My new build will not boot.

[Peter Venkman]

My new home built computer is not booting.
Here are my parts.
Asus P5Q
WD 6400AAKS
Intel E8400
Xigmatek HDT S1283
G.Skill DDR2 1066 2x2Gigs
Visiontek HD4870
Corsair 750wat PSU
Antec 900 case
Light ON DVD burner

I assembled all of the parts and when I first turned my PSU on the motherboard light lit up green. When I pressed the computer power button on my computer case the motherboard light flickered and all the fans on my system started to move then they just stopped. I decided to trouble shoot by constructing the computer out of its case. I had the motherboard, cpu, heatsink, one stick of ram, GPU, and PSU all sitting out. When I powered this on with the one stick of ram it booted and I could navigate my bios. I put the system back together in my case and it booted just fine. After this I decided to change some fans around and after disconnecting two fans the computer refused to boot.
This time when I reconstructed the computer out side of the case it would not boot. I thought it might be a ram issue so I bought some corsair dominator DDR2 1066 2x1gig memory. This did not help, trying to boot with either of the one gig sticks had no effect.

I have looked at this thing and analyzed it till I am almost crosseyed. It seems that a component went bad or I have my mobo shorting out/grounding somewhere and I am at a loss.

I just tried reseting the cmos and it had no effect on the outcome.
I also just bought a defective MSI P45 board from Fry's, awsome.

I realy appreciate all of the help guys, thanks in advance

[shadowpr]

So you get no post with the out of case build? Just using the mb, psu, video card, cpu, heatsink, and one stick of ram?


Have you tried to put the ram in a different slot?

Did you double check to make sure the heatsink is on completely, and that one of the pins didn't get knocked out?

[Peter Venkman]

Thanks for the reply

I checked my socket again and all the pins are fine.
I can't remember if I tried one or two of my four ram slots. If one of the slots doesn't work and others did shouldn't I return the board anyways?

I would also like to point out that I got the board to boot with one stick of ram in slot one, then it would not boot, and subsequent tries with ram in the same slot have not worked.

I have taken this computer appart and put it back together quite a lot. Is it realy necessary to try the ram in all 4 slots given my previously posted symptoms of trouble?

Thanks again for helping me trudge onward with this agonising build.

[shadowpr]

If one slot doesn't work, then yes, I would return it.

I would suggest trying it out of the case again, and trying differnt ram slots. At this point, we need to know what piece of hardware isn't workin right. If we can narrow it down, then it will be easier then just guessing.

Do you have any other spare parts? Substitution will be the easiest way to check things from here.

[Chris Linder]

I had trouble with that brand ram before. Just one bad stick of ram can make your system seem completely dead. Try getting to the bios with no ram on your board. If you get to the bios then stick one ram on the board at a time. Find out which one is bad. The only reason why I’m focused on the ram is because Iv had quite a lot of bad ram my way.

Good luck