A7N8X-E won't POST

[Mike G]

Configuration:

A7N8X-E rev 1.01
AMD Atholon XP 2800
Crucial 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - OEM
ATI 9600 XT 128mb
Maxtor 160gb SATA
Lite-on DVD-RW
4 WD Drives (from previous system, all worked)

I have a green power light.

All fans/hard drives/DVD spin up.

I don't hear any voice reporting of the POST (speakers are hooked up).

I've reset the memory stick and tried all three slots.

I've disconnected the battery, moved the jumper to clear the bios, reset the battery.

I'm leaning towards RMA'ing the board (I can't believe I got a 1.01 revision!)

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Rob]

Hey Mike,
The -E board is pretty new so the Rev number are still low. A couple
questions:
1. Your equipment list says power hungry, so how much juice has your PS
have(Watts/Amps)?
2. Are you doing a clean install of your OS, or attempting to convert
over from your previous system?
3. Are you getting anything on your screen and if so, how far does it go?
4. If you have any video, have you tried to run Memtest86 to see if
things run at the DOS level?
Answers might give some clues!

Rob

 

[Mike G]

Hey Mike,
The -E board is pretty new so the Rev number are still low. A couple
questions:
1. Your equipment list says power hungry, so how much juice has your PS
have(Watts/Amps)?

300 watts/20 amps - Maybe I'm not generating enough juice to fire it up?

2. Are you doing a clean install of your OS, or attempting to convert
over from your previous system?

I wanted to do a clean install on the serial ata drive.

3. Are you getting anything on your screen and if so, how far does it go?

Nothing at all. The monitor stays at standby.

4. If you have any video, have you tried to run Memtest86 to see if
things run at the DOS level?
Answers might give some clues!

Rob

Mike

 

[sdlomi]

300 watts/20 amps - Maybe I'm not generating enough juice to fire it up?


I wanted to do a clean install on the serial ata drive.


Nothing at all. The monitor stays at standby.


Mike

Mike, do u have or can u borrow a ps with at least 28 amps on the
3.3-volt rail? We've(limited experience, please note; yet, similar
problems) had problems with booting other XP+ mobos in comp's. loaded with
power-consuming spec's. with much less than 28 amps on that rail. HTH &
good luck, sdlomi.

 

[Mike G]

It seems I can't frickin' count....I have four HD total in the system (1 sata, 3 ide).

I will disconnect the 3 ide drives and see if that solves the problem.

If not, I will be going out to get probably a 400w ps with at least 28 amps.

What's the latest revision # on these boards?

cheers,

mike

 

[Rob]

Mike,
AFAIK there isn't any Rev changes on your board yet but it's only been
out around 2 months. There have been a couple BIOS upgrades though. If
taking the 3 IDE drives out solves your problem, great. If not I would
think that a 300w is still too small. I had problems with an economy
400w unit, with 2 less drives. I moved to an Antec TruePower 480w and
all the little quirks, to include dead screens, that I was experiencing
went away. YMMV.

Rob

 

[Mike G]

Pulling the drives didn't help.

I'm going out and getting at least a 400w power supply. Do I need to go as high as 480w?
Wow. I guess I'll see what Best Buy or Circuit City have.

mike

 

[Rob]

Mike,
Probably depends on the quality of the PS and what you might be adding
to your system in the future. Better to spend a little more cash for a
good quality one. Even if this doesn't resolve the problem, it will be
a worthwhile investment.
Rob

 

[Mike G]

Got the new motherboard in.

I'm having sort of the same problem as before.

Everything seems to spin up okay I'm not getting a post on the monitor though.

This time, however, when I stripped everything out I did get the "female no cpu warning".

I put in the cpu, fired it up again and the warning disappeared.

I'm under the impression that it should have reported a memory failure at this point, but
it didn't.

I also swapped the 8x agp for a 4x agp card that works and still nothing happened.

Can I slap my 1.8ghz cpu in to see if that will work?

mike

 

[Giovani]

I have just finished solving a problem (hopefully) very similar to this.

Installed a new 1.01 A7N8X-E deluxe board, put in 1Ghz Athlon, and 3 PC2100
RAM chips. (the new motherboard was a replacement for a dead MSI one)

It would spin everything up - but no video.
Finally got round to testing 4 RAM modules lying around here - found 2 with
errors and 1 that would cause my system to scream in that really annoying
female voice that the CPU was stuffed when it wasn't. System would hang with
nothing happening. Removing this module solved that problem (buggered RAM
chip also screwed with the BIOS settings too ) Go figure : /

So moral of story go find memtest86 and run it on your system. Pretty good
chance you've got some stuffed RAM. Probably best to test the RAM 1 module
at a time.

HTH

Got the new motherboard in.

I'm having sort of the same problem as before.

Everything seems to spin up okay I'm not getting a post on the monitor though.

This time, however, when I stripped everything out I did get the "female no cpu warning".

I put in the cpu, fired it up again and the warning disappeared.

I'm under the impression that it should have reported a memory failure at this point, but
it didn't.

I also swapped the 8x agp for a 4x agp card that works and still nothing happened.

Can I slap my 1.8ghz cpu in to see if that will work?

mike

Mike,
Probably depends on the quality of the PS and what you might be adding
to your system in the future. Better to spend a little more cash for a
good quality one. Even if this doesn't resolve the problem, it will be
a worthwhile investment.
Rob

Pulling the drives didn't help.

I'm going out and getting at least a 400w power supply. Do I need to go as high as 480w?
Wow. I guess I'll see what Best Buy or Circuit City have.

mike

Mike,
AFAIK there isn't any Rev changes on your board yet but it's only been
out around 2 months. There have been a couple BIOS upgrades though. If
taking the 3 IDE drives out solves your problem, great. If not I would
think that a 300w is still too small. I had problems with an economy
400w unit, with 2 less drives. I moved to an Antec TruePower 480w and
all the little quirks, to include dead screens, that I was experiencing
went away. YMMV.

Rob

Mike G wrote:

It seems I can't frickin' count....I have four HD total in the system (1 sata, 3 ide).

I will disconnect the 3 ide drives and see if that solves the problem.

If not, I will be going out to get probably a 400w ps with at least 28 amps.

What's the latest revision # on these boards?

cheers,

mike