Problem: No BIOS screen on power-up

[helmcj]

Just finished building my first PC from components.

Components:

(1) 1 pc Supermicro CSE-733T-645 (Ext ATX chassis with 645W "quiet" power supply)
(2) 1 pc Intel BOXD955XBKLKR Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 955X ATX Intel Motherboard (with front USB/1394/audio panel in place of floppy drive)
(3) 4 pcs of mushkin Enhanced Performance 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) System Memory
(4) 1 pc Intel Pentium D 820 Smithfield 800MHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Dual Core EM64T Processor
(5) 1 pc ATI 100-435703 Radeon X1800XL 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card (for which I paid $399 for a few months ago only to find the X1800XT is now only $289 - oh well)
(6) 2 pcs Samsung 730B LCD monitors
(7) 2 pcs DVI cables
(8) 1 pc old HP keyboard
(9) 1 pc old mouse
(10) 2 pcs WD 74G Raptor hard drives
(11) 1 pc NEC DVD-DL-R/W drive

The Supermicro case comes with two PWM fans - one in the front and one in the rear. The front fan draws 0.55 A and is therefore connected to the front fan connector on the motherboard which is only a 3 pin connector so there will be no PWM control. The rear fan draws 1.3 A so it cannot be connected to the rear fan connector on the motherboard (only rated to 1.0 A) so it is connected the the aux rear fan connector on the motherboard which is rated to 3.0 A. The cable is not long enough so an extension cable is needed. The extension cable is only 3 pin so there is no PWM control possible at this time. I am in the process of ordering parts to build a 4 pin extension cable.

The chassis comes with a floppy drive. I had intended to leave this installed ... but it turns out that one of the cables from the front USB/1394/audio panel that came with the motherboard will only reach the motherboard connector if the front panel is installed in the slot for the floppy drive. This should not cause any problems (I hope!) as a floppy drive is no longer used much.

The chassis also comes with a SATA backplane and removable drive trays for up to 4 SATA drives. I have installed the two Raptors in trays 1 and 2.

I double checked all the connections. There are two 4 pin power connectors on the SATA backplane but I do not have two separate 4 pin "pigtails" available. I contacted Supermicro about this and was told that should be OK with only one - especially with only two drives installed. I connected the 2x4 and 2x12 power connectors to the motherboard. There is also a 1x4 power connector on the motherboard. Manual stated that this should be connected if "high power" video card is installed. The video card I am using has its own separate power connector and came with a 1x4 to 2x3 adapter cable. I took a pigtail with 2 1x4 connectors (in parallel) and plugged one into the 1x4 connector on the motherboard and the other into the 1x4 to 2x3 adaptor cable which was then plugged into the video card. DVD-ROM drive was connected both IDE and power. Chassis USB was connected to motherboard.

Checked all wires out of the way of fans / heat sinks / etc. and then installed the side panel.

Connected the monitors with the DVI cables.

Connected all the power cords.

The fan on the power supply started running as soon as the chassis was plugged in which is interesting. Seems to run whenever there is power. I will need to speak to Supermicro about this to see if this is a "feature".

The monitors powered up but of course there was no input yet.

I then powered up the system expecting to see the BIOS screen but got nothing.

The LEDs for the hard drives flashed briefly as did the LED on the DVD-ROM drive.

Rear exhaust fan was running and I sure hope that there is a way to slow it down because it is really LOUD. Cooling will certainly not be an issue.

I tried putting the Windows XP CD into the drive and re-booting but still nothing.

The documentation that came with the motherboard / chassis / video card / etc. doesn't really give you any help.

I know that I embarked on this project in order to learn more about the hardware side of PCs ... but at this point I am pretty frustrated.

I suppose its possible that I have a dead video card ... but I have no way to test and I think its unlikely.

I grounded the chassis during installation and also wore a wrist strap so I think static damage is unlikely.

I know that there are probably drivers required for the monitors ... but there must be some defaults in place so that things work even before the OS is loaded and drivers can be installed.

I anticipated a few problems with RAID configuration ... but not this!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Kov-Ice]

Welcome to PCMech. I think you may need to back up to the start and try to narrow things down to a workable level.

Try following the advice given in HAL's Troubleshooting Thread. Take things down to bare bones and then work your way up from there.

[helmcj]

I double checked all the connections before boot-up. I can tear everything apart ... but don't see what I would do differently when I put it back together. I don't have extra components that I can swap out to see if a particular component is bad. The only thing I could do would be to remove 2 of the 4 DIMMs. Don't like to just give up ... but I am wondering if I shouldn't just take it somewhere since they can swap components (e.g. memory, video card) to determine if a particular component is bad.

[blue60007]

Don't put it back in the case until you test it out of the case - you might have a short between the motherboard and case causing this problem. Building out of the case as per HAL's directions will eliminate a short as the cause (or find it as the cause) and also taking it down to the bare minimum (mobo, CPU, 1 stick of RAM, video card, and PSU) will determine if all the core parts work.

I think you should replace your case fans...if they are drawing over an Amp of power, they have to be monster fans. I've got fairly powerful 120mm fans that draw .3 Amp...I can't imagine a fan drawing over an Amp. I'd be replacing those fans - I think there are some "Tornado" fans that sound like what you've got - they move a TON of air, but sound like a fully loaded 747 taking off. Also, always power the fans directly from the power supply - ESPECIALLY if they are drawing that much power...the mobo connectors can't handle that much power.

Does that power supply have a 6 pin (2x3) PCI-E power connector? You shouldn't be using the 2 4pin adapter. If the power supply doesn't have the PCI-E power connector it doesn't sound like it is suitable for a PCI-E build. I'm always leary of bundled power supplies (except for a few exceptions).

[helmcj]

I removed all the memory modules and reinstalled them. I removed the video card and re-installed it. I disconnected all the USB, audio, DVD-ROM, cables, removed 2 of the 4 memory modules (they have to be installed in pairs), and booted up. Same result. I don't have a second system that I can use to test components individually (e.g. test known working video card with new motherboard, test new video card with known working motherboard, ditto for memory). I don't know what the fans actually draw ... just what's on the nameplates. The fans came with the chassis. There is no 2x3 connector pigtail from the powersupply. The power supply is 645W. I bought the biggest one possible so that there would be no issues with Pentium D processor and ATI X1800XL PCI-E video card which draws significant power. The 1x4 to 2x3 power adaptor came with the video card so it should be OK. The pigtail that I used for the video card is not connected to anything else.

The rear fan IS incredibly noisy but I think its running at full speed. Once I get the thing running I should be able to update the speed via the BIOS to quiet it down. Once I built a 4 pin extension cable I will be able to use PWM fan control.

I have pretty much concluded that I will have to take it into a shop and have the components tested individually as could only isolate down to the memory, motherboard and video card.

Thanks for the feedback though! Any help is always appreciated.

[blue60007]

Normally, you would want the PCI-E connector, but the specs I could find on that power supply seem to be pretty good, so you *might* be OK there.

Although it probably won't make any difference, but try just one stick of RAM. It will work with one stick. You need two to run the RAM in dual channel, but one will work for testing purposes.

Judging by the amps those fans are consuming those are some very fast fans - one place said the case came with 5000 rpm fans. If you can't get the quieted down you can pick up a couple fans for $5-$7 apiece that are much quieter (like 2000rpms) and will cool just as well.

So, you've taken the computer down to the minimum, so that's a good start. Have you tried the computer out of the case? Is the motherboard in the case right now?

[Kov-Ice]

Originally Posted by blue60007 taking it down to the bare minimum (mobo, CPU, 1 stick of RAM, video card, and PSU) will determine if all the core parts work.

helm, have you tried it out of the case with just these 5 parts put together? It would not get to BIOS even with that? As mentioned, did you swap the RAM stick out for one of the others?

[helmcj]

I bought the motherboard before I had ever heard of Supermicro. I went with an Intel motherboard because I thought ... "Intel motherboard + Intel CPU = fewer problems and fewer vendors pointing fingers at each other in the event of problems". I also had 8 hard drives that I wanted to use in RAID and the Intel D955XBK motherboard was the only "non-server" motherboard I could find that had 8 SATA ports. I also liked the front panel module with the extra USB AND 1394A/B ports. The problem was finding a chassis that would take 8 SATA drives. Basically ... needed to look at server chassis. I actually bought a Supermicro CSE-743T-650 chassis. Beautiful chassis. Has 6 fans. I figured out that I could connect them all to the D955XBK by fabricating some wiring harnesses to connect 4 fans to the aux rear fan connector on the motherboard without exceeding current limits. Only one tach signal would be connected ... but I did not see that as a major issue. The problem is that none of the cables to the front panel audio/USB/1394A/B module would reach the connectors on the D955XBK motherboard. I considered making more "extension cables" ... but decided not to. I started reading some things that indicated that I would probably get better drive response times via a 10K drive (like WD Raptors) than from a RAID 0 array. Newegg happened to have them on sale so I bought two of them. I then bought the Supermicro CSE-733T-645 chassis. The cables all fit. My plan was to get my "workstation" system working and then use the 8 SATA drives in the CSE-743T-645 with a Supermicro server/workstation motherboard like the X6DA3-G2.

I really like the Supermicro chassis. Excellent fit and finish and quality materials. They have also been very good when I have called support with questions.

I am almost considering just buying the Supermicro PDSGE motherboard in place of the D955XBK and being done with it. This would also give me five 4-pin PWM fan connectors so that both fans would have PWM control which should really quiet them down.

I did not test out of the case because if the problem is the motherboard or video card or memory modules then the only way to be sure is to test each component separately with other known working components.

I embarked on this project because I wanted to learn more about the hardware side of things. I am certainly learning ... though its starting to get a bit more expensive than what I had anticipated.

Thanks to all for helpful posts / follow up. I will post the results.

I ended up taking the system to a local shop for testing. I simply don't have a second working system that I could use to test the memory modules and video card independently and I think that is the only way to really determine the problem.

I suspect the problem is either the motherboard or the video card.

I purchased both from Newegg and I noticed that the ATI X1800XL is no longer available from them and the D955XBK is out of stock and there were a couple "open box" items. Wondering if they have had problems with them.

I'm kind of hoping that the problem is with the Intel D955XBK motherboard as it may give me an excuse to buy the Supermicro PSDGE motherboard.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by helmcj I did not test out of the case because if the problem is the motherboard or video card or memory modules then the only way to be sure is to test each component separately with other known working components..

But if the motherboard is shorting/grounding out to the case the system won't even boot up and you can't troubleshoot further. You should have taken the motherboard out of the case to eliminate the possibility that the motherboard is shorting/grounding out to the case.

Cricket

[helmcj]

I'm a bit leary of working on unenclosed boards and it seemed pretty clear that there was a bad component.

HOWEVER ....

The results from the shop are in ... and NO bad components. The verified that is was not POSTing when I brought it in. They said that all they did was to remove all the components and re-assemble them (they did NOT remove the CPU) and it worked. I didn't ask if they removed the motherboard from the case or not.

I had removed and reconnected all the cables, removed and re-installed all the memory modules, removed and re-installed the video card. Don't understand it ... but its now working.

When I first brought it back and booted up it looked like the problem might be the cables since I got the same result. I then noticed that the monitors had the "No input signal", but it seemed to toggle between analog and digital as if it was trying to detect a signal. Just for kicks I fiddled with the buttons on the bottom of the LCD monitors. Tried again. Seems to POST consistently now.

I am wondering if the LCD monitors were just "stuck" in some initial setting and that was the whole problem?

The shop said that they did verify that it was not POSTing before they did anything.

Oh well. All part of the learning experience.

I decided to order the Supermicro PDSGE motherboard. It has 5 4-pin fan connectors so I will be able to control both of the PWM fans in the 733T-645 chassis and this should reduce the noise levels significantly.

I also found out that the only way to load the RAID drivers is from the floppy disk (this was confirmed by the person at the shop) which explains why Intel supplies them on floppy rather than on CD-ROM. I could open the case and temporarily connect the floppy drive but if I ever needed to reload everything it would be a pain.

So, I ordered a Supermicro 733i-450 chassis. I will put the D955XBK into that chassis. It has two fans but they are standard 3 pin fans which will work with the D955XBK. I ordered a beige version so that I can re-use the DVD and CD-ROM drives from my old Dell when it finally gets decomissioned. I will get a cheapish video card with only one DVI-I output and one analog output that won't overtax the power supply. That way I will have one "workstation test system" that I can play with without worrying so much about what happens. Prices on CPUs have already dropped so I can put a better Pentium D CPU in the PDSGE motherboard.