Start up problem

[Rich D]

I just built a computer with all new parts and about 2 seconds after
starting up the computer it shuts down. I tried taking parts out and
eventually was down to just the motherboard and power supply and had the
exact same problem. It's an Asus M2N-E. Is it the motherboard that's the
problem, or could it be the processor? (I tried two different band new power
supplies)

 

[Ed Metcalfe]

I just built a computer with all new parts and about 2 seconds after
starting up the computer it shuts down. I tried taking parts out and
eventually was down to just the motherboard and power supply and had the
exact same problem. It's an Asus M2N-E. Is it the motherboard that's the
problem, or could it be the processor? (I tried two different band new
power
supplies)

Rich,

What do you mean by "shuts down".

I assume that as it happens 2 seconds after switching on you mean "powers
down" rather than "shuts down".

How far into the boot sequence does it get? Do you get any beep codes?

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Anna]

I just built a computer with all new parts and about 2 seconds after
starting up the computer it shuts down. I tried taking parts out and
eventually was down to just the motherboard and power supply and had the
exact same problem. It's an Asus M2N-E. Is it the motherboard that's the
problem, or could it be the processor? (I tried two different band new
power
supplies)

Rich:
I'm assuming that you've carefully reviewed your ASUS User Guide re the
installation process...

Check this before doing anything...have you connected the power supply's
4-pin 12V lead to the appropriate connector on the motherboard? If not, do
so and see if that corrects the problem.

If the problem remains, and all other connections appear in order...

1. Disconnect the power supply cable from the motherboard's PS connector and
disconnect all case leads from the motherboard and disconnect the monitor
cable.

2. Remove the motherboard from the case and lay it on some flat surface such
as a piece of plywood. If you have a piece of foam to put underneath the
motherboard, do so.

3. The *only* components that should be installed on the motherboard at this
point are your processor, heatsink, RAM modules, and graphics/video card.
Nothing else.

4. Connect your power supply while its switch is OFF. It can sit right
outside the case if its leads don't reach the motherboard's connectors while
the PS is currently installed in the case. Ensure that you connect the 4-pin
12V lead to the appropriate connector on the motherboard. Also that you've
connected the CPU fan.
Connect your monitor and the keyboard.

5. Check all your connections and ensure that you've correctly installed
each component mentioned above. Make certain the heatsink has been properly
installed. Is the RAM & video card properly seated? Power up the monitor.

6. If it's convenient to do so, connect the case's power switch lead to the
appropriate MB connector. Often the lead won't be long enough while the MB
is sitting outside the case, so in order to power up the system you'll have
to temporarily "jumper" the two power switch pins on the MB by using a
flat-head screwdriver for example and touching both pins simultaneously. You
will, of course, have switched on the PS.

7. Hopefully you'll get a screen display at this point. It's unimportant
what's on the screen - all you want is some sort of display. Leave it run
for about half an hour to determine if it's stable. Access the BIOS and
check the temps to determine they're in normal range. So if all is well at
this point the problem may have been some misconnection of one sort or
another or perhaps the motherboard was shorting out while in the case
because it was improperly installed. So carefully review your
motherboard-to-case installation process.

8. If all is well at this point continue to add one component at a time. But
if all is *not* well at this point, i.e., the system shuts down within a few
seconds as it did previously, then we're going to have to pursue further...
Anna

 

[Vanguard]

I just built a computer with all new parts and about 2 seconds after
starting up the computer it shuts down. I tried taking parts out and
eventually was down to just the motherboard and power supply and had
the
exact same problem. It's an Asus M2N-E. Is it the motherboard that's
the
problem, or could it be the processor? (I tried two different band new
power
supplies)

Besides the minimal setup of PSU and mobo (with onboard video or video
card), you need to also add the load of one hard drive. Some PSUs won't
power up unless the see a minimal draw on one of the power taps (other
than the 20/24-pin connector to the mobo).

Is the CPU fan spinning when power is applied?

Did you try removing the mobo and laying atop the case with a sheet of
paper underneath to ensure that you don't have a unwanted short from
mobo to case ground?

 

[Rich D]

By "shuts down after two seconds" I mean the fans turn on and the LED on the
case lights up, but then it just all powers down. There are no beep codes,
and I don't believe it gets anywhere in the boot sequence.

 

[Rich D]

I did connect the power supply's 4-pin in to the motherboard. I'll get back
to you in the future about the rest of this.

 

[Rich D]

I had everything together when it first wasn't working, so the minimum power
should have been met. The CPU fan does spin when power is applied, and I
did put paper underneath the motherboard to make sure it wasn't shorting.

 

[~Mike Hollywood]

Hi,
I spoke with Rich on the phone about this problem.
After the initial build he gradually removed parts, rebooted, and each time
got the same result. Eventually,
he he was down to just the mobo, cpu, and ps, so he removed the CPU, and
with only the board and
PS the symtom did what he described , shuts down after
2 seconds with the fan spinning and the mobo led lit, just as it had after
the initial build, and just as it had after each part was removed
sequentially. These are all new parts purchased from newegg.

mike

 

[~Mike Hollywood]

Hi Anna,

Thank you for posting such a detailed trouble shooting
proceedure.
Mike

 

[Vanguard]

in message

...

I had everything together when it first wasn't working, so the minimum
power
should have been met.

A full configuration is not the same as a minimal configuration (and you
might've been too minimal on your minimal configuration). We still
don't know if some component *beyond* the correct minimal configuration
is causing the problem. What if, for example, the DVD drive that you
had connected in the full config had a short on the 12V or 5V lines?

Also, forgot to mention that the minimal hardware configuration also
means just one memory stick. If you have more than one, remove all but
one. If the system won't boot, move it to a different slot. If still
no boot, try a different stick (but just one at a time).

The CPU fan does spin when power is applied

Did you build this yourself? If so, did you remember to apply thermal
paste on the CPU's heatsink (and a transparent layer and not an opaque
layer)? Thermal paste has a greater heat transfer rate than does air
but is nowhere close to metal-to-metal transfer, so you want a thin,
almost transparent, layer of thermal paste so it only ends up filling in
the microscopic air gaps (and not macroscopic air gaps).

did put paper underneath the motherboard to make sure it wasn't
shorting.

Okay, another possibility is a corrupt copy of the BIOS settings in the
CMOS table (a copy of the BIOS settings). Power off, put a jumper
across the 2-pin CMOS header on the motherboard for a minute, remove the
jumper, and power on to see if it comes up and stays up now.

To check that the PSU will stay up, remove the 20- or 24-pin connector
from the PSU to the mobo header. Leave one hard drive connected to a
power tap. Short pin 14 (PS-ON) to a ground pin on the 20-pin
connector. The PSU supplies 5V standby to the mobo when the computer is
powered down to supply power to the logic on the mobo used to tell the
PSU to power on (you'll notice your Power button goes to the mobo, not
to the PSU). When PS-ON is pulled low then the PSU powers on. Pin 14
for the 20-pin connector is the green wire (and the only green wire).
For a 24-pin mobo connector, PS-ON is pin 16. The hard drive is needed
to provide a load so the PSU sees that load (many PSUs will not power on
or stay powered on if they don't see a load to keep their parts from
frying if turned on while disconnected).

For mobo connector pinouts:
20-pin: http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml
24-pin: http://pinouts.ru/Power/atx_v2_pinout.shtml

If the PSU comes on when you short PS-ON to ground (black wire), you
should see its fan spin (and the hard drive should spin up, too).


Note: For your quoting character (a configuration option), use just ONE
character, not a space followed by the quoting character. Don't use "

 

[Anna]

I just now tried all this with no success.

Rich D:
When you say "I just now tried all this with no success.", you're stating
that all you get is a black screen after completing the above steps - no
display at all. Is that right?

And I notice in your post to Vanguard you've indicated that you've replaced
the motherboard with a different one? Is that correct? And still the same
problem?

So when you indicate in that same post to Vanguard that you "cleared BIOS",
I take it you're referring to your original problem - not referring to the
steps above that I outlined for you to take. Because if you *were* able to
access the BIOS after the steps I've outlined above, that would indicate
that you *did* indeed get a screen display after following the above steps,
would it not?
Anna

 

[Rich D]

I just now tried all this with no success.

Rich:
I'm assuming that you've carefully reviewed your ASUS User Guide re the
installation process...

Check this before doing anything...have you connected the power supply's
4-pin 12V lead to the appropriate connector on the motherboard? If not, do
so and see if that corrects the problem.

If the problem remains, and all other connections appear in order...

1. Disconnect the power supply cable from the motherboard's PS connector
and disconnect all case leads from the motherboard and disconnect the
monitor cable.

2. Remove the motherboard from the case and lay it on some flat surface
such as a piece of plywood. If you have a piece of foam to put underneath
the motherboard, do so.

3. The *only* components that should be installed on the motherboard at
this point are your processor, heatsink, RAM modules, and graphics/video
card. Nothing else.

4. Connect your power supply while its switch is OFF. It can sit right
outside the case if its leads don't reach the motherboard's connectors
while the PS is currently installed in the case. Ensure that you connect
the 4-pin 12V lead to the appropriate connector on the motherboard. Also
that you've connected the CPU fan.
Connect your monitor and the keyboard.

5. Check all your connections and ensure that you've correctly installed
each component mentioned above. Make certain the heatsink has been
properly installed. Is the RAM & video card properly seated? Power up the
monitor.

6. If it's convenient to do so, connect the case's power switch lead to
the appropriate MB connector. Often the lead won't be long enough while
the MB is sitting outside the case, so in order to power up the system
you'll have to temporarily "jumper" the two power switch pins on the MB by
using a flat-head screwdriver for example and touching both pins
simultaneously. You will, of course, have switched on the PS.

7. Hopefully you'll get a screen display at this point. It's unimportant
what's on the screen - all you want is some sort of display. Leave it run
for about half an hour to determine if it's stable. Access the BIOS and
check the temps to determine they're in normal range. So if all is well at
this point the problem may have been some misconnection of one sort or
another or perhaps the motherboard was shorting out while in the case
because it was improperly installed. So carefully review your
motherboard-to-case installation process.

8. If all is well at this point continue to add one component at a time.
But if all is *not* well at this point, i.e., the system shuts down within
a few seconds as it did previously, then we're going to have to pursue
further...
Anna

 

[Rich D]

Tried all of this with no success... Cleared BIOS, applied new thermal
paste, shorted the power supply and it ran the hard drive, and moved around
the memory, all outside of a case to avoid shorting the motherboard and with
a replaced motherboard.

I don't get it, it's all new hardware.

 

[Rich D]

Correct, all I get is a black screen as the system quickly powers down after
starting, and I've replaced the motherboard. I cleared BIOS with the jumper
on the motherboard, following the instructions in the manual.

 

[Rich D]

The computer is now running. I think I must have misunderstood what the 12V
4 pin lead was, I thought it was the extra 4 to make 24 for the main power
cord. I plugged in the 12V 4 pin thing in next to the processor and it
worked. Thank you very much.

....But now I can't get in to windows. It starts up, says that my processor
is not being properly cooled (it's at about 52 degrees celcius), starts to
load windows, then restarts. Windows was already installed on this hard
drive with my old computer, and it appears that's what it's trying to run
because it never gave me the opportunity to boot off the windows disk in the
disk drive. So I haven't formatted the hard drive or installed windows with
the new motherboard in place.

 

[Bob I]

Check the paste and CPU cooler/heat sink attachment.

 

[Vanguard]

in message

Tried all of this with no success... Cleared BIOS, applied new thermal
paste, shorted the power supply and it ran the hard drive, and moved
around the memory, all outside of a case to avoid shorting the
motherboard and with a replaced motherboard.

Don't use the Power switch in the case. Remove its 2-wire cable from
the mobo headers for Pwr. Then use something to temporarily short the
mobo pins for Pwr (the case switch is a momentary switch). Maybe you
have a defective Power button switch in the case. You say you have the
mobo out of the case. What do you use to short the Pwr pins on the mobo
to power it on and off?

 

[Not Me]

Make sure the BIOS are set to boot from CD before the HDD.
Boot order on mine is floppy, cd, hdd.
Make sure the overheat protection (available in some BIOS) is set higher
than 52°.
I think mine is set to warn at 67° and shutdown at 70°.

 

[Dwipen Bhagawati]

Folks,

I have exactly the same issues as of Rich. Its the same MoBo - stripped down to the CPU, memory, keyboard, PSU and then added the hard drive. Tried switching the memory stick to each of the four slots. I have tried everything that has been discussed in this thread including plugging in the additional the 12V power chord that fixed Rich's issue. Can anyone suggest what I need to do next?

Symptoms:
At PSU switched on, the green light on the MoBo glows. At system switched on, the CPU fan and the video card fan starts running. The hard drive makes beeps. Then within a few seconds, the fans stop. Nothing more happens. No display shows on the monitor.

I would appreciate any help!
Dwipen

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[peter]

We dont know who "Rich"is........we dont know what your babbling about.
The usual posting procedure would call for you to list the parts of your
system and what your specific problem is....
The HD does not beep.......the mobo sends a beep to the case speaker to
alert you that alls well or a series of beeps to alert you if something is
not right.
The series of beeps depends upon the version of BIOS your mobo uses and a
Google search will normally turn up a list of beep codes and what they mean.
With the info you gave us I'd say buy a new PSU..............
peter