Wont Power Up?

[JamesT]

Ok well ive put all the parts together and i went to press the power switch but nothing happened :0 The keyboard lights were flashing, and there was a ticking noise coming from inside. Any ideas whats wrong?

Its an ASUS A7V8X-X.

[Cirga]

Woooo ticking noise? Might have been your hard drive trying to spin up. What vid card do you have? Did you put the CPU into the motherboard yourself or did it come pre-assembled? Were there any beeps at all when you hit hte power switch?

You can try reseating your vid card.. and maybe check your connections make sure everything is securely put in there. And ouch mate!

[JamesT]

Could it be to do with the J Panel connections?

[Cirga]

I dont think so JamesT. If that was not connected properly it would still boot as far as I know.. the JPanel is just a front end connection.. it woudlnt stop the PC from booting.

What processor are you running on that board. .. and what is your POwer supply? Brand etc.

So there are no beeps from the board at all when you try to start it up? Do you actually hear your hard drive spin up or anything else?

[uncivil]

Might take a minute to double check the orientation of all your connectors for the leds and switches. Also if its a board with jumpers make sure there wasnt something you was supposed to remove or change when you first got it.

[JamesT]

Well, im not sure where the sound is coming from. What would cause the hard drive from not spinning? The HD is powered up to the socket thing on the mobo. Im not sure if i have done the cdrom drive correctly. I used the ribbon cable from the hardrive, well theres 2 connections, so one goes to the hd and the other goes to the cd rom.

Its a AMD XP 2500+. Its 300W PSU. Not sure about the make but its ATX or something Sorry im not that good about bulding computers as this is my first time.

[Pasty901]

Is it comin to life then turnin off ? If so the board is shorting on sumthing which means it is touching your case, check ur screws etc to see it is not making a connection at all.

[Cirga]

Originally posted by JamesT
Well, im not sure where the sound is coming from. What would cause the hard drive from not spinning? The HD is powered up to the socket thing on the mobo. Im not sure if i have done the cdrom drive correctly. I used the ribbon cable from the hardrive, well theres 2 connections, so one goes to the hd and the other goes to the cd rom.

Its a AMD XP 2500+. Its 300W PSU. Not sure about the make but its ATX or something Sorry im not that good about bulding computers as this is my first time.

Its ok mate. We all went through tough times on our first try ! I know I did

Depending on everything you have hooked up that PSU may not be enough power to boot the machine.. or you may have even fried the PSU. The Brand will make a huge difference in this case. With my XP2500 chip I blew a 500W Achieve power supply in 30 minutes.. but I now have a 350W Enermax which runs it like a champion and has for several months.

Also.. as for hooking up the hard drive and the CD drive. Make sure you have your hard drive set to Master (check the pins in the back of the drive) and then set your CD drive to secondary slave (same pins in the back).

Make sure you have the drive ribbon plugged into the EIDE 1 slot on your motherboard.

Now.. if you hit the power switch and you dont hear anything happening.. no picture nothing.. there is a chance the CPU may not be seated properly. if you check the instructions that came with your hardware it will show you a diagram of one of hte corners of hte CPU chip and where that corner should be on the mobo. Remember to always take your motherboard out of the case before attempting to put the CPU fan on. The only time I have experienced no power up is when I cracked the motherboard by trying to put the CPU fan on it while it was mounted inside of the case.

Did you put the CPU and fan on yourself or did it come pre-assembled?

[JamesT]

I installed the CPU myself and it snapped into place fine i think.

Im not too sure how to configure the hard drive and cd rom drive. All i connected was the power and the jumper leads.

[Cirga]

Originally posted by JamesT
I installed the CPU myself and it snapped into place fine i think.

Im not too sure how to configure the hard drive and cd rom drive. All i connected was the power and the jumper leads.

Ok. The CPU chip actually has a small notch cut off of one corner.. and thats the corner that needs to line up properly. Did you make sure of that when you inserted it? Just checking...covering all the ground here.

As for the jumpers on teh hard drive and CD rom drive. If you look on top of each drive there is a sticker that shows a diagram of what jumper settings do what. The jumpers are located on the back of the drive. You will see something like 8 or 12 pins and a couple pieces of plastic on them. You just need to move those around to make your hard drive the Master and your CD drive teh Slave.

[NUTNDUN]

I would say the best thing to do is to basically start over, remove the cdrom drive, worry bout that later. Need to get the thing running first. Pull the motherboard out and set it on top of the anti-static bag it came wrapped in. Take the heatsink off and remove the cpu. Clean off the heatsink and cpu with rubbing alcohol to remove the thermal grease, hopefully you have more thermal grease left, if not get some artic silver. There should be a lever at the cpu socket on the motherboard, lift the lever up, the cpu will only sit into the socket one way, one corner is missing a pin. Put a very tiny amount of thermal grease on the cpu(like paper thin) and spread it out evenly on the cpu die with something like a credit card. Once you set the cpu down into the socket keep a small amount of pressure down on the cpu evenly while putting the lever back down to lock the cpu in place, then install your heatsink very carefully. Hopefully your cpu isn't fried. Anyway once ya get that done pull the ram out and reseat it as well as the video card, remove any other cards from the system, we are only going to use what is needed to get the system to boot and will worry bout the extras later. Install the mobo back into the case and connect the ide cable to the hard drive then connect the power supply to the drive and the motherboard, make sure the cpu fan is plugged in and try powering the system up.


One thing to note is depending on what heatsink you are using for the cpu the fan may be drawing to much power for the fan header on the motherboard assuming that is what you are using and may have shorted out the fan header which means the cpu is getting hot or the motherboard has a shutdown safety to keep from burning up the cpu. If you still here the noise, keep the case cover off and try to listen for where the sound is coming from, if it sounds like the drive try to use a different one.

[JamesT]

This may sound dum, but Will it boot if there is no video card? Or will i need to put it in while trying what you just said.

[DreamCaster]

The video card will be needed for the boot process JamesT
At bare minimum I'd say you'll need the Motherboard, Ram, CPU, Videocard and HDD to start out with.

PS...there are no dumb questions here. It's always a learning process

[JamesT]

Ok Thanks DC.

I also noticed 2 input sockets on the PSU, Im guessing one is for main power and one is for the monitor. However, which is which? Ive got this adapter from my old computer, where you plug the power cable into the monitor cable, but it has an adapter. That computer only had one socket on it. Mine has two.

Im sure you lot know what the power cable are but :



The cable socket on the left is what i havent got, the one on the right is a power cable i got from ebuyer. On my comp, the adapter goes on the bottom socket, which is where you have the pin outs, and the top one is where you have to put the pins in. Sorry if thats complicated but im not sure what to call em :\


Regarding the video card, Will the PC power up without it? You mentioned the boot process but i was wondering if you need it to boot up.

[JamesT]

When i say Boot up, i mean power up.

Is there anyway i can check to see if the PSU hasnt blown?