Help with computer upgrade

[Masaki 7-11]

A few weeks ago I bought a new case, motherboard and ram to upgrade my computer, after assembling everything, I only had fans and lights turn on, the hard drives didn't start up and the optical drive wouldn't work as well there was no signal output from my video card and there were no beeps coming from my motherboard. I then upgraded my power supply from a Raidmax 420W to a Antec 550W. All parts that were used prior to upgrade were in working condition. I tried an out of case build as Hal suggested, but have the same results, here are the parts I'm using:

Case:SECC Steel/ Aluminum/ Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retai
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811146035 NZXT HUSH Black l

Power Supply: Antec NeoPower 550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, TUV, CE, FCC, CCC, CB, C-tick - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103941

CPU: Pentium D 820 (800MHz FSB, 2x1MB Cache, 2.8GHz)

Motherboard: ASUS P5K SE LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131189

Ram: OCZ Platinum 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227089

Video Card: Sapphire X1600XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express

CPU Fan: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186134

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148140

Optical Drive:AOpen DUW1608/ARR DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...n-duw1608.html

There are two things I think may be a problem with my build, firstly my processor was overclocked in my previous build, and the settings were not changed before it was installed in my new system. The second thing may be related to the memory, seems other people have been having trouble running 800MHz or higher ram in the type of board I have.

[liambl]

Are the optical drives/HDD's working since you upgraded the PSU?

[Masaki 7-11]

No, neither the optical drive nor the hard drive run in the new system, I haven't tried it in another system though.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 There are two things I think may be a problem with my build, firstly my processor was overclocked in my previous build, and the settings were not changed before it was installed in my new system.

That's not a problem...the CPU speed when overclocked is determined by the motherboard (custom BIOS settings) and will not be overclocked in your new setup as long as the motherboard is running at default settings.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 The second thing may be related to the memory, seems other people have been having trouble running 800MHz or higher ram in the type of board I have.

Problem may be related to the RAM being CAS 4 (instead of CAS 5 which newer Intel chipsets seem to prefer) and the voltage rating of the RAM (OCZ is 2.1v)...1.8v is known to work fine in newer Intel based motherboards.

Cricket

[Masaki 7-11]

I have some spare ram from another build which I should be able to try out, it's a 1GB Kingston stick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820144151.
It runs at 533MHz, has 1.8v and CAS 4. If this doesn't work I'll probably need to replace the motherboard? If it does work, how would I go about changing bios settings to make my new ram work? Checking some reviews from newegg, there's been problems with running ddr2-800 and higher on my motherboard without changing bios settings.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 I have some spare ram from another build which I should be able to try out, it's a 1GB Kingston stick: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820144151. It runs at 533MHz, has 1.8v and CAS 4.

The CAS 4 may work to get the system to boot up but the computer may run unstable.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 If this doesn't work I'll probably need to replace the motherboard?

Why change the motherboard? Just get RAM that is known to work with it. This Corsair VS RAM will work.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 If it does work, how would I go about changing bios settings to make my new ram work?

Motherboard BIOS will auto-detect the new RAM and set the correct speed automatically. If you want, you can CLEAR the CMOS to reset the BIOS.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 Checking some reviews from newegg, there's been problems with running ddr2-800 and higher on my motherboard without changing bios settings.

It really depends on the CAS rating and the quality of the RAM used. And I wouldn't really trust those user reviews on Newegg or any other vendor web site...most of those users may not even know what they're doing. If I have a question about anything computer related I check here first...at least I know the old time members here really know what they're doing.

Cricket

[liambl]

Would the RAM explain why the optical and hard drives aren't powering up?

[Masaki 7-11]

So if the other ram stick fixes the problem, then I can't use my good ram sticks? I don't have newegg available to me since I live in Canada, so getting hold of the mentioned ram would be difficult. I plan on upgrading my computer with a new penryn processor sometime in the next few months, and I'll need DDR2-800 memory modules since I will most likely be overclocking the processor to 1600Mhz FSB. I've built computers with Asus motherboards, but I've never had problems like this, so since I still have warranty for my motherboard, I wouldn't have trouble changing my motherboard to something else if my ram doesn't work, or the system doesn't work.

[Masaki 7-11]

Tried out my spare PC-4200 Ram with CAS 4, and it's not working. I set up my OCZ ram in a friend's computer (AMD) and it works fine, do I need to buy a new motherboard or just ram with CAS 5? If I can just buy the ram, is this module good http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820134192 ? If I need new ram, I'll try and get a total of 8GB since I'll be using Vista 64-bit.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 do I need to buy a new motherboard or just ram with CAS 5?

I would try new RAM first.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 If I can just buy the ram, is this module good http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130082 ?

The link goes to a MSI motherboard.

Originally Posted by Masaki 7-11 If I need new ram, I'll try and get a total of 8GB since I'll be using Vista 64-bit.

Why do you need 8GB of RAM? What are you doing with the computer that would justify that much RAM?

Cricket

[Masaki 7-11]

Sorry, fixed the link, I will need 8GB of ram since I'll be doing a lot of multi-tasking and media encoding. 2GB sticks are similar in price to 1GB stick here where I live, so I would like to get a large amount of ram since I'm going with vista 64-bit.

If I can get my current build to work, I'll be upgrading the processor and I'll most likely stick with this computer for a pretty long time, so having 2GB modules will help out when I want to upgrade the ram.

[Masaki 7-11]

My friend got his computer up and running with the OCZ ram, and has it working great, he ran CPU-Z and it showed the ram as having a CAS latency of 5, does that mean the OCZ ram should have worked with my computer?

[liambl]

Yes the ram should've worked. Drives not powering up would indicate power issue but since the PSU has been replaced it is unlikely that this is the cause.

[Cricket]

Let's go back a bit.

You upgraded your computer and tried to start it up. Fans and lights worked but drives did not power up. All new parts except CPU and video card.

Upgraded from RaidMax to Antec power supply. No change. Didn't try drives in another computer yet.

Did out-of-case-troubleshooter. No change. This would indicate one of the core components is the problem.

Tried different RAM. No change.

So, with just the new motherboard, new RAM, new power supply, old CPU and old video card you still can't get the system to boot up. If you're sure the CPU and video card are working (did you try testing them in your old motherboard yet?) then it looks like you have a dead motherboard on your hands.

Cricket

[Masaki 7-11]

Haven't had time to try out the cpu and video card in my old system, but I will do so sometime today. If the old system no longer works, I'll try the video card in a working system, so I'll know if it's the processor or video card. Hopefully all my old parts are working since I still have in store warranty on my motherboard, thanks for all the help so far, I'll post my results once I finishing testing.

[Masaki 7-11]

I finished up my build today (it's in my signature) after I bought new parts. I RMA'ed the motherboard I originally had and got a replacement, I replaced the kingston ram with Cas 5 DDR2-800 Mushkin, and the X1600XT with a 9600GT Superclocked. I haven't had any issues so far, but my motherboard won't recognize my other hard drive (maxtor 250GB) I made sure that all connectors were plugged it properly, and I tried out different SATA and Power connectors, but it still was not recognized; could the hard drive have failed? Thanks for all the help so far, I've learned lots along the way, and I'm glad I got the computer up and running after all.

[shadowpr]

Could be the hard drive is done.

Can you hook it up to a different computer to see if you have any better luck that way?

[liambl]

Sorry, this doesn't answer your question but, that Celeron is actually running at 1600MHz FSB?

[Masaki 7-11]

Originally Posted by liambl Sorry, this doesn't answer your question but, that Celeron is actually running at 1600MHz FSB?

Yes, after increasing stock voltage by 10%, I have the processor at 1600MHz FSB; a 100% overclock. I have another computer I can try the hard drive in, so I'll test it out as soon as I have some time. Thankfully my lower capacity hard drive is the one that's not working, so my 320GB Seagate should run fine for the next while until I save up enough money for a new hard drive (I'm pretty sure the warranty for the Maxtor ran out, but I'll take a look at getting a replacement if I know for sure it is dead).