bsauro

hello, i have had an ongoing problem that is actually getting quite frustrating. I lost a computer overnight, not sure exactly what happened but it wouldn't turn on when i woke up. I decided to get new components, as i needed them anyway. Well, long story short i went through a couple of different companies thinking the parts they sent me (MB/CPU combos) were not working properly since when i put all the hardware together, nothing. What had happened everytime i hooked up any combination of hardware i have, i will turn on the power, and get the hardware to where it should be 'booting.' With a monitor connected to the video card, nothing would come on the screen. The screen would remain black, and the power light on the monitor would blink, indicating there is no signal coming from the video card. Now, as it stands i have ordered more new hardware, and everything i have is brand new (MB/CPU, video card, stick of RAM). All parts are compatible, and when all hooked together, it still produces the same result. I even bought a new power supply, thinking that the one i had bought 2 months ago was disfunctional. I am at a serious standstill, and do not have a clue what the problem may be. i have never had such problems building computers, upgrading hardware, etc. This really does not make much sense to me right now. If anyone has any input, it would be greatly appreciated.

Terrister

Please post more details. make and model of Motherboard,cpu,power supply and video card for starters. Also Memory type.

bsauro

CPU:AMD Athlon 64 3200 2.0Ghz 512KB 939, OEM

Motherobard:Asus A8V Athlon 64/Socket 939/K8T800 Pro/RAID/Audio/Gigabit LAN Motherboard

RAM: 512MB Stick of PC2700 DDR

Video card: Radeon X1600 Pro

power supply: PowMagic 550W ATX


that is what i am trying to hook up currently. These parts were all bought brand new. also, there were plenty of different combinations of parts that were put together to try and get something up and running. Every single thing has caused the monitor to stay black, and the power LED blinking (signifying it isn't getting a proper signal from the video card). The monitor works, i had it hooked up to a computer i borrowed from someone in the middle of this whole ordeal. The various other parts i hooked up (in pretty much every combination you can get), athlon XP 2100, athlon XP 2700, radeon X1300 pro, an old gforce2 card, 1 GB stick of PC 2700 DDR, 256 stick of PC2100 DDR, and 3 different kinds of asus MB's (not sure exact model #'s offhand).

Not sure what other details you are looking for, but hopefully this somewhat helps.

Doby

Hi,

First thing you need a quality psu that powmagic only has 16amp on the 12V that is not enough to power a amd 64 system, heck that ain't enough for a socket A system.

http://www.techsupportforum.com/showthread.php?t=107466go here for information on how to choose a good psu then pick a psu and post us a link and we can evaluate your choice.

After you get a good psu in it we can go from there but my bet is it just may fix your problem.

Rick

bsauro

Well i just grabbed that PS because the one that i bought new a month ago was something i was troubleshooting as the 'problem.' The PS i bought before the newest one is a ChiefMax Dual Fan 650 Watt ATX Switching Power Supply w/ SATA Connector. Not sure if this one is just as equivalent for causing the problem that i am having, but it was doing the same thing (as far as the black monitor).

bsauro

Doby.....I was just reading the verbeage on that link you left in your post. It brought up a couple of interesting things that i noticed on my setup. First and foremost, both power supplies that i have are the 20+4 power cable, as you wrote under the compatibility issues with ATX PSU section. So, that being said, all of the MB that i own don't have a slot for the 24 pin variety, so i split off the 4 pin piece, and plug the remaining 20 pin piece into the MB for a perfect fit. Now, from my understanding of what i have been reading, and from obviously looking at the MB, this extra 4 pin piece is what you are referring to as the '4 pin 12V cable' and that should be inserted into the only slot on the MB that would fit this sort of cable. This is something that i have plugged in and not plugged in on various MB that i do have (i haven't tried it on all of the MB, as this extra 4 pin connector on the MB is so perfectly placed on the opposite side of the main PS hookup point on the MB, that the cables do not always reach). ok, on the new rig, what i do plug this extra 4 pin into the slot that it fits in perfectly, the power switch on the PSU is turned on, green LED on the motherboard lights up indicating it is receiving power, push the power button on the case, and.........nothing. no fans spinning, no sounds of hard drive discs starting to spin. ok, so flip the power switch on the PSU to the off position, and remove the extra 4 pin piece. Let's try this again, back on with the power switch, push the power button on case, and.......the whirring sound of fans, lights coming on on the LED case fans, CPU fan is spinning away, radeon fan spinning away, hard drive discs starting up, and we are still at the original problem of the black monitor with blinking power light. hmmm....ok, so what i have come to the conclusion of with my troubleshooting is this extra 4 pin cable being plugged into the MB almost appears to 'short out' the MB so it will not start the power. If this 4 pin piece is NOT plugged in on any setup i have tried, then all of my fans spin, hard drives sound like they are spinning and working away, CPU fan is humming at it's proper RPM, but still no monitor activity. It is a very strange scenario in my mind, and as i read my original post over, i kind of did leave out that detail (unless everyone reading this did assume what was happening in my case, which i am not sure that happened). In what i have been describing, everytime i do turn on the power, and either 'jump' the MB with a screwdriver, or have the case power button plugged in, all of my case fans, CPU fan, video card fan, are all spinning away, with lights on from the LED fans, and the hard drives are kicking away. This is where i keep getting confused, because if power is present, and appears to being distributed properly, then why is the monitor acting like such a bratty kid? That is all from my update for now, and like always, any help/advice/anything that makes my system work, is greatly appreciated!

dai

no the 4 pins you split off hang loose
the aux connector to the m/b is approx half an inch square and usually has 2 yellow and 2 black wires
connect this and your problem should be gone

Doby

Follow dai's description of the extra 4 pin connector and read thru your manuals it should mention it there also, make sure this is pluged in and let us know what happens

bsauro

ok guys, where we are at now:

i got back home and hooked up the PowMagic 550W ATX, found the 4 pin connector (which i stupidly overlooked) everything booted up proper, got the HD formatted, put windows on it, everything up and running fine. well, i use the term fine loosely....i am thinking that what you said before doby may be applying now. the computer will restart itself after a little bit of time being on, maybe an hour roughly. i will come back and notice it is on my login screen for XP, and when i log back in, i will get a message that says windows has recovered from a critical error. does this sound like what you mentioned above about the lower amps coming from this PSU? right now all i really do is turn the computer on, do the few minutes worth of things i need to do, and shut down till the next time...i am fearing leaving it on to save on hardware damage. let me know what you guys think.

Doby

Go into bios and list here the voltages the psu is producing, I'll bet one or more of the rails is below the 5% spec for the rail.

But still I would get a quality psu in there. 16A on the 12v or unstable voltages will cause a reboot. It seems now all your parts are good because you were able to install windows

bsauro

here are the numbers i found:

Vcore voltage - 1.424 V
3.5V voltage - 3.360 V
5V voltage - 5.214 V
12V voltage - 12.28 V

dai

if it is reporting a critical error turn off the auto reboot and post the full message you receive when it freezes on the bsod,it sounds like something else is the problem

bsauro

ok, i turned off the auto reboot feature for XP, and then have had the computer on since yesterday (monday night) at around 8 p.m. or so, and it has been on ever since, but running fine. There have been no error messages, or anything indicating a problem....very strange. so here i am now, computer running for 24 hours straight with no sign of problems.

Ralck

Sometimes PSU's have a 'burn-in' phase (Doesn't it sound awful! But it's actually sort of a good thing!) where the system has some instability, and then get's it's bearings and all starts to work correctly.

Another thing to check, is some night, download Memtest86 (in my sig) and run that overnight while you sleep. When you wake up, see if there are any errors, as this could also be a RAM issue. I would say, though, if this doesn't happen again soon, it was probably the PSU burning-in.

Cheers!

Doby

Sounds like you might be ok, I would stress test it though with something like prime95 for 24 hours to make sure its 100% stable.

But thats just me, I demand 100% stability from my machines