New build troubleshoot

[David M]

I have gone over the trouble shooting guide twice now and am still having problems.

Parts I am testing with...
Asus Revolution, Intel 2600K, one stick of Corsair XMS 1600 DDR3 RAM that I know works on my other computer, AX1200 PSU and a single Sapphire 6990.

The motherboard is outside of the case.

What I have plugged in is the graphics card and its two 8 pin power connectors, one stick of RAM in the A2 slot, the 8 Pin CPU cable, the 24 pin cable, the 4 pin Molex connector on the motherboard and the stock CPU fan plugged into the CPU power connector.

The power connectors to the PSU are tight as are all the other connectors.

What is happening is when I put a screwdriver across the power pins, the CPU fan turns for slit second and then shuts down. Only pulling the CMOS battery allows this to happen again.

Before I do an RMA for the board, is there anything I might be missing?

[Force Flow]

Pull the RAM and video card (and any other cards) and see if you can get a beep out of it.

[glc]

Plug the G. P. Diagnosis card in and use that to turn the power on rather than using a screwdriver.

Try it with the EZ-Plug (Molex) disconnected.

[David M]

I tried your suggestions. The board seems to be DOA. Thanks for the help.

[David M]

Well, I got the replacement board from Newegg today.

I tried to get the board to POST outside of the case. I tried a bunch of different things and no luck again. It would seem the chances are slim to none the second board is bad. What are the chances of a CPU being bad?...that's all I can think of. My PSU is a Corsair AX1200 which was working just fine with my previous board.

I took everything into the local mom and pop computer repair shop who always do an excellent job when I am completely stumped. If anyone is curious I will report back on what it was.

You shoulda seen the guys face when I showed up with two 6990 cards.

[jdeb]

I had three in a row with that board. The fourth was fine and after all was said, came back too me less than a year later with failed PCI E. Asus was great, they sent me a couple of Sabertooths. It was a workstation build and I probably ended up losing the customer over the nightmare. I have built a few for this customer and for whatever reason, I always have problems with them. Strange. I will not buy another one of those boards. I have built 12 Sabertooth X58 builds and not one had any issues.

If you are running a multiple gaming card rig, you are better served with the Gigabyte Assasin or Sniper

Oh , I just seen Khalil's post. It must be a P67board. I seen Asus Revolution and my mind snapped. Built zero of those boards. Just the name has done it for me.

[quartet-man]

I'm interested.

[Khalil]

Well I am going to assume it is a P67 chipset, sad to report, problems are not over with this chipset regardless of Intel's hype!
I just got done building a 68 system order, because of the high rate of failures during the build I had to convince the client to go back to this 1156 setup (motherboard - CPU).
I sent back all the ASUS P8P67-M and Intel Pentium Dual-Core G620T, the problem was not with the CPUs, they were all good, the failure was in the motherboards, 24 of them were no good with different problems, that was way too high of a risk for me to have to deal with future problems.
I am very satisifed with the 1156 platform from Intel, very stable and we have had minimal problems with them, I would say equivelant in reliability to the AMD chipsets that I favor.

[quartet-man]

You ought to know, Khalil (even though you do favor AMDs ). Thanks for the info. I intend on sticking with the 1156 when I do one for home (unless the problems are finally ironed out and it is proven by some time). I wish you were closer to me and I would give you my business for sure.

[Khalil]

I am done with the 1155 chipset, regardless of what Intel does with it same as I did with the 1366, the most important aspect of my builds is reliability. It makes no difference to me what benchmarks state or how fast a system is if it is not solid and very reliable. I tell this to my clients, funny enough I lose business initially with new clients but when they learn their lesson and realize I was right, they give me their business the next time around.
I will wait for the next platform from Intel, meanwhile I am super happy building solid reliable systems with the 1156 platform.

[SARGE]

Originally Posted by Khalil I will wait for the next platform from Intel,

Like waiting for the next OS from MS? Roll your dice and hope it's not a 7.

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by SARGE Like waiting for the next OS from MS? Roll your dice and hope it's not a 7.

Well I have a strong alternative with the Intel systems I build which is the 1156. I will wait till they come up with a better platform than the 1155 that is stable, until then I will keep using the 1156, heck I am still building very good systems with the 775 platform, those Pentium E6600s are strong for a business machine or a regular home user, even gaming rigs can work well with them!

Both Intel and AMD are tripping all over themselves to try and produce redicluous technology that is not stable, I am very disapointed with Bulldozer, it should have been release by now on the market but it 's been delayed again because they are taking crazy steps to keep up with the Jones's, Intel are so worried AMD will come up with something that will turn the tides they keep releasing unreliable technology just to try and stay ahead even if its just in benchmarks.
I feel that the 1156 had a long way to go, same with the AM3 sockets, the consumer does not need Bulldozers and Sandy Bridges, they need value for their money!

[glc]

Khalil, have you tried any Z68's yet? It's said to be what the P67/H67 should have been.

[jdeb]

I am sending one back today (P8Z68-V), it keeps rebooting and blue screening on it's own. Blue screens are hardware related. Flaky is all get out. First build with this chipset and it's ugly. It is a High End HTPC for a good customer. I am going to go and grab a MSI Z68MA-ED55 locally to see if I can get it done. I will definitely be using Intel's stress test on this build.

I do not build anything near Khalil's level but I have to agree with the 1156 and 775 from Intel being a safer, more reliable build. I still build more 775's. I have had great stability with the 770 and 880G chipset with AMD.

[Jeri]

Do you guys think the H67 boards are stable? I just built 2 and I’m close to pulling the trigger on 4 more.

Now I’m just a bit concerned...

[Hippo08]

I am wondering the same as Jeri, I am about to build 3 systems with 2 H67 and 1 P67, should I start reordering?

[Deringer]

Now I'm scared of ordering too.

I just scraped together enough to start thinking of buying parts again and was going to order a P8P67 mobo and i5-2400 cpu.

Looking for some reassurance...

[SARGE]

Is weird for me. Mine started out unstable, I kept o/c it and getting a boot-o-rama like so many others. I then said to Hades with it all (have 3 boards) set them back to default, got the latest Bios and very happy. I can o/c 'til the cows come home. It's almost as if the mobo has to go thru a break-in period then it settles down. The Bios update doesn't say it fixes the multi-boots, but all mine did. I can now o/c my 3.4 up to 4.9 and it's happy; fixing to punish it at over 5+. Your mileage may vary. This is the fastest thing I ever had and was frustrating for a bit. I cussed out Asus every day but not now.

Buy quality parts and go for it. For me, mine likes Kingston Ram and read the same elsewhere.

[Khalil]

Originally Posted by glc Khalil, have you tried any Z68's yet? It's said to be what the P67/H67 should have been.

I will order one and see how it goes!

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by jdeb I am sending one back today (P8Z68-V), it keeps rebooting and blue screening on it's own. Blue screens are hardware related. Flaky is all get out. First build with this chipset and it's ugly. It is a High End HTPC for a good customer. I am going to go and grab a MSI Z68MA-ED55 locally to see if I can get it done. I will definitely be using Intel's stress test on this build. I do not build anything near Khalil's level but I have to agree with the 1156 and 775 from Intel being a safer, more reliable build. I still build more 775's. I have had great stability with the 770 and 880G chipset with AMD.

I finished the Z68 build with the MSI and it was fine. Passed all tests. I must of had a bad Asus board, it happens on rare occasion. Asus tech support was great as usual.

[jdeb]

Originally Posted by Jeri Do you guys think the H67 boards are stable? I just built 2 and I’m close to pulling the trigger on 4 more. Now I’m just a bit concerned...

I have not had any problems with them. Stick with 1.5V Crucial, Kingston, Corsair, A-DATA memory and you should be fine.

[Hippo08]

I have A-DATA going into all of mine, I will let you know how it goes.

Thank you guys!

[Khalil]

I got an MSI Z68MA-ED55 in today I will be trying it with an Intel Core i3-2120 when I got the invoice I was like I am already at $300 just for the CPU and motherboard for a low end system but for about $100 less I can build this ASUS P7H55-M LX and Intel Core i3-550 which I am sure will be stable, I mean how much more performance can the sandy bridge give me over the 1156 to justify the extra $100?

I will report in a few days my findings on the Z68 system.

[glc]

The Z68 is not for a low-cost system. It's not high end like a X58, but it's a definite step above any of the H and P-series chipsets. The Sandy Bridge really does perform considerably better than the previous CPU's, especially the internal graphics.

[Khalil]

Still for that kind of money, it seems steep for the features you are getting. That is close to X58 and Sabertooth territory in motherboards price wise!

[glc]

Actually, Z68 boards start at $109. The chipset has Virtu and SSD caching.

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TZ68A+ LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

[Khalil]

My distros did not have too many Z68s in stock, the MSI was the cheapest they carried! Newegg seems to have better stock than most distributors