brand new hardware... dead

[Longlynx]

Hi guys,

abit bh7
Pentium 4 2.53G
1 gb pc 2700 ddr dimms (crucial, two 512's)
ATI radeon 9000 vivo
Q-tec 400w dual fan psu
All brand new outta the box

Assembled,
fitted heatsink and fan to processor, connected fan power
usb header not connected (as per Bills sticky thread)
The above mentioned components only, were installed. No drives cd floppy etc.

Powered her up, fine!
Went into bios to check settings
Screen locked/froze
Reset pc
No boot, no post, no bios beep.
LED's on mobo indicate power good
Tried other psu
Tried without graphics card
Re-seated memory
Cleared CMOS
Tried with one memory stick, then the other
Removed mobo from chassis, checked for bad grounding

disconnected keyboard, removed graphics card, tried totally bare boot, psu mobo proc and ram, listened for beep

nada

Processor fried? memory, bios?

damned if i know

Im gonna try to test the proc and ram in anothr p4 board, but it'll be a couple of days before i can do that. Any ideas or suggestions in the meantime would be welcome.

Frustrated
>>Longlynx<<

[Midknyte]

are you sure you put the brass standoffs in the right positions? only put in the ones to match the holes on the motherboard. if you put in any extras under the board, it will short out the motherboard.

did you make sure to plug in both the main 20pin atx and 4 pin atx12 connectors?

[Longlynx]

Checked standoffs, both psu connectors attached.
>>Longlynx<<

[Midknyte]

**** you edited a lot. next time, just finish the post first. hehe

do you get power at all? could be a bad power supply. if not that, then probably mb.

[Longlynx]

Sorry about that, posting from an older comp, its a bit slow. I had clicked a couple of times and posted by mistake before i had finished writing. Darned slow machine!

Anywho, thanks for the reply, further suggestions welcome.

>>LonglynX<<

[Longlynx]

Tested my processor and ram in another machine (thanks Paul - er, you're not going to blow up my computer are you?)

Processor and ram are fine, tried another PSU on the BH7 board,
same story. Looking like the board or the BIOS.

Since the board wont even post i can't re flash the EPROM.

If i program the EPROM externally on an S4 Dataman with a PLCC adapter using the .bin file from Abit, I won't have the boot block, also i would need a blank EPROM (PL49FL004T-33JC) as i don't want to overwrite the original in case it isn't bad / or i just f@$k it up in the attempt!!

If it's the mobo, what's it likely to be? The caps all seem fine and the surface mount stuff appears ok.

Cheers

>>LonglynX<<

[powerOn]

Take a look at the motherboard - check for holes or areas that look burned in. That's what happened to my friend's motherboard - it had a hole almost burned into the Nvidia chip!

[$1500-P4 gamer]

"Powered her up, fine!
Went into bios to check settings
Screen locked/froze
Reset pc
No boot, no post, no bios beep.
LED's on mobo indicate power good
Tried other psu"

Well it powered up at first for a second. Then wouldnt again. Seeing how bios defaults did work and now dont. And how they are usually set fail safe for cpu and mem-you got a dead mobo on your hands. You tested cpu and mem in another system so I would rma and not wasite anymore time on it.

[BipolarBill]

Remove the board from the case, place it on a soft, non-conductive surface near the case and plug in the ATX power. Place the vid card in and connect the monitor. Connect the power. Nothing else needs to be connected. Press down hard on the vid card and use your screwdriver to short the POWER BUTTON pins. See if it POSTs.

[Longlynx]

Cheers Bill,

the board is actually sitting on the bench on it's antistatic bag at this moment, connected to the psu. It has processor, fan and one dimm. No graphics card, no switch connections. Speaker is connected. Power on with screwdriver as you said....... fan runs, surface mount led for power good comes on, psu fans run. No BIOS beep. No bios code at all.

But by golly it does a good dodo impression.

I have requested an RMA number and am getting out the bubble wrap. Oh well, I'll just have to wait for replacement.
Thanks Guys.

PS any problem with including a printout of this thread along with my RMA to ease the explanation process?


>>LonglynX<<

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by Longlynx
any problem with including a printout of this thread along with my RMA to ease the explanation process?

Go right ahead. A fat lot of good it'll do you. As good as SysOpt is, it gets no respect from the "rice boys tech-support" crew. You know the ones:

"You need more memory."
"Defragment the drive."
"Clean out the temp files."
"You have low system resources."

[belgarath16]

LMAO..............thats about the truth BPB!

[GamerBoyFranco]

Yea I had probs with my comp once, "Did you plug it into the wall?" LOL

[BoWevil]

The outside of the anti-static bag is electrically conductive and can cause shorts. Place it instead on the foam that was in the shipping box.