Mobo trouble?

[jägermonsta]

Got the fiance a few new parts for her PC.

MB GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2L 775
PSU TT|W0100RU 500W
CPU INTEL|PDC E5200 2.5G 2M
MEM 2Gx2|GSK F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
VGA EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR 9800GTX

I pull out all the old guts of her old PC and toss in the new.

I go to power it on and I see I got no picture coming up on the monitor.

So... Hard Drive spins up, Video Card fan turns on, PSU Fan which is plugged into a normal 3 pin fan slot turns on, and obviously the front panel buttons/LEDs are working.

Go through the normal troubleshooting procedures... I pull out the video card and try the onboard video... nothing. I unplug and pull out everything except cpu/cooling, 1 mem stick... nothing. Swap mem stick... nothing. I use a different PSU... nothing. You know the same trial an error shit they teach you in 101..

So I've noticed this. When I use a CPU Fan (4 pin for CPU fan outlet on mobo), the CPU fan gets no power. Both the CPU power and Mobo power from PSU are plugged in mind you... so I don't know. Never seen this happen before in all the computers I've built. Started a RMA for the Mobo but hoping it's nothing else!

[Whirlingdervish]

from what you've spec'd out, it would seem to me that your mobo is DOA or one of it's connections is to blame.

when you say 4pin for the CPU power connection, do you mean the sizeable one that's like this:

o o
o o


or the one like this:

....



With the 20/24 pin mobo power connector plugged in, both should be hot.

It could just be that fan power socket, and the BIOS telling it to halt POST when it gets a shit signal back from the CPU fan, or it could be something else along the way.

Does the system speaker beep at all when it boots? Like a single beep good POST signal or a beep pattern?

Is there a little led indicator on the mobo which will spit you codes? (like on the pimp evga ones?)

[jägermonsta]

This is the 4pin I'm referring to:



When that is plugged in, the Fan doesn't spin. (I've tested 2 different Fans)

When I plug in a 3 pin fan:



The fan will spin. Note there is only ONE 3 pin fan socket on this micro board. It's also on the opposite side of the board.

When I refer to the CPU power plug it's this one:



Which is plugged in, of course.

It is a 24pin mobo power:



Which of course is also plugged in.


When I boot on, my front Panel LED lights work fine, and obviously the power button. The hard drive spins on fine, the graphics card fan spins on, and the 3pin fan will spin on. 4 pin fans will not (at top of board) So I'm assuming the top of the board has some type of short? I don't believe the CPU / Memory is getting power. But I didn't think it was possible to have HALF power? I always thought it was all or nothing....

I get no beeps when I boot on. Just the sound of fans, hard drive spinning and a blinking "signal error, check cable" message on the monitor (both onboard vga and graphics card dvi)

Yeah my EVGA board is awesome, with those codes, etc... this board has no lights, period. I looked it up to see if they just weren't lit and I couldn't find them or if it even came with them, didn't come with them.

[jägermonsta]

Frustrating. Never had to troubleshoot a single part when building a new PC, through all the computers I've made in my time. When a part breaks on a previously working PC, it's easy for me to troubleshoot...

So either the mobo has power issues I'm thinking...

or perhaps the CPU fan doesn't spin because it doesn't need to? Meaning the CPU isn't creating heat / not working?

I know when I send the mobo back and get a replacement it's still not gonna work, I'll be fuckin rip shit.

[Whirlingdervish]

Hrm. So the fan works when you plug it into the SYS/AUX fan 3pin connector (case fan), but in the 4 pin it won't spin, and it's not finishing POST or even getting to a point where it'll give you a beep pattern to tell you how it's fucked up.

The cpu cooler fan should spin up on powerup on a board that doesn't have custom BIOS options for controlling it. It would kick it up a notch when heated but it should run almost all the time at some speed.


Your problem is probably the mobo. You'd get 2 beeps and it would halt before the boot stage if the sensor was just not finding a cpu cooler fan or reporting a fan failure. If it was the vid card or the card's socket you'd get a beep pattern  (short and long beeps, or a beep repeating indefinitely)

The board prolly has a short somewhere, or a cracked circuit

[jägermonsta]

 

Maybe it was me, I don't know. But that's good to hear, as long as I'm replacing the right part. Sounds good.

This is what I bet happened...



This fucker.

Didn't have that 3M cover for the back plate piece. I bet it short the board out. Hopefully CPU isn't damaged too. In my defense, the last mobo it was attached to, didn't either and it worked fine. 

[Whirlingdervish]

oof.

yeah the little insulation pad is important on certain mobos that need a cooler mounting bracket like that.

The points on the back of the mobo can create all sorts of shorts if something metal is touching them, and sometimes that pad will help you to not tighten the cooler bracket down too hard as well (preventing the board from stress cracks starting from the little connector holes and radiating outward).

Blame the mobo until they prove it was you tho.. 

[reaper]

I didn't really read this whole thread, but sometimes there is an auxillary power for the motherboard, so you need the main connection from the power supply AND the auxillary power for it to work right.

So you can have a system where everything turns on, but you don't get video output.  Plug in the auxillary power connector on the motherboard and the system will run.

[jägermonsta]

ahh yes, that is true about aux. though I don't think this board has them

link

[reaper]

There is a connector in the bottom left that is looks like a square.  It's probably power for something on the board but not needed, is it plugged in?

You sure the board is getting all the necessary connections from your power supply?  Sometimes the system tests for power from everything before booting properly.

[jägermonsta]

Yeah, that's power for the CPU. Most all boards have them, my current system has TWO.

Mid thread I explained that port and cord hehe.

Yeah looking at the board (and manual) there are only 2 power ports on this particular board. Both of which were plugged in and test with two separate power supplies.

I'm fairly certain I managed to short this board out. I'm just surprised that some stuff still worked after the fact... I figured if you fried a board, it would completely die.

first time I've had trouble with parts lol... I normally toss them around, cat sleeps on them, keep them piled in a card board box, they always still worked. Guess I just had to add power to them at the wrong time to break em. my b