First Timer needs a little advice from the gurus

[jdarbs81]

Well, I'm a first timer as far as building my own pc, and I've been reading these boards consistently over the last few weeks. I was excited to begin my assembly yesterday only to be completely discouraged by the following:

Motherboard: ASUS M2N32 deluxe wireless
Processor: AMD Athlon 64X2 6000+
RAM: 4GB Crucial - I did the compatibility test on the site and purchased their 5-star recommendation for my mobo
Cooler: Have tried the stock cooler and the Zalman CNPS9500 w/ Arctic Silver

Upon startup, I get the LED light on the mobo and both fans run but only for a few seconds (the mobo light remains lit). From my reading it looks like maybe a bad PSU. I have the PSU that came with the Antec Sonata III (500w).

My question is, could anything else be causing my problem???

For troubleshooting, I tried the following:

Reconnected everything twice
Tried to boot with no RAM, and multiple RAM configs
Tried booting with the mobo removed from the case in case it was grounding
Tried 2 different CPU coolers

I was careful to use an antistatic wrist strap during assembly. I'm somewhat relieved that I'm getting the same problem no matter the circumstances and not multiple differring erros, but I'm really not sure how to proceed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
jdarbs81

[Wolf713]

Well, I'm a first timer as far as building my own pc, and I've been reading these boards consistently over the last few weeks. I was excited to begin my assembly yesterday only to be completely discouraged by the following:

Motherboard: ASUS M2N32 deluxe wireless
Processor: AMD Athlon 64X2 6000+
RAM: 4GB Crucial - I did the compatibility test on the site and purchased their 5-star recommendation for my mobo
Cooler: Have tried the stock cooler and the Zalman CNPS9500 w/ Arctic Silver

Upon startup, I get the LED light on the mobo and both fans run but only for a few seconds (the mobo light remains lit). From my reading it looks like maybe a bad PSU. I have the PSU that came with the Antec Sonata III (500w).

My question is, could anything else be causing my problem???

For troubleshooting, I tried the following:

Reconnected everything twice
Tried to boot with no RAM, and multiple RAM configs
Tried booting with the mobo removed from the case in case it was grounding
Tried 2 different CPU coolers

I was careful to use an antistatic wrist strap during assembly. I'm somewhat relieved that I'm getting the same problem no matter the circumstances and not multiple differring erros, but I'm really not sure how to proceed. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards,
jdarbs81

I have the same problems, same case, same MOB same PSU..just 2MG of RAM;
Sure would be great to find out what the problem is, I have another PSU may just hook it up and see. I have the 8800 GTS Vid card.

jdarbs81 post anything youfind out ok?

Thx

Wolf713

[chunkylover53]

Well, the most common cause that I've seen of the symptom you described is not having the ATX12V connected to the PSU. On your board, it's just above your first PCIX16 slot. But if you have that connected and everything else is triple checked, you could try changing up the memory. If you have four sticks, try two. Then try the other two, just one, etc.

If that doesn't work, you could try another PSU. I have this same case, but I went with a different PSU because a few folks on here had trouble with the one in the Sonata III.

[Wolf713]

Thanks chunky,
sure enough I overlooked it so now back to the drawing board, need to reinstall most of my components since I took them out trying to find something I messed up but all looks ok..by the way I tested the Antec 500W power supply and found a SATA cable, with three connectors and all showed the +5.0 V supply intermittend, it went on/out while I wiggled the wire. The +12V supply was ok. Fortunately there are two SATA harnesses and the second one has both 5 and 12V steady supply. One other thing I noticed on the 8800 GTS Video card, it shows needing a power supply of 'combined' 12V at 30 amps, does that mean you add up the amps for every 12 V supply? There are 2 at 17amps from the PSU that would make it 34..well I just hope it can power the card..

Can't tell you how much I appreciate your response

Thanks

Wolf713

[ecarmody]

Just to throw this out there, but the CPU fan may power down (not spin) based on bios/temperature settings. If bios is controlling the fan and its not hot enough, it won't spin. Maybe even too for the case fan depending if it is being controlled as well; dunno what your bios/mobo are contolling.


Cheers,
Eric