[lightning89]

Hey guys,
I've recently ordered a new computer from eBuyer.co.uk and spent the duration of today with a very well experienced friend building it up from scratch. The parts we have and that have been built together are the following:

PSU: Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI-E 2x SATA
Mobo: ASUS M3N78 PRO GeForce 8300 Socket AM2+
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+
Memory: 2 x 2GB Corsair DDR2 PC26400 RAM
HDD: 1x 750GB Maxtor SATAII 7200rpm Internal
GFX: XFX 8800GS 384MB DDR3 XXX Edition (680MHz)

As I said, the friend of mine who built the system up for me is very experienced- he's built PC systems up countless times in the past and has a brief idea of what the problem could be here.

When all put together, we plugged the power cable and monitor cable into the back and attempted to see if everything worked as normal. The Motherboard light came on, all fans were spinning and there were no error bleeps from the BIOS. The problem however, was that the monitor was not displaying anything at all- despite the PC seeming like it was running flawlessly.

We tried a number of different potential solutions. First, we swapped the cable for a different one, but no luck. We removed the graphics card and plugged the cable in via the on-board graphics, but still no luck. We've even tried plugging it in to another monitor, but the same problem still occurs.

This has been very frustrating- as everything SEEMS as if it's working fine. Then it struck us... the BIOS hadn't made a single beep at all since we'd first put the power in. Obviously, with no keyboard or monitor connected to the system the BIOS should beep to indicate this- however it had done nothing.

Perhaps my motherboard BIOS is problematic? We hadn't opened the Motherboard until today, it was handled with extreme care and we made sure to be earthed and things to drain all static before handling it. I myself haven't mis-handled the box while the motherboard was inside- we really do not know what has caused this problem.

If anyone has ANY ideas what the problem could be and how to fix it help would be very much appreciated. I'm at University and I really need this system up and running to work on ASAP. We've thought about installing my friends floppy disk drive and flashing the BIOS that way to try and give it a jump start, but I myself have no idea if this will work or not.

Thanks again!
- Lee

[BG-0]

I see one very bright candidate for the reason of the problems. Arctic Power "500W PSU" Get a quality PSU like: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...PLUS-certified or http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/17482 or http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/C...-PSU_6058.html
FWIW, don't even think about flashing the BIOS if the system does not run stably.

But before anything, make sure all cables are in correct places, for example a disconnected 4/8-pin 12V power cable for the CPU (not the fan's cable as so many think about when mentioning this) would cause those symptons.

[lightning89]

Originally Posted by BG-0

I see one very bright candidate for the reason of the problems. Arctic Power "500W PSU" Get a quality PSU like: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...PLUS-certified or http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/17482 or http://www.overclock.co.uk/product/C...-PSU_6058.html
FWIW, don't even think about flashing the BIOS if the system does not run stably.

But before anything, make sure all cables are in correct places, for example a disconnected 4/8-pin 12V power cable for the CPU (not the fan's cable as so many think about when mentioning this) would cause those symptons.

Hello, thanks a lot for the reply!

We've tried using a 700w Power Supply of the same type in the system. My other friend has ordered a slightly more powerful PC at the same time and we attempted to use his, trying to rule it out that it is the Power Supply that was the problem. This was done earlier when putting together the PC.

We still encountred the same issue however, but I really doubt it could be the PSU causing this. I've had my tech-savvy friend re-look over all the parts and we can't see anything out of place- all seems normal here.

We've just tried resetting the CMOS by moving the jumper on the motherboard up to 2-3 pins and back down again. We replaced it back to normal and once again, no luck. Following the manual, we removed the battery too, then moved the jumper. After putting the jumper back down to pins 1 and 2 and inserting the battery again, we're still having the same problem.

I actually notice the BIOS chip has a little permenant pen mark on top of it- like someone has marked it. Do you think this is any cause of the problem?

Thanks a lot for your help!

[BG-0]

You know what? Just looked up support.asus.com, searched for the CPU support list of your mobo, and it doesn't support Phenom X4 9650, not even with a BIOS flash... 9750, 9850, 9950 (some steppings of the latter two need a flash, others work with first BIOS release) are listed, as well as 9600, but not 9650. You really should've, at least your tech-savvy friends, should've had visited that site prior to ordering anything. Now you're stuck with either replacing you CPU or mobo...

[lightning89]

Originally Posted by BG-0

You know what? Just looked up support.asus.com, searched for the CPU support list of your mobo, and it doesn't support Phenom X4 9650, not even with a BIOS flash... 9750, 9850, 9950 (some steppings of the latter two need a flash, others work with first BIOS release) are listed, as well as 9600, but not 9650. You really should've, at least your tech-savvy friends, should've had visited that site prior to ordering anything. Now you're stuck with either replacing you CPU or mobo...

The processor is advertised on the box- it can't have been that causing the problem.

ANYWAY, we mucked about a bit trying to flash the bios and lo and behold, it beeped! Good news is we got the entire thing to work, install Windows and have it up and running no problem. No idea how, but lol.

We're faced with another completly new issue now though. Whenever I turn the power pack switch on when first booting the PC the power just turns on automatically. After around 10 or so seconds it just turns off, and pressing the power button does nothing. The only way we can get it working is by pressing the reset button consecutively until the Hard Drive makes a clicking noise... then it turns on fine!

Any ideas why now I have to tempt my conputer to turn on by pressing around with it's reset button?

Thanks a lot again for all your help!

[BG-0]

Power supply, motherboard, or bad power button cabling issue. Try with another, good-known power supply, disconnect the power button wire from the motherboard. See if it automatically turns on, if not, good. Continue by jumping the pins of the power button wire header (use a screwdriver to connect the pins), it should power up. See if it still power down automatically. If not, good. You've found out the reason is either the power supply or the button/wires. Connect the button, see if it's problematic. If not, then it's your power supply. If yes, it's the.. case. If with the other power supply and the jumping trick it still gives the same problems, it's your motherboard.