PSU RAM CPU and Motherboard all test OK

strewelpeter

I've been having issues with a system I made up a few months ago. The spec is at the bottom of the post.

When we first got the stuff it would freeze approx once a day maybe more maybe less.

Unfortunately I bought from Komplett...nice prices shame about the customer service...
got absolutely nowhere with their support only suggestion was to send the whole system to them...
At that stage I thought it was RAM and was waiting for a chance to try it with another stick.

Then over Christmas the whole thing stopped, as had komplett.

The fans run but it does not come up to bios and there is no beep.
plugging a monitor in you can see the green light come on for a couple of secs at power up and then it flashes on and off continuously.

Komplett agreed that it couldn't be the RAM as there was no beep...(there is a beep if you take out the RAM)
So they took back the CPU and motherboard kept them a month (which I find outrageous) before sending them back saying that they are 100% ok.
I am suspicious as to whether or not they ever really tested it ... they could be playing silly buggers and punishing me for being a bollix about how long it was taking them to look at it but thats a different matter.
Lets assume that they did test ok for them. Its all I can do anyway.

I got it back plugged it in and up it didn't come the exact same as a month ago!

So that leaves us with RAM and CPU so I mailed them again. I'm working in a place with 500+ computers but typically, there are no 24 pin atx psu's and no socket 775 boards and no pc3200 ram...
So I mailed Komplett waited ages, over a day, to get another reply from them this time they accused the PSU
so I went out and bought a 400w PSU yesterday Same result.
Then I got the ram tested in a suitable box last night and it works fine.


So the question is If it is not the CPU or Motherboard or the RAM or the PSU and I don't have anything else plugged in...WTF could it possibly be ?

All suggestions welcome. At this stage I have no choice but to throw money at it I can't afford to wait another month on Komplett to try to sort it

If anyone comes up with a suggestion that saves me buying more stuff from Maplins or God help me PCworld over the weekend you will be welcome to the spare PSU.




Here's the spec, the original PSU was 450w

Intel Pentium 4 630 3.0GHz Socket
LGA775, 2MB, EM64T, BOXED w/fan

EPoX EP-5EGMi, I915GL, Socket-775, m-ATX
Sound, 4XSATA,LAN, DDR400, VGA, PCI-Ex16

TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB CL3
64M*8/16chip, 184-P (for DDR-PC400MHz)

Endurance Man

Had a similar problem a while ago with a system i was buidling, it turned out the case was faulty and it was shorting out the motherboard some how .

astrofool

you have tested it out of a case?

The best thing to do would be to find someone who has a similar motherboard/chip to yourself, and test them individually.

Also, most boards with a 24 pin connector should work fine with a 20 pin psu, esp. a micro-atx system.

Have you got anything else plugged in? Are you using the onboard graphics? Have you tried an external graphics card?

strewelpeter

Tried in and out of the case, with and without the graphics card, and there is nothing at all else in for these tests.

Komplett wouldn't tell me whether they were testing in or out of a case.

I have a slight chance of getting another board to try on tomorrow but time is running out fast for me.

It really doesn't make any sense.

WizZard

Have you the latest BIOS on the board?

strewelpeter

There is one more thing that points to what I suggested to Komplett and is really the only reasonable thing I can think off...It did come up once yesterday but not again.

I'm busily looking for DJ's cracks in pcb etc. but I can't see anything yet.

strewelpeter

We have reset the bios at some stage.

I can't see anything 'cause it isn't booting into it,

They looked ok the one time it did boot, ...I got as far as keyboard missing message.

gamer

try usb, keyboard, or old type ps2 keyboard, unplug the mouse,it might have problem seeing usb kb.

WizZard

strewelpeter wrote:

There is one more thing that points to what I suggested to Komplett and is really the only reasonable thing I can think off...It did come up once yesterday but not again.

What?

strewelpeter

It started up once...and once only since it came back from them. It ran through the bios and to the no keyboard present error message. I'm trying it without any disks plugged in...I happened not to have the keyboard in that time.

Even though there was no great movement before I tried it again...(just plugged in a keyboard) and it failed I'm almost convinced there is some kind of a crack in the pcb or similar.

It hasn't started again since.

Gilgamesh

could you please list exactly what you have connected to the system at the moment, please, it would help.

also, did you try a different keyboard, ie a USB keyboard, or a PS2 depending on what you have in at the moment?

have you tried the memory in a different PC? even the other parts
/ mobo with a different processor in it, mobo without memory in it, you should get a beep code then, if you do, try putting just one piece of memory in, and then also try both in either of the memory banks.

Ishindar

some considerations that might help.

If Komplett have tested your mobo and cpu,. i would accept that they are ok.

u can get into your bios sometimes so i suggest u turn off keyboard, floppy and mouse error messages.

in bios make sure u have usb turned on. make sure u have usb mouse and keyboard turned on, if u have a usb mouse and keyboard.

In bios make sure u have your on board graphics turned on and test without the graphics card.

have a look through your bios settings for potential issues.

Consider your monitor may be faulty.

have a look at your mobo manufacturers service help and check for advise on your problems, for example u may need to enable your on board graphics for it to work properly.

Consider that your graphics card is faulty.

this may also be an on/off switch issue, i suggest u check your on/off button operation. I would also pop your on/off switch connector and short the on/off pins with a screw driver to power up, the pin outs should come with your mobo and the other stuff on that connector is unnecessary.

check that your ram is compatable with your mobo.

bring back that psu and tell them it was an unwanted present or get your misses to do it ;O)

gamer

make sure power supply connected to mobo,correctly, change fuse in main power pc plug to 13amp fuse/ might be 5amp.Plug out all harddrives/cdrom drives , i find a faulty hd or wrongly jumper hd /dvdrom drive will STOP pc from booting up,or crash it midway be4 it gets to windows booting.

strewelpeter

This just keeps getting weirder...
I got my hands on another box with a slightly older model of epox mobo same socket same ram specs.
We first put my cpu into it ...comes up, so cpu looks ok.
Then its cpu into my mobo ...it also came up to bios, no obvious problem but I didn't try anything else then.so the mobo looks ok

Next I put my cpu back into my mobo and up it came :eek: had a look in the bios and everything looked ok...I had to reset the clock, tried it again and it ran to the no boot disk message. So I put it all together again plugged drives etc. in and up it came again. I've stressed the mobo, pulled and pushed at the fan, ram video socket etc. and nothing bad happens...it is now working perfectly.
On and off a dozen times and now I'm leaving it running.

WTF?

All I can do now is run and monitor it, I haven't got a clue what is going on.

Is it possible that starting the cpu in the other board did some sort of initialisation or some such that I know nothing about? Or the other way around, could putting the other cpu into my mobo have done something to the mobo?
I don't know what to do now...In a way this is worse than a dead box I'm worried that I have some weirdly dodgy cpu that is not going to give out again till it is well out of warranty. On the other hand I don't fancy the stress of having to deal with Kompletts returns process again...just replacing them is a saner option.

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions and I'd be glad of any ideas that are more constructive than waiting for it to fail again.

astrofool

Just get the bios updated as quickly as possible.

tbh it just sounds like a botched installation, what was said on the komplett forum by the engineer saying they had to remove thermal paste from around the cpu seems to support this.

Thermal paste is conductive, and it could have been causing a short, which would lead to weird symptoms like you describe above. Maybe in changing the motherboard/cpu over, and re-seating the heatsink/fan you inadvertantly cleaned whatever was causing the short.

Ishindar

astrofool wrote:

Just get the bios updated as quickly as possible.

tbh it just sounds like a botched installation, what was said on the komplett forum by the engineer saying they had to remove thermal paste from around the cpu seems to support this.

Thermal paste is conductive, and it could have been causing a short, which would lead to weird symptoms like you describe above. Maybe in changing the motherboard/cpu over, and re-seating the heatsink/fan you inadvertantly cleaned whatever was causing the short.

y this sounds spot on sounds like the cpu was badly seated/shorting

strewelpeter

astrofool wrote:

Thermal paste is conductive, and it could have been causing a short, which would lead to weird symptoms like you describe above. Maybe in changing the motherboard/cpu over, and re-seating the heatsink/fan you inadvertantly cleaned whatever was causing the short.

Thanks.
The problem with that is that any paste that was there came in moving and packing it. We were originally using a pad and only used paste after the problem happened.
Also there was no paste at all when it came back and still behaved the same.
But there could be something else going on with the socket.

sounds like the cpu was badly seated/shorting

It really does, but the thing is the cpu has been in and out a dozen times in the last few days. but one way or another there is some sort of an intermittant problem.

I could try a drop of isopropyl alcohol and a softish brush to try and either kill or cure the socket, I guess though that I could really only kill it:( . Its hard to imagine that there would be a physical connection problem on the cpu. I suppose I'm better off trying things now rather than waiting till it goes again at some random time in the future.

gamer

sounds like a loose connection, somewhere, thats why, sometimes ,best to remove all ,components, start from scratch,if its working ok, leave it be, sumtimes components fix themselves, cud be a static electricity problem.