New Build Stopped Turning On

sevenmars · 03-21-2008, 07:34 PM

I am in the process of building my first computer. I ordered all my parts, carefully assembled everything, pushed the power button and everything booted up nicely. Then I ran into some troubles installing Windows XP (it got stuck in a continuous setup loop) and decided because it was late I would shut down and try again the next day.

This afternoon I thought I had figured out the problem and was ready to try again. I pushed the power button and both the power and HDD LEDs lit up for about a second but nothing else happened. I tried switching off the power on the back, giving it a few seconds and trying again, but still nothing.

There are no beeps. The LED’s light up briefly and the PSU fan starts up, and then nothing happens. The keyboard and mouse have LEDs on continuously as long as everythings plugged in and the back switch is on.

During the failed XP install it went through a lot of reboots, but there were never any signs of problems. The temperature remained stable at 38C and there were no unusual sounds or anything.

I’m pretty bummed out. Any suggestions? I don’t have any extra parts laying around.

The system:

Antec Neo HE 430 watts

AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400 3.2Hz

GIGABYTE Nvidia nForce 570 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard

Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB PCIE

Corsair DDR2 800 2GB

Thank you for your help.

Tumbleweed36 · 03-21-2008, 07:57 PM

When you loaded your OS, did you also load Sata drivers at the F6 prompt? If not, that may be the reason for your difficult and sporatic problems. They normally just need that done to work properly. If not, then I would start over and do that. Does your motherboard support Sata II?

Another thing or two. While the NEO He is a great power supply, you may be underpowered, so you need to consider that issue.

Clear the CMOS and see if that gets you going again.

sevenmars · 03-21-2008, 08:57 PM

I did not load the SATA drivers, and I believe that is the reason XP stalled at setup. In fact, I was taking a freshly burned installation (from the HDD's manufacturer website) CD to try out when I discovered the new problem.

The motherboard does support SATA II.

I tried your suggestion and cleared the CMOS by removing and replacing the battery and no dice, same LED/PSU fan but no start-up.

I had considered that 430 was kind of weak, but I already had it so I plan on using it for awhile until I do further upgrades.

Tumbleweed36 · 03-21-2008, 09:14 PM

Quote:

The LED’s light up briefly and the PSU fan starts up, and then nothing happens.

When you say nothing happens, does the PSU fan stay on? Exactly what dies and what stays on when you push that button? Do you have the +12 volt molex plugged in tightly? Have you removed and reseated the Video card?

sevenmars · 03-21-2008, 09:42 PM

When I push the button the power and HDD LEDs light up and the PSU fan (as far as I can tell, only the PSU fan) starts up for less than second then everything dies including the PSU fan. I don't think the fan blades even make a full turn before it dies, it took a few tries for me to realize it was even trying to start.

The mouse and keyboard LEDs stay lit all the time, as long as the power cord is plugged in and the back switch is on.

I just removed and reseated the video card and also re-removed/replaced the battery just to make sure I kept it out long enough for CMOS to reset. No change.

Tumbleweed36 · 03-22-2008, 05:03 AM

Sure sounds like you have a short between the motherboard and the motherboard standoffs or motherboard bray. Are you certain that you have only one motherboard post for each hole in your motherboard, no more, no less? Are you sure your motherboard is not shorting between the side of the board and the case? My thinking is that it is either a short where something is touching the case, or the power supply has gone south.

Post back after you check that and if that does not work, we need to take the motherboard out of the case and place it on a piece of cardboard or non-conductive surface beside the case with only minimal parts like 1 stick of ram, the CPU/Heatsink/cpu fan plugged in to the motherboard, the ATX connector, the +12 molex, video card/monitor, speaker, and see if it stays on. If it does, add something....you get the picture of what to do.

sevenmars · 03-22-2008, 01:13 PM

I purchased a new Thermaltake Purepower 600w PSU and voila, problem solved!

However, I am back to square one with the XP installation.

Here is the HDD I am using:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136161

It's OEM so I did not receive anything but the HDD. I thought I could boot-up straight from XP after adjusting the CMOS settings to boot from the CD/DVD drive. I tried this and after formatting, partitioning, and going through with the setup, I got a message saying setup will continue after restarting. After restarting, the XP setup started all over again. This continued ad nauseum.

I tried changing the boot order to make the HDD boot up first. This just resulted in a disk error.

I went to WD's website and downloaded the installation guide and software. I burned a disk with the installation CD and tried to use it to boot up. I got a disk error message. I tried burnning a couple more CDs, hoping maybe I was using the wrong version or that it was just a bad disk and I still received a disk error.

Here is the download:

http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...pid=15&swid=45

I tried v11.0 and v11.2 and both give me disk errors when I try to use them.

Is there something else I should be booting up with first? I've read the installation guide and the installation CD seems to be the next step I should take.

Thanks again for your help! I'm really glad the power issue appears to be resolved.

Tumbleweed36 · 03-22-2008, 01:27 PM

When you try the install, did you download the Sata drivers from your motherboard disk to a floppy and install the Sata drivers from floppy at the F6 prompt?

sevenmars · 03-22-2008, 02:18 PM

I don't have a floppy. There's one in my old computer but I'm not sure if it works or not.

I forgot to mention that I tried to use the CD that came with the motherboard to boot up with and that also gave a disk read error.

Tumbleweed36 · 03-22-2008, 02:54 PM

You will need to slipstream those drivers on your OS cd by creating a new disk with both on it. Here are instructions:

How-To-Slipstream-Your-XP-Installation

03-21-2008, 07:34 PM	#1 (permalink)
sevenmars Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 27 OS: XP MCE 2005	New Build Stopped Turning On I am in the process of building my first computer. I ordered all my parts, carefully assembled everything, pushed the power button and everything booted up nicely. Then I ran into some troubles installing Windows XP (it got stuck in a continuous setup loop) and decided because it was late I would shut down and try again the next day. This afternoon I thought I had figured out the problem and was ready to try again. I pushed the power button and both the power and HDD LEDs lit up for about a second but nothing else happened. I tried switching off the power on the back, giving it a few seconds and trying again, but still nothing. There are no beeps. The LED’s light up briefly and the PSU fan starts up, and then nothing happens. The keyboard and mouse have LEDs on continuously as long as everythings plugged in and the back switch is on. During the failed XP install it went through a lot of reboots, but there were never any signs of problems. The temperature remained stable at 38C and there were no unusual sounds or anything. I’m pretty bummed out. Any suggestions? I don’t have any extra parts laying around. The system: Antec Neo HE 430 watts AMD Athlon 64 x2 6400 3.2Hz GIGABYTE Nvidia nForce 570 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB PCIE Corsair DDR2 800 2GB Thank you for your help.

03-21-2008, 07:57 PM	#2 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,691 OS: XP Professional	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On When you loaded your OS, did you also load Sata drivers at the F6 prompt? If not, that may be the reason for your difficult and sporatic problems. They normally just need that done to work properly. If not, then I would start over and do that. Does your motherboard support Sata II? Another thing or two. While the NEO He is a great power supply, you may be underpowered, so you need to consider that issue. Clear the CMOS and see if that gets you going again. __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread. Last edited by Tumbleweed36; 03-21-2008 at 07:58 PM.

03-21-2008, 08:57 PM	#3 (permalink)
sevenmars Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 27 OS: XP MCE 2005	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On I did not load the SATA drivers, and I believe that is the reason XP stalled at setup. In fact, I was taking a freshly burned installation (from the HDD's manufacturer website) CD to try out when I discovered the new problem. The motherboard does support SATA II. I tried your suggestion and cleared the CMOS by removing and replacing the battery and no dice, same LED/PSU fan but no start-up. I had considered that 430 was kind of weak, but I already had it so I plan on using it for awhile until I do further upgrades.

03-21-2008, 09:42 PM	#5 (permalink)
sevenmars Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 27 OS: XP MCE 2005	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On When I push the button the power and HDD LEDs light up and the PSU fan (as far as I can tell, only the PSU fan) starts up for less than second then everything dies including the PSU fan. I don't think the fan blades even make a full turn before it dies, it took a few tries for me to realize it was even trying to start. The mouse and keyboard LEDs stay lit all the time, as long as the power cord is plugged in and the back switch is on. I just removed and reseated the video card and also re-removed/replaced the battery just to make sure I kept it out long enough for CMOS to reset. No change.

03-22-2008, 05:03 AM	#6 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,691 OS: XP Professional	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On Sure sounds like you have a short between the motherboard and the motherboard standoffs or motherboard bray. Are you certain that you have only one motherboard post for each hole in your motherboard, no more, no less? Are you sure your motherboard is not shorting between the side of the board and the case? My thinking is that it is either a short where something is touching the case, or the power supply has gone south. Post back after you check that and if that does not work, we need to take the motherboard out of the case and place it on a piece of cardboard or non-conductive surface beside the case with only minimal parts like 1 stick of ram, the CPU/Heatsink/cpu fan plugged in to the motherboard, the ATX connector, the +12 molex, video card/monitor, speaker, and see if it stays on. If it does, add something....you get the picture of what to do. __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread.

03-22-2008, 01:13 PM	#7 (permalink)
sevenmars Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 27 OS: XP MCE 2005	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On I purchased a new Thermaltake Purepower 600w PSU and voila, problem solved! However, I am back to square one with the XP installation. Here is the HDD I am using: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136161 It's OEM so I did not receive anything but the HDD. I thought I could boot-up straight from XP after adjusting the CMOS settings to boot from the CD/DVD drive. I tried this and after formatting, partitioning, and going through with the setup, I got a message saying setup will continue after restarting. After restarting, the XP setup started all over again. This continued ad nauseum. I tried changing the boot order to make the HDD boot up first. This just resulted in a disk error. I went to WD's website and downloaded the installation guide and software. I burned a disk with the installation CD and tried to use it to boot up. I got a disk error message. I tried burnning a couple more CDs, hoping maybe I was using the wrong version or that it was just a bad disk and I still received a disk error. Here is the download: http://support.wdc.com/download/inde...pid=15&swid=45 I tried v11.0 and v11.2 and both give me disk errors when I try to use them. Is there something else I should be booting up with first? I've read the installation guide and the installation CD seems to be the next step I should take. Thanks again for your help! I'm really glad the power issue appears to be resolved. Last edited by sevenmars; 03-22-2008 at 01:18 PM.

03-22-2008, 01:27 PM	#8 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,691 OS: XP Professional	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On When you try the install, did you download the Sata drivers from your motherboard disk to a floppy and install the Sata drivers from floppy at the F6 prompt? __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread.

03-22-2008, 02:18 PM	#9 (permalink)
sevenmars Registered User Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 27 OS: XP MCE 2005	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On I don't have a floppy. There's one in my old computer but I'm not sure if it works or not. I forgot to mention that I tried to use the CD that came with the motherboard to boot up with and that also gave a disk read error. Last edited by sevenmars; 03-22-2008 at 02:20 PM.

03-22-2008, 02:54 PM	#10 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,691 OS: XP Professional	Re: New Build Stopped Turning On You will need to slipstream those drivers on your OS cd by creating a new disk with both on it. Here are instructions: How-To-Slipstream-Your-XP-Installation __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread.