Big Problem????

[Big Tone]

I have just put a system together and have a problem. The system is as follows: Gigabyte GA-7VKMP, Athlon XP 2400+, 256 MB PC2100, GeForce 4 440 MX 64 MB DDR. It fired up first time, I went into the BIOS and changed the CPU frequency from 100 to 133 Mgz as it only showed up as Athlon XP 1800 as they do. Now when I fire it up the hard drive LED lights up for about 20 seconds, goes back off and that's it, no display or anything else.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I've done and is it going to cost me?

[bailey]

then set it back to where it was, and go from there,

[Big Tone]

I have reset the CMOS and also removed the GeForce 4 and used the onboard VGA instead but I'm still getting the same problem.

[bailey]

no hard drive, floppy drive, or even a cdrom.

you can get into the bios, so that much is working.

do you have a o/s on the hard drive yet ( thinking not)

do you have a system floppy or cd ?

[Big Tone]

The system is complete with hard drive, floppy drive, DVD and CDRW, just didn't think I need to list them. I did get into the BIOS first time but since I changed the CPU frequency I have nothing, just the fans powering on, power LED lit up and hard drive LED lit up for about 20 seconds and that's it, no post, no vga.......nothing

[Big Tone]

Forgot to mention. No operating system yet. Didn't manage to get that far but when I do it'll be XP Pro.

[bailey]

you nee d to get back into the bios and put the cpu freq back to the 1800

[mike breck]

Take the mobo out of the case and try troubleshooting with the minimal components:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12753

Make sure the CMOS setting for Top Performance is not enabled.

Set it back to 100fsb and then enter the CMOS setup and monitor the CPU temp for 30mins. What temp does it settle at?

If the CPU temp is high then it might be worthwhile reseating the CPU and making sure the Heatsink is sitting level on the CPU.

To do this, you need to take out the CPU, clean off the residue of the Thermal Pad from the CPU core and base of the heatsink, and then reseat the CPU with some Thermal Paste like Artic Silver.

The instructions for doing this is here:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm

If the CPU is overheating, then you won't be able to hit 133fsb.

HTH

[bailey]

if you can't get back into the bios, ck your manual on over clocking,
some m/b have a key (home) that you hold down while booting and it will boot into the default settings

[Big Tone]

The problen I now have is that there is no display at all either when using the VGA card or the onboard VGA. There's no beep codes to say there's any errors so I would think that I'm not even getting as far as the post. I have removed the battery from the board to loose the FSB setting I altered but this has made no difference. Looks like I might have damaged some of the hardware but I have no more here to try.

[reboot]

Usually it's a result of the BIOS not initializing.
If you get the flash from gigabyte, and put it on a floppy, you can insert the floppy, hold the INSERT key down and turn the computer on, it will flash the BIOS, and reset it to settings that allow you access.
If this doesn't work, you've definitely blown something.

[mike breck]

I still think you should pull the mobo from the case and clean-off and reseat the CPU. Then you can clear the BIOS via the jumper on the motherboard and try for POST.

When it's out of the case, reseat the graphics card and Ram as well.

If you're still getting nothing, then with the PC Speaker connected (unless the mobo has an onboard Piezo speaker) remove the Ram, power up, and see if you can get any missing Ram beeps. Put the Ram back in and then remove the graphics card and see if you get any missing video card beeps.

If you can get beeps, then that implies the CPU and mobo are OK.

[Big Tone]

Here's the story so far. With the ram removed I get the beep error codes. I can't try it for missing graphics card as the board also has onboard graphics, no graphics from this either which suggests it's not VGA. What I have realised is this board has a jumper to set the FSB to 100 or 133 and is set to 100 as default so, not sure what the implications are when this jumper is set at 100 as it was and changing the FSB in the BIOS to 133 as I did???? I have now checked the RAM CPU and graphics card on another board and they all work fine so it looks like the board now has a problem. I will try the BIOS flash as reboot suggested and report back to let you guy's know the outcome.

[glc]

You need to set the jumper to 133.

[Alfie]

As glc said,set the jumper to 133,the bios is telling the board to run at 133,but the jumper contradicts the command.
Was a heatsink on the cpu?

[Big Tone]

OK Guy's, changed the jumper to the 133 setting but everything was just the same, so, I tried the CPU, memory and graphics card on another board and everythings fine so it looks like I've damaged the board. Maybe next time I should take more notice of jumpers and stuff before I get too carried away!

[sleepypost]

I didn't think a faulty jumper setting could ruin a board. I think maybe it needed to be grounded?

[Big Tone]

How do you mean grounded. Surley everythings grounded when the boards mounted in the case?

[Alienware_Dude]

Maybe he means *you* needed to be grounded.

[Big Tone]

OK Guy's, I know some time has passed but, I have finally got round to rebuilding this system. I've used the board CPU and memory from the original build that I had problems with, set the bus speed jumper to 133 and everythings working fine. All I need to do now is find someone to buy it as this one's now surplus!
Hope someone can learn from this, I know I have.