card, again make sure its seated good.
Now try rebooting your system.

[MiKe85]

Imperion1:

Very good instructions.

Ellwood:

I would definetely suggest making sure all of the cables/wires are connected entirely.

[Ellwood]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. The A7A 266 has a Jumperfree mode where I set up the ratio's in the BIOS setup. I have it to default settings so when I set it up it will be in the BIOS, I shouldn't have to mess around with DIP switches and jumpers. I am at my parents house now, so when I go back down I wil try doing that tomorrow night, or maybe monday night. Thanks again for all the help.

[Ellwood]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. The A7A 266 has a Jumperfree mode where I set up the ratio's in the BIOS setup. I have it to default settings so when I set it up it will be in the BIOS, I shouldn't have to mess around with DIP switches and jumpers. I am at my parents house now, so when I go back down I wil try doing that tomorrow night, or maybe monday night. Thanks again for all the help. I will let you guys know how it turns out!

[Ellwood]

Well I took out all my components sans the RAM, mobo, vid card, and power supply and tried to run it. It still would not run properly. I took RAM from my friends computer (PC133 which fits in my ASUS A7A 266 mobo) and it would not work still. I unplugged the monitor while leaving it powered on and I got the no signal mesage displayed. I took out the chip and noticed there was a burn mark on the bottom... I don't know if my chip burned up or something but I know I didn't have it on long enough to burn anything up, especially after reading about the guy that had his up to 100 C (or something like that). Since I don't have enough parts to play around with and try all the components independantly I am just going to take it in for a look at a computer place here in town. Hopefully they will say something like oh you got a bad mobo in the mail, all your components are fine though, contact where you got the mobo and have them send you a new one... but this is probably wishful thinking. Thanks for all the help guys, I just don't have the resources to check it out.

[Ellwood]

OK I found out using the mini-chrome orb with the ASUS A7A 266 mobo is a BAD idea. The HSF contacted some of the capacitors and fried the chip. Well I got a new chip and then tried installing windows. The long and short of it is this: It now says floppy drive failed (40) during the startup sequence. What does this mean? I bought a new floppy and tried to put it in but was met with little success, i.e. I still got the same error message. Any ideas?

[daveleau]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck thusfar. I hope you did not have to buy the replacement cpu...

As for the floppy, is the led for the floppy staying on constantly? If so, flip the ribbon cable over and it will work fine.

Good luck
Dave

[headlnr]

The Wide thin cable going from the Floppy to the motherboard is what needs to be fliped.
Unhook the cable from the Floppy Drive and turn the cable over and plug it back into the floppy drive. You should now have a good connection. If you notice the Light on the floppy drive stays on when you turn the computer on and it never shuts off, you didnt do it correctly.

[Ellwood]

How do you mean to flip it over? Invert where it connects to the mobo, or simply flip the connector over while leaving what is attached to the mobo there? Thanks.

OK I realize this makes little sense.
What I mean is do I swap what is connected to the floppy with what is connected to the motherboard or do I simply turn the connector attached to the floppy over 180 degrees, or the connector at the mobo over 180 degrees?

[This message has been edited by Ellwood (edited 06-20-2001).]

[blind to truth]

this might be just a shot in the dark, but sometimes when you assemble a computer from "parts", it may cause incompatibilities. Try switching in different parts as a test. I remember my PC would freeze up because the Hard Drive was too new for it. Der! even after I manually configurized it in the bios it would randomly cause the system to choke after mere seconds of power on.