New rig won't POST!

Cheers Nigel, I'll take the dog a quick walk and the start over, J

Hi there
I've had something like this in the past.

1) At power on does the CPU fan stay on or even start.

2) I found on some mother boards you could only get the system to work by connecting the power switch and power led in the mobo to the connectors in the case and then pressing on the RESET / Power switch on the case. If you did't do this or didn't have these connected the system would NEVER power on at all so no post possible.

3) the Auxiliary CPU power -- is it a standard 4 pin one or one of the newer versions with more pins (most older boards have the 4 pin connector).

If you've got the wrong one or haven't plugged it in then no go.

4) Take EVERYTHING out of the mobo apart from the CPU and the video card -- even the memory sticks and keyboard and see if at least the machine will power on properly (Fans whirring and CPU fan starting).If you have an onboard video card make sure you haven't disabled it if you are testing without using an external video card. If you are using an external video card disable the onboard video.

Even if you have an external card I would still test with the onboard video if the board has one first.

5) add keyboard and memory slots one at a time -- you should at this stage see something of a BIOS message even with 0K of memory installed.

If you get 5) working add peripherals in bits until whole system is ready.

Don't do any fancy overclocking / adjustments until you've got some type of decent BIOS Post messages..

If all this fails then the chances are only one of 2 possibilities

1) the CPU is incomaptable with the board -- happens more than you think

2) CPU / Motherboard is defective -- the CPU's are actually far more rugged than you think and with Zero Force Insertion its unlikely you've got damaged pins etc so defective equipment is not normally likely -- I've built loads of machines over the years and NEVER had a broken CPU. (I've dropped them / mis treated them etc -- never had a problem).

Motherboards are sometimes not compatable with memory / cpu but that's another problem.

Cheers
jimbo

Well I had a walk with the dog but failed to take mind off this build. Here are some pics of the area concerned and the micro connectors I have also the black and white cabled connector that comes out of the psu with the main bundle. This seems to have WST 34 written on it. Think I need new glasses for this job.

This is the mobo pins:

And here are the connectors I have. The second one is the one that comes off the psu:

The black and white connector on the right is an RPM fan control for the fans in the power supply unit. You can see it right at the top of this diagram
850W - silent and efficient power supplies

Jimbo. Good to have you onboard.
1)Yes the CPU Noctua HSF comes on and stays on.
2)Haven't got to that stage yet as I'm unsure where to stick the connecters. See above.
3) Don't know. Which is the Auxilliary power. Wherever it is I don't have it connected
4) I've tried that apart from removing the RAM and ,yes, it powers up.
5) I've tried all sorts of combinations. I was at this 12 hours yesterday. Everything powers up in the case except my GTX 260. That shows no sign of life at all. I swapped it out for my old 8800 GTS 512 and that powers up, fan spins etc.

As I said in my op the mobo, cpu, ram and Noctua HSF came in an overclocked bundle (i7 920@3.8GHz) and have supposedly been thoroughly stress tested for 24 hours so I don't think they are incompatible.
I just don't know how to connect it all up.

Thanks for your input, John

I have the same MB.

Look in your manual. Page 27, F PANAL (front panal header) this shows where the connectors go. You will notice the speaker pins, this is for the MB speaker that beeps on startup. Once you have the speaker installed you will get beeps that will help you trouble shoot your startup. See page 99 for beep codes.

Hope this helps.
Tommy

Ok, in looking at your connections on the left;

The hard drive LED goes into the lower left 2 pins in the block. Generally speaking, the colored cables are the positives...while white and black are usually the negatives. Thus the blue cable for the HDD LED should plug into the first pin from the left.

The reset switch is just to the right of the HDD. The positive here in the purple cable. Thus, the purple connection should be in the 4th pin from the left.

The power switch goes right above the reset switch into the upper row. The red cable is the positive end. Thus it should go in the 3rd pin from the left.

The two power LED connections go onto the block of 3 pins between that F Panel block and the first yellow USB block. These cables are labeled + which is the blue one and - which is the white one. You will have to look at your motherboard manual to find which of those 3 pins is positive and which is negative. One pin will go unused.


As far as the speaker goes...it's possible that your case will not come with a PC Speaker. My latest case, the Antec P183 did not come with a case speaker. So, those pins are unused on my mobo.

Antec maintains that many new mobos come with speakers built-in...so hence reason they don't include speaker with case. If you have a need for it...most case manufactures will send you one. Or you could get one 3rd party as well.


Unfortunately, I don't think these connections are your problems. Typically if the power switch is wrong, pushing the power button or reset does nothing. If the LED's are backwards, the lights will either be on solid or will blink at exactly the wrong time...but won't prevent the machine from running.

I truly believe you have a CPU problem here. I'd remove it from the board and attempt to reseat it. Otherwise, it's possible that your overclocked CPU has a problem...and hence reason I don't usually recommend buying a machine that is pre-overclocked.

Thanks Tommy. So all the connectors shown in the first picture above go within that box? Apart from the red area which I used as power switch it's not clear where I put the others.
Also. I can't see what you mean about speaker pns and don't seem to have a speaker connector. What does it look like?

Thanks for your help, J