First Boot Attempt - Some Trouble

[Jackpine]

I tried booting my newly built PC and ran into some trouble. The components that were connected to the Asus P5LD2 Deluxe mobo were:

Intel P4 -650 3.4GHz LGA227 CPU
Enermax Liberty 500W PSU
2 x 1GB OCZ DDR2 PC2-5400 667MHz Dual Channel Memory
MSI NX7800GTX Video Card (Card was inserted in PCI Express slot, but not connected to power)
WD Caviar SE16 2500KS 250GB 16M SATA2 Boot Drive (Data and power connections)
Sony 1.44MB Floppy (Data and power connections)
Compaq Monitor V75
Keyboard
Optical mouse

The sequence of steps that I took are as follows:

Monitor turned on.
PSU switch turned on.
The green mobo light came on
Case power switch turned on.
The power led came on.
The HDD LED came on for about 5 seconds and then turned off.
All fans operated in correct rotation.

As soon as I turned on the power switch, I started pressing DEL, hoping to go into the BIOS.

Well, the monitor stayed blank. No image, no text, nothing. I don't know if it means anything, but a light located beside the monitor switch stayed yellow during this attempt to get into the BIOS. When I first turned the monitor on, the light was green, then it changed to yellow.

There were no beeps.
It was hard to tell if the computer ran the POST, but there was no sign of activity on the HDD LED, and nothing showing on the monitor.

I turned off the PC by switching the PSU to off.

I don't know what the next step is in troubleshooting, and would really appreciate some guidance here.

Thanks.

[MakeYourslf2012]

Try this:

http://www.forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=132409

[Panama Red]

If your video card has a power connector that you inidcae is not connected, you should connect it. Best to remove the mobo from the case and use the link below to troubleshoot. Check the heat sink retention pins carefully and make sure they are fully inserted thru the mobo and snapped in place. A loose heatsink has become a common assembly problem with the 775 sockets.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=12753

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Jackpine MSI NX7800GTX Video Card (Card was inserted in PCI Express slot, but not connected to power)

Connect the six-pin to dual-molex connector on the card, and connect the two molexes to the power supply unit.

kram

[Jackpine]

Connect the six-pin to dual-molex connector on the card, and connect the two molexes to the power supply unit.

I don't follow the part about connecting the two molexes to the psu. The video card has one 6 pin molex connector. I attach the cable to that and the other end to the psu.

Anyway, I did connect the power to the video card. There is only one way to do that, as I mentioned above. Same result.

I did notice however, that the red light on my mouse was not on. I have 4 USB ports on the rear of the PC, and when I connect the mouse to different ports, sometime the light is on, sometime it is off.

[kram 2.0]

Does the graphics card fan start spinning after bootup?

Try doing an out of case build as mentioned twice above. You MUST remove the motherboard from the case in order to properly figure out the problem.

kram

[Jackpine]

Yes, the video card fan spins when I turn on the power. The PC does not boot up, as far as I can tell.

Yes, I will remove everything from the case as suggested. Why is this necessary? What does that do as opposed to having everything in the case?

[Mesaeus]

Because it is possible something on the mb is making contact with the case and shorting. Do you have access to another pci-e video card ? Or an old PCI video card ? You could try those to see if it's a video card problem.

Did you connect the pc speaker ? If so, are there beeps ?

[Jackpine]

Did you connect the pc speaker ? If so, are there beeps ?

Yes, I did connect the pc speaker. No there were no beeps. No, I do not have access to another video card.

[Jackpine]

Latest development:

Everything stripped out of case. Placed mobo on cardboard. Hooked up PSU (24-pin main and 8-pin ATX12V supplies). Connected CPU and PSU fans to correct plugs. Installed video card and connected power supply. Connected monitor and keyboard only. Removed both memory sticks. I was able to connect the case speaker and power wires to the mobo. Turned power on. Monitor stayed black. CPU, PSU, and video card fans operated. While pressing DEL, the speakers made a sound: 1 long beep, followed by 2 short beeps, repeated. This is the first time the speakers made a sound.

(My Asus P5LD2 Deluxe mobo manual does not mention this particular combination of beeps. I will have to investigate further.)

I reinstalled both memory sticks and turned it on. This time, the monitor also stayed black, but there was no sound at all.

I also inspected the mobo for any scratches that I may have caused during installation, but I did not find any. (I tried to be careful when I installed it and put in the screws.)

So... there is some more information to the puzzle. I can guess that it might be the cpu, mobo, or memory. Are there any more diagnostics that I can do?

[Alaron]

1 Long beep and 2 short beeps means a video card problem.
Either your video card is bad or is not seated properly. Also, check to ensure the monitor cable is connected properly.

Do you have any other video cards you could try?

[Jackpine]

1 Long beep and 2 short beeps means a video card problem.

Where did you get the beep codes for this mobo?

I checked the video card seating: it is properly installed.

I will have to borrow a card from a friend.

[Mesaeus]

Originally Posted by Jackpine Where did you get the beep codes for this mobo?

Probably from a site such as this one. According to the beeps you have an Award bios, look in the corresponding table and you will find your code. At this point your video card is almost certainly the guilty part, so try another one.

[Cricket]

You got beeps when the RAM was not installed but no beeps with the RAM installed?

Do you have access to a different brand of DDR2 RAM? You might want to try DDR2 533 RAM (PC2 4200).

Can you try your video card in someone else's computer?

Cricket

[Jackpine]

I did some more testing:

As indicated above, I assembled a bare bones rig outside the case on a piece of cardboard. I had the motherboard, the psu, cpu and fan, video card, monitor and keyboard set up. (No had drives, optical drives, or floppy installed.) I performed startup tests using different combinations of memory sticks.

I labelled one stick X and the other stick Y.

I reset the BIOS by moving the jumper from pins 1-2 to 2-3, and then back to 1-2.

Results:

1. When stick X was installed in either of DIMM slots A1, A2, B1, or B2, this is what I would hear and see on the monitor (shown in sequence):

a. Single beep.

b. IT8211 ATAPI BIOS V1.3.1.61, Copyright 2002-2004 ITE, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Please wait for IDE scan.

c. IT8211 ATAPI BIOS V1.3.1.61, Copyright 2002-2004 ITE, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Drive 0: Not Detected.
Drive 1: Not Detected.
Drive 2: Not Detected.
Drive 3: Not Detected.

d. SiI 3132 SATALink Bios Version 7.2.18, Copyright 1997-2005 Silicon Image, Inc.

e. Single beep.

f. Flashing cursor for 5 seconds.

g. Reboot and Select proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot Device and press any key.

Since I don't have any drives connected at this time, that is as far as I can go with the current configuration.

2. When stick Y was installed in either of DIMM slots A1, A2, B1, or B2, there would be no beeps, and the monitor would remain black.

3. I then tried every conceivable combination of both X and Y sticks in all DIMM slots. Again, there were no beeps, and the monitor would remain black.

Does this suggest that the stick that I labelled Y is defective?

I wonder why this would be. They both came from the same factory sealed package, and I was very careful in handling them. Aren't they checked at the factory before being shipped out?

[glc]

Yep. You have a bad ram stick. It happens. RMA the whole kit, you can't return just one stick if it was sold as a dual channel kit.

[Jackpine]

OK, I will return both sticks. Thank you.

PS. I will repost with the results when I have the new RAM installed.

[Jackpine]

I took both sticks to the store where I bought them, and explained the problem.

They checked them and confirmed that one was defective.

With no questions asked, they gave me a new matched set, which they checked before I left the store.

I have since installed them in my rig and turned on the power. This time, I got the beep and messages on the monitor that I only got when I had the one good stick installed!

Now I can concerntrate on installing the other components one by one and confirming at each step that everything is OK.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and help.