1st build nothing on screen

[mws254]

Not trying to build anything fancy just trying to see if I can do it. I have read the sticky and
here are my details.

MB-Nforce3-a
Proc-AMD Sempron 3100 BR754
MEM-1GB DDR400 Kingston
Graphics-PNY Technologies GeForce FX 5500 128MB AGP
P/S-Austin Max 300w

I have tried the motherboard on the box. Installed the processor, memory, video card.
Shorted out the power and the cpu fan started as did the fan on the power supply.

No video display, no beeps (sorry don't think I had the speaker connected so no wonder no beeps)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards.

MWS254

[chuck4456]

Check all of your connections. Try again. Plug your speaker in.

[mws254]

I have connected speaker wire from the case to the motherboard. No beeps or sounds
Checked the connections again and all seem good.

I have motherboard on box, had to elavate it a little as the graphics card in the AGP slot is extending below motherboard. Seems to be seated correctly.

Await any replies/suggestions.

Regards.
MWS254

[newbuilder14]

Could be a bad power supply. I've never heard of Austin Max.

[Alaron]

Do you have both the 20pin ATX power and the small 2x2 square connection plugged in?

Do you have another power supply to try? Thats the first thing I would check.

If you have multiple sticks of ram, try one at a time.

[mws254]

As you can imagine since I was not really building a gaming pc I was doing pretty cheap.
I do have another old pc that works, but not really using, that I can use. Not sure of the size.
Might be low on the wattage size. What will make the bigger difference the wattage or the quality of the output of the power supply.

Any other suggestions as I will take the power supply out tomorrow.

Thanks

MWS254

[mws254]

I have both the 4 pin and the 20 pin plug connected.
I have another working power supply not sure of the wattage yet.

Thanks.
MWS254

[chuck4456]

If you shorted the connector and the fans kicked on, the problem may not be the PSU. You may have a problem with something as simple as the power-on switch. Is this only not happening with it all hooked up ?

[mws254]

Actually I had everything installed before I joined this forum. The power switch on the case did start the cpu fan. The power supply fan also started. I also had one led indicatior light on.

Nothing displayed on the screen at this time either. Thats when I joined the forum, took everything out of the case as started from scratch.

Appreciate everyones help so far.

Regards,
MWS254

[Cricket]

Austin power supplies are basically rebadged DEER power supplies. I would get a new good quality power supply before doing anything else. Get 350 watts or higher from a company like Enermax, Fortron Source, Enlight, PC Power & Cooling, Sparkle Power, Seasonic or Zippy.

Cricket

[mws254]

Dam, the other power supply turns out to also be an Austin model LC-BC300ATX
I hooked it up just in case and I got the same results, no screen no beeps. Well at least the fans turned on.

I will look for a new power supply with minimum 350 watts.

Thanks.

Regards
MWS254

[mws254]

Just bought a new Thermaltake Purepower 430W with a +5 output max load of 30A
and a +3.3V output of 28A

Still I have no display on the monitor and no beeps from the computer speaker. Both ps fan and cpu fans operate.

Await further suggestions.

thanks
MWS254

[Cricket]

Time for the out-of-case-troubleshooter.

Cricket

[mws254]

Sorry I have been doing everything out of the case for some time now.
Forgot to mention it again as i got new ps.
Mobo is on the box, speaker connection is to the case and the ps is sitting on its box.

I have checked and reseated the cpu, cpu fan, memory and video board.

Results are as previously posted.

Await your suggestions.

Regards,
MWS254

[flanzig1]

Few things to try: one at a time start up without ram and video card; you should get a series of beeps with these parts removed/ try clearing the BIOS to default with the CMOS jumper or removing the battery for a minutes/ try different video card and ram if possible.

[Cricket]

What brand motherboard are you using?

Are you getting any beeps at all? Try doing what flanzig1 suggested...pull the RAM and video card and see if you get BIOS error beeps.

Are you using the stock AMD CPU heatsink? Or are you using something else?

Cricket

[mws254]

I will try flanzig1's suggestion and then report the results and other items asked by Cricket

[mws254]

Ok here is what I got.

I tried flanzig1's suggestion. Removed ram and video card and tried to start up. All still out of the box speaker wire from the case connected. No beeps, cpu fan does start up.

Jumpered the cmos pins per the mobo instructions. Here I wan't exactly sure what to do. I tried the start up, no beeps and then returned the cmos jumper to normal.

At this point decided to check to see if the damn speaker wire was connected to anything on the case. It is.

Right now I don't have any other ram to use. Checking on if I have any other video cards. I don't think I do as some of the old machines I have don't have the seperate board.

Crickets questions. Remember just trying to build a pc you may not have heard of these brands.


Mobo ECS Elitegroup NForce3-A HT1600 (purchased as mobo and processor from Fry's)
There was no heatsink included.

Purchased Silverstone NT04 with extruded aluminum fins heatsink and 80mm aluminum fan.
It says it is designed for AMD processors utilizing socket 754/939/949 platforms.

It seemed pretty big to me but it fits fine. I had to make some adjustments to the clip in order to connect it to the hooks on the socket.

Any other suggestions. This is a little harder than I thought but can't wait to see if I can get it going. Hopefully without a lot more purchases.

Await further suggestions.

Thanks. MWS254

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by mws254 Mobo ECS Elitegroup NForce3-A HT1600 (purchased as mobo and processor from Fry's)

A ECS motherboard from Fry's? I wouldn't be surprised if it's DOA or defective. ECS has a pretty bad reputation as far as reliability goes and Fry's has a habit of repackaging returned items (even dead ones) and selling them again.

Cricket

[mws254]

Well I still have the receipt but I didn't start building right away so it's now 2 months old. Not sure if they would take it back or not.

The mobo itself was not that expensive. Hard to tell for sure when it's packaged together.
Do you think it may be the mobo??

thanks mws254

[doubledragon5]

You should try buying from newegg.com... They have better quality parts and they will RMA with little or no issues.. I have been buying from them for the past 5 yrs now...

[je2fs]

If you come up with a solution please post.

thanks

[Alaron]

je2fs, if you start your own thread, we can help you troubleshoot your system. Computers may have similar symptoms, but the causes can be very different.

[mws254]

Well for now I have gone back to Fry's to get exactly the same mobo I already have.
Thought being that if I get this one working I will return the other one. Fry's only gives 15 days for the return of mobo. I do see that they do have some of this model have been repackaged. Good thing is right next to work so I will bring them back everyday if I have to.

Notice that the slot for the video card was a little different on the new board. Little clip to hold the back of the board in place.

Upon taking the cpu out and trying to put in the new board it looks at though I may have bent a pin.

Trying to replace cpu and hopefully I should be able to post more results to my thread by Saturday.

Thanks for everything so far and by the weekend hopefully I will be closer to getting this working.

Regards, MWS254

[mws254]

Got a new processor as I am pretty sure I bent the pins.
Tried this one in the socket and it didn't sit flat.
Checked it with a magnifing glass and it looks as though 1 pin was slightly bent.

Taking it back to Fry's tomorrow (Bringing my magnifing glass with me )

Regards, MWS254

[mws254]

Well I'm back after exchanging a few parts and of course not having time to get back to my build.

The good news is that it looks like a lot is going well. Systems starts, fans work, video works, able to get into CMOS. But after that I am having problems.

I have always intended to install W98SE at least for now because I can do it without worrying about the license issue. After things get working I intend to upgrade to XP.

I have a w98 startup disk that starts up and I pick the option "with cd support"
What comes back is the following "windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition.......

I have tried a few things, actually switched out the hard drives. I actually started with 2 connected, decided it was best/easier to go with one and get it working first. Tried to partition the drive and while it looked like it did still couldn't run w98 setup.exe successfully.
After trying to run the setup exe I get the following "scanning system registry, cannot create a temporary directory. If you have HPFS or NTFS installed on your hard drive you will need to create an MS-DOS boot partition to setup Windows"

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards...MWS254

MB-Nforce3-a
Proc-AMD Sempron 3100 BR754
MEM-1GB DDR400 Kingston
Graphics-PNY Technologies GeForce FX 5500 128MB AGP
P/S-Thermaltake 430w
HD-Maxtor 300gb

[glc]

Windows 98 setup cannot handle a hard drive that large, and it cannot handle a CPU faster than 2 GHz. Spend the $90 for XP Home OEM.

[mws254]

Finally back installing XP Home Edition OEM.
Things seemed to be going well, "Welcome to Setup", "Please wait while Setup formats the partition", etc,etc,

It seems to finish the install as it says the computer will restart and complete the installation but it just starts the installation process from the beginning. I have tried it a couple of times with the cd out of the drive but then I get a "boot from cd: disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter." If I put the cd back in it starts all over again.

Any suggestions are appreciated.
Regards MWS254

[glc]

Make sure the bios virus protection is disabled.

[mws254]

Just check and virus warning is disabled.

Regards, MWS254