First Boot - Semi Success - No CMOS

[Randal1800]

:confused:I'm building Rob's Super PC as currently listed. The build went well with no real problems. I got to the first boot and the Earthwatts PS cooling fan runs, the rear case fan runs, but the Zalman CNPS9500 AT CPU cooling fan and the video card fans DO NOT run. All the Phase LED lights were lit. Since I was afraid of overheating the CPU, I shut down the system after 5-10 seconds. A second attempt was exactly the same. I decided to clear the CMOS, located the pins, but there is no jumper to remove. Do I have an incomplete motherboard? Do I have to disassemble and return it???

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
Processor Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (dual-core)
Ram Crucial 4096MB (4GB) PC8500 DDR2 (about 3.00GB usable)
Video Card eVGA Geforce GTX 260 Core 216 896MB DDR3 PCI-E
Hard Drive Western Digital 640GB 7200rpm SATA
DVD RW Samsung 22x DVD RW

[RickyTick]

Typically the cpu fan only runs when the temps get to a certain level. Let in run and see what happens. If the temps go too high it will automatically shut off anyway, iirc.

[Randal1800]

I did as you suggested, I let it run for 3 minutes. The CPU fan never came on nor did the video card fan. There was no beeps and the monitor never went green. Would I need to leave it run for more than 3 minutes for fans to kick in?

I also tried the first boot with only a single 1 GB RAM (removed the other 3). No beeps, no change. Tried removing all the RAM; no beeps, no change. I re seated all the RAM and the video card; no beeps, no change.

Since I don't have a CMOS jumper, I removed the battery to clear the CMOS. No change.

Any suggestions?

[RickyTick]

The GPU fan should definately be running. Are you getting anything on the screen at all. Are you able to get into the BIOS?

[zburns]

No beeps means no POST. Something basic.

If this is your first time using "molex" like plugs, you can be too tenative in pushing them onto the mating connector. This is not saying you use excessive force, but you must get the female plug seated to the male connector firmly. When you push a plug into a mating connector and you think you are done, look carefully at the "combination", use a light if you have too. Point is you can look at the two mated plugs and see "symetry", no one "cocked" with respect to the other (seeing this would mean the two pieces were not pushed tight together). If your 24 pin mobo plug is not pushed all the way in "evenly" at both ends, one of the ends will be "higher" than the other and you can see the higher end.

Check all connections obviously but I imagine you have done that. You might want to unplug your mobo 24 pin connector and replug it or reseat it. Get it started and push both ends down at the same time if you can. It should seat at both ends with the same amount of force. You will have another 4 pin (at least 4pins) ATX connector; make sure it is also firmly seated.

The mobo has only a certain number of holes in it for mounting that line up over mounting posts you installed. Same length screws for all of them and no washers underneath or on top. Anything strange here?

If you have a multimeter or access to one, it will have a dc voltage range. Use it and measure between ground and pins that supply voltages on the 24 pin connector. Your inst book will tell you what voltages and what pins. Any ground point will work but the 24 pin connector will have one or two ground pins also.

I will take a look at your mobo inst book on line and see if I can be more specific.

[Randal1800]

RickyTick,

I am getting nothing on the screen except the figure that the DVI is recognized, but it says something about no signal and goes into power save. Can I get into bios another way?

zburns,

Not sure what you mean by molex plug. The plugs for the speaker, reset etc.?? I double checked all the plugs, made sure the polarity was correct and are well seated. The LED lights on the front of the case function, so I would assume at least some plugs are connected correctly. Checked the mobo plug and it is seated straight and locked. Reseated both plugs to the Video card and they are good.

Mounting the Mobo used 9 holes and nothing was out of the ordinary. No washers, just the posts mounted into the case and the screws holding the Mobo to the posts. Don't have a multimeter, but will have an electrical engineer friend check it for me.

Kind of frustrated to be stuck at this early stage. :confused:

Thanks for all your insights.

[zburns]

I have still not looked in your mobo book on line; the primary reason I was going to do that was to look for the connections that would postively say that "do this" and the CPU fan will run on start up. I will still do this.

But here are some random thoughts. My CPU fan starts up immediately on power up; I assume yours should also.

Next, I believe you can just try to boot with only one stick of RAM installed. If you have two or four sticks of RAM, this means two or four "one stick installs" to see if there is "one defective stick" causing the problem. I do not see the harm in doing this.

Regards your PSU. The fact that your lights are lit is a pretty good indication that your PSU is ok, it is just not 100% definitive. What would be, the closest to 100% check, is to check with a multimeter all PSU voltages spelled out in your mobo book for the 24pin plug plus the extra 4, 6 or 8 pin ATX plug. Use the ground pin in the 24 pin plug and go to all "printed out" voltages. I assume they are all dc voltages.

The reason to check the PSU voltages is to rule out the PSU as the problem --that leaves the mobo. If you are not getting any beeps, I assume that is mobo or PSU related, not video card. So ruling out the PSU with the 24 pin voltage check leaves only the mobo as the problem.

Of course the other and the simplest problem to overcome is a bad or loose plug connection -- but I have covered that earlier -- also a connection to the wrong point -- I assume you have covered this also.

If you have a defective mobo (and I am not saying you do) one inadvertant way for it happen is "a static elec discharge". This gets into how well you observed using a wrist strap everytime you went into your case and handled a board outside the case. Takes only one wrong move to cause a static problem. Again, I am only saying "what the possibilities are" from my perspective.

The way you write your posts indicates you have been very careful, but mistakes happen.

I will take a look at the mobo manual and see if any additional ideas pop up. Will follow up asap.

[zburns]

Molex refers to the "white" plastic plugs with either female or male pins inside -- on the ends of your PSU wires. Molex is maybe the early inventor of such plugs. I used the word in a generic sense.

I have quickly looked at your mobo book on line. Pages 23 thru 27 address component elements, maybe, applicable to your problem.

Page 23 is Power connections; a statement from that page, "If the 12V power connector is not
connected, the computer will not start. " This is the separate ATX 12 volt connector; if not connected, I do not think it will hurt anything to connect it.

The layout for 24 pin and 12 volt separate pin are shown, use the grounds closest to the voltages you are reading (all the grounds are probably common and I do not think it will matter, but it is no big deal to use what appears to be the "associated ground point for a voltage").

At the beginning of page 23, there is a 3 point "note"; read the third point carefully regards "protective covers". Figure out if this note is applicable to your mobo.

Important -- Possible problem source!! Page 24 shows the fan pinouts, including the CPU fan, 4 connections; you should measure the presence of voltages at this pinout with case turned on and with the problem. See if you get "fan voltage available at the pinout". If you do not get voltages, then "flash" (continuity check) the wires from the fan header "plug" back to the fan to look for a "open" connection. When you check a wire connection to the fan, you should be at a point on the fan which actually is the "wire to motor" connection point; check all fan plug wires this way.

While you have fan speed control, I saw nothing that said the fan "would not" run -- does not mean that feature is not there. But if the fan is "allowed not to run at very low temps", your book will say so somewhere. You should be able to "google" it for GB mobos and see some statement.

Page 25, IDE and Sata connectors. Nothing wrong with disconnecting them, turn on computer and see if "beeps" then occur.

Page 26. Power LEDs hookup.
Page 27. Front Panel hookup. Read carefully pg 26 and pg 27. Make sure you are in compliance with the hookups.

I assume you have done some or all of what I say above. These are the applicable pages in your manual; there may be more.

Your problem is no beeps. Could be "no fan running" because "no fan" is sensed!! Start there. Look for presence of voltage at fan header; your fan booklet should tell you what voltages should be on what wires, which of the pinouts,etc.. If you do not have the voltages at the header for the CPU fan I would assume this is the problem until you prove otherwise.

I hope some of the above helps you find something. My entire argument is based on the fact that "no beeps" occur which means no mobo initial start up prior to the boot sequence.

[zburns]

Thoughts after the above earlier post. Look for the reason the CPU fan is not running; my comments on that are in the above post.

Regards the video card; I suggest you remove it or at least disconnect the power plug from the PSU to the video card; in my case on my evga card that is a 2pin X 2pin plugged into the narrow end opposite the output plugs for the rear of the case.

Your monitor is not lighting up; you are looking for the reason there are no beeps. It can be an open circuit or it can be a faulty component "pulling" down or loading down the PSU. Pulling the video card power plug helps, removing the card removes a possibility of a vid card fault entering the mobo via the PCI slot.

Hopefully, you will do something that allows the CPU fan to run and the computer to POST ( "ie, a beep").

[zburns]

Big Wrong Statement Here. Speaker for beep codes should be on mobo. Sorry!!

It just occured to me to ask if you have heard any sound from your speakers. If the audio is not working, there will be no beeps. So if your processor is shutting down, also no beeps.

[Randal1800]

Zburns,

Thanks, your analysis found the problem, it was the ATX plug. I connected that and everything worked as it should. The beep occurred, all the fans worked, and I was able to continue on with the build. :D

When I plugged in the ATX plug, I noticed that the Zalman CPU cooler fan still moves somewhat. It does not move a lot. I checked the screws and they were as tight as possible. When I bought the cooler fan from Newegg, they included a free cooler fan clip; I only remembered this after I had it installed.

ZALMAN ZM-CS4A Socket 1366 Clip Support Kit for CNPS9500/9700

Not sure if this auxillary clip would make a difference. Any thoughts?

Thanks again for all the information, it really helped a great deal!

[zburns]

Great!! All along I kept telling myself, simple, simple had to be!! So the fan is running ok now?

But the fan on its mounting base still moves, as in, not as tight as it should be! Is this what you just said?

[zburns]

Go to this link for a large picture of the bracket installed! http://www.quietpcusa.com/Zalman-ZM-CS4A-Socket-1366-Clip-Support-Kit-for-CNPS95009700-P518C51.aspx

You probably should install it right away if it is not tight; this would mean heat sink contact with the CPU is not as good as it can be. Higher CPU temps could result and there is really no way to believe "what is happening with the temps" without positively knowing the heat sink is as tight as it should be. This is an important or crucial part of your build!!

I assume installing the clip will mean separating the cooler from the cpu. You will have to clean the thermal compound off and reinstall it fresh. As soon as you separate the cooler from the CPU, clean both surfaces, do not wait. Artic Silver is conductive and you do not want to accidentally get it on the edges of the CPU or on the mobo.

You need Artic Silver cleaner to remove the compound. If you are using Artic Silver, be very careful not to get it on the sides of the CPU. A garden pea size of Artic Silver works fine and is not enough to get to the edges.

EDIT--Please Read!! Here is the link to the Zalman page on the clip: http://zalman.com/eng/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=337

[Randal1800]

Yes the CPU cooler still moves, but it only twists slightly when I try to spin it. Maybe a movement of ~1/8 inch. I think that the thermal paste lubricates it. If you really think I should install the other clip, I will do it....you haven't led me wrong yet.

[zburns]

Your mobo is for socket 775, not 1366, so you should be fine as you are!

EDIT !! Your description of the clip says it is for Socket 1366; that is not your socket. I just saw "socket 1366" in your post, assumed that is what you had w/o checking what is on your mobo -- should be socket 775 according to Gigabyte website. Then I generated my two posts saying to put it on which is incorrect assuming your mobo is socket 775. The clip came with the fan in case your mobo was for socket 1366.

[Randal1800]

Good catch, I took the clip out of the package and noticed that the holes did not match to the holes on the MoBo.

Build is complete will do the Data Lifeguard Dxs and then will by Window 7 for installation.

Thanks.

[zburns]

Glad you finally got thru it all. A lot of miles to travel to get simple answers but that is not unusual the first time around with first time information. Good luck on the OS installation.