Build problem

[lytake]

MB:ASUS A7V266-E
CPU: AMD athlon 1.4G
Video card: Matrox G450 AGP 4X

MB on box, 1 stick RAM , CPU, and video card connected to monitor.

Turned on PSU, did not short out pins, but cpu fan started turning. Nothing on monitor. What should I do?

[Cricket]

Disconnect the power supply from the wall outlet for a couple of minutes. Remove the motherboard battery while you're waiting. Try again.

What brand is the power supply?

Cricket

[lytake]

Followed suggestion, same thing happened. LED light on motherboard is blinking.

Power supply: powerman 300W

[Panama Red]

It's normal for the cpu fan to spin up briefly on many of the Via/AMD boards. A flashing mobo led is NOT normal though. That led should be solid. What happens if you short the start switch connections?

[lytake]

When I shorted the power, the fan spun faster, and gave 2 beeps. The LED light went solid. Still nothing on monitor.

[Panama Red]

Were the two beeps of equal duration or was one longer than the other?

[lytake]

2 slow equal beeps. I turned the power off. waited and turned on again.

Now the fan spins fast and no beeps this time. I tried to short again but nothing happened this time. LED is blinking.

[Panama Red]

Is this a different cpu than was originally on this mobo?

[lytake]

Yes.

I had 2 systems.

One was ASUS A7V133, 1.4G cpu. There is a 2nd cpu cooler on these motherboards and on this board, the fan stopped spinning ievery once in a while. I would blow on it with air and it would start working. Case is not very dusty inside.

This second system, A7V266-E had a 1.2G cpu. So I thought it would be simple to swap CPU's and make this system faster.

Both systems were working until now.

[Panama Red]

Basic questions. Did you clean the cpu and heat sink and apply thermal compound (like Arctic Silver)? Have you double checked to be sure the heat sink is oriented correctly to the socket/cpu? Make sure the step in the heat sink isn't on the wrong side allowing a gap between the heat sink and cpu.

[lytake]

My screw driver slipped just now as I was removing the heatsink. Oh well.

I thought I seated the cpu and heatsink correctly. But this is the only thing no done up to this point as I removed everything out of case.

Could you tell me how best to clean heatsink and cpu? It was a pad originally on heatsink. Is it OK to use paste after cleaning?

[Panama Red]

I remove the old pad material with a flexible plastic ruler or anything that wont scratch the heat sink. Then remove the remaining residue with Denatured Alcohol on a cotton ball or cotton swabs (like Q tips). Clean the cpu surface thoroughly too. Then apply a THIN layer of thermal paste to just the cpu surface. Spread it evenly with that plastic tool (or even a credit card will do) and carefully reinstall the heat sink with the proper orientation. Hopefully that screwdriver slip didn't hurt the mobo. It's a good idea to put something like a credit card up against the socket to deflect the screw driver should it slip. Or use a nut driver so the socket end goes over the tang on the retention clip. Harder to slip off that way.

[lytake]

Thanks.

I need to pick-up paste tomorrow. Hope this does the trick.

[Panama Red]

Good luck. Post back and let us know how it comes out. Time for bed for me.

[Cricket]

If you haven't done so yet, pull the motherboard battery out and leave it out until you're ready to reinstall the heatsink. Leaving the battery out will clear the CMOS. When you change processors you usually have to clear the CMOS before the system will work right again.

Cricket

[lytake]

Thank you, thank you for your help. Your suggestions did the trick. I cleaned off cpu, heatsink and applied new paste. Cleared CMOS as suggested. Basic system out of case started with shorting power switch connector. I put everything in case with much excitement.

I have come up with another problem. Nothing happened when I pushed the power switch on the case. I changed the orientation of the power switch connector and tried again. Nothing.

I removed the power switch connector, shorted with my screw driver and behold I was able to get to the BIOS.

What do I do now? I have an Inwin case.

[Panama Red]

Make sure the wires are fully inserted in the plastic connector that plugs into the front panel connector on the mobo. Possible for one of the wires to rise up and not be making contact. If that's not it, suspect a defective switch. You can use the reset switch as a power switch until you can get a replacement. Just plug the reset switch wires in where you would normally connect the power switch. Both are momentary switches so it should work fine. Hopefully your case has a reset button.

[lytake]

That's it. You are so right. Switching to use RESET switch did the trick. Thanks ever so much for your help.