New Case & Motherboard; Seemingly Minor Power Up Problem

[Elle]

I bought an Antec Super Lanboy 350 case today for $90 at
Circuit City. I installed a new MSI motherboard PM8M-V in
it, with Intel Celeron D CPU. The system wouldn't power up
at first. Then, while probing and troubleshooting, it
suddenly went on. With more experimenting, I observed that,
at the mobo's JFP1 connector, if I unplug and plug the
"Power Switch" connection (a red wire and a black wire from
the front panel's power button to the mobo connector), the
system's power will toggle on and off. I can do the same
thing with the "Reset Switch" connection (a blue wire and a
white wire from the front panel's reset button to the mobo
connector), except instead of turning power on and off, the
computer reboots.

Antec has an 800 number which I will call in the morning.
Meanwhile if anyone can offer a suggestion, I'll be checking
back. I am working off my now heavily cannibalized old
computer at the moment. Buying my new computer's components
and putting them together so far has been a great learning
experience. I know this is just the first of a lot of
troubleshooting I'll be doing in the next week, as I get
this new system fully operational with Windows XP.

Update to my other threads of the past week: I went with the
expensive case because I finally "saw the light" and just
couldn't see putting money into a case where I might have a
variety of problems, from cooling to a failed power supply
to flimsy component installation provisions to noise (that
was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back) to
questionable tech support. After a rough year keeping my old
computer running, I decided I "deserved" a really nice case.
Upon coming upon an "open box" special at Circuit City
(fully refundable for two weeks), I grabbed it. Hopefully
what I grabbed isn't defective and there's just some minor
glitch here in how I've hooked things up.

 

[Jan Alter]

Hi,
The two Power On pins only use a momentary connection (shorting) for
power to be applied. Litterally you could simply short the two pins with a
screwdriver, and if everything is right on the mb the computer would start.
It sounds from your description that it could be a slow connection on the
switch of the Antec case. The other method you could try is to use a
multimeter on the red/blck power switch wires and check for continuity when
you push the button on the case button. You'll know right away of the
switch's disposition.

 

[RBM]

It sounds like the switch or wiring is shunted (making contact). As Jan
said, that should be an open circuit,(no continuity) until you push the
momentary contact button . Be sure you're connecting the correct pair or
wires, and if you have any kind of continuity tester, connect it across
those two wires and you should get NO reading. When you push the switch, you
should get a momentary reading

 

[Elle]

Thanks, Jan and RBM. I did the multimeter continuity checks
on the power and reset buttons' connections, and the power
button definitely fails. The computer does boot up and reset
if I short the appropriate mobo pins.

Off to research getting a new power button.

 

[Elle]

Thanks, Jan and RBM. I did the multimeter continuity checks
on the power and reset buttons' connections, and the power
button definitely fails. The computer does boot up and reset
if I short the appropriate mobo pins.

Off to research getting a new power button.

Update:
Radio Shack had an SPST ( = single pole single throw?) Momentary Pushbutton
switch which might fit suitably and which the Radio Shack guy said should
work fine, appearance aside. Better, after leaving two messages with Antec's
customer service, a rep called this afternoon and said they would be happy
to send me (3-day mail, tops) a new switch panel to fix the problem. Circuit
City was similarly courteous, tried to cannibalize one of its own but ended
up being unable to do so, and was happy to exchange the whole case, though
that would have taken a week or more, plus I'd have to take the installed
mobo out and pack it up, etc.

Other issues: The new case's and mobo's USB ports weren't working. This was
because I was booting with my old hard drive which had the old Win ME on it
and, as many of you know, was not an operating system configured for my new
mobo, cpu, etc. I reformatted the hard drive using my old computer (just to
start fresh), and on the advice of the tech at the Computer Renaissance
shop, then booted the new computer system from my new Windows XP CD. First I
had to go to setup, advanced, bios yada to tell the computer to boot from
the CD Rom drive. Then things started moving along nicely. Windows XP is now
loaded, then a lot of messing with my old external modem got it running. The
monitor definitely appears to be working better, though I have to fiddle
with its settings. No more blotchiness or graininess, that's for sure.

I love not having all that junk manufacturers like Gateway, Hewlett-Packard,
etc. dump on hard drives. OEM Windows disks are the way to go. Aside: I did
not buy the Best Buy $80 special for Windows XP, because it turns out this
was an upgrade version only. I wanted a completely fresh start. So I went
with Computer Rennaisance's offer of about $100 for Windows XP for hard
drives with no previous Windows version on it. (Best Buy wanted $200 for
this.)

I grabbed that 512 Mb Kingston RAM stick on sale (counting rebates) for $25
at Circuit City one other kind poster mentioned here the other day.

Salvaging my old CD rom and floppy drives worked great. This Antec case is
terrific: Quiet, permitting easy access from both sides, cool with two case
fans, and the power supply fan (the CPU has a fan on it too); Plenty of
bays. I was popping my hard drives, floppy drive, and CD drive in and out
much of the day to get all this running.

Apart from my ignorance on configuring my new operating system for my mobo,
the MSI motherboard and Intel Celeron D processor appear to be working fine.

I am up to about $345 for the case, mobo, CPU, 512 Mb RAM and Win XP. I
factor into that the value of the adventure. I still don't have much respect
for Microsoft, but I do like calling more of the shots on upgrades, for both
hardware and software (knock on wood).

 

[RBM]

It's almost scary, when you boot into windows for the first time and the
only thing on the desktop is a trash bin

 

[Elle]

Indeed... and I love it.

It's almost scary, when you boot into windows for the first time and the
only thing on the desktop is a trash bin

 

[John]

Indeed... and I love it.

Thats not bad - the memory is a good deal and the MB/processor with
built in video is cheap and I assume you got the 79 BB WIN XP deal.
The case is kind of pricey though but then you had to get it now and
ANTEC is a brandname with power supply. If you really tried you might
have been able to shave off 20-30 of the case and PS but no big deal.
If you would have waited for a big rebate sale on a case you might
have shaved off 40-50 but then you might be waiting a long time for
that.

 

[Elle]

Thats not bad - the memory is a good deal and the MB/processor with
built in video is cheap and I assume you got the 79 BB WIN XP deal.

To clarify: That Best Buy Win XP deal is for an /upgrade/ Win XP. Best Buy
wanted $199 for Win XP for hard drives with no Windows of any kind on them.
Hence I bought the Win XP (non-upgrade) from the Computer Renaissance shop
for about $100. The shop gets a discount for selling OEM Win XP with a
mobo/CPU package, as I understand it.

I'd had it with Windows Millenium Edition installed from 2001 Gateway
restore disks. Nor was I certain whether I could install Win ME onto a
system with a non-Gateway mobo/cpu etc. So I did not want to try to upgrade
my Win ME. Twenty bucks more is worth it for my sanity.

The case is kind of pricey though but then you had to get it now and
ANTEC is a brandname with power supply. If you really tried you might
have been able to shave off 20-30 of the case and PS but no big deal.

Maybe, though I was checking on the net today (to get experience) and found
no Antec Super Lanboy 350 case /with/ power supply today for less money,
taking into account shipping. There are a number of them out there being
sold without the power supply for less, though. The box is a different color
but everything else is identical.

If you would have waited for a big rebate sale on a case you might
have shaved off 40-50 but then you might be waiting a long time for
that.

Yes, I've really come to loathe the rebate process.

I am delighted with the $25 (after the rebate) for the Kingston 512 Mb Ram.
The machine continues to work well. I don't know that the extra memory makes
a huge difference, but I haven't loaded a buncha applications all at once
yet.

God knows what was causing my monitor problems, but they're gone now, along
with a buncha other bugs. (My new MSI mobo has an AGP slot, but I haven't
bought an AGP card as yet. Just using the onboard video whatchamacallit.)

I look forward to only replacing components one at a time now and not the
whole package every 3-4 years. At least for the next ten years, I figure,
knock on wood.

Fact: Again, I couldn't have done it without this group. All you folks
posting regularly here do a fabulous community service which I shall try to
return to others in the areas where I have some skill.