PicoPSU + Antec NP-100 (100W brick) = no boot Intel E2140

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:43 pm

I'm a bit stumped, so I was hoping some of the more knowledgeable electricians here could help me out. I have been running this system for the past year with zero problems. Recently, I had the opportunity to upgrade to an Intel Pentium e2140. This processor used to be in my HTPC, and I measured its power draw at idle as ~70W from the wall. This was when it was overclocked and overvolted with a less-than-ideal efficient PSU. I figured with the picoPSU's high efficiency, I might try running the chip off of it. No dice.

So far I've tried disconnecting absolutely everything except RAM, cpu, and the picoPSU. The system powers up, but just never posts. It just hangs. The ram I'm using (Ballistix Tracer) has LED activity lights on it. They light up, but don't show the characteristic shifting pattern that indicates that the memory is actively being used. Except for the motherboard, all parts are recycled working parts. I've also verified the motherboard to be working using a different PSU (booted and entered BIOS), so I think my problem is the picoPSU. Does anyone know what my limiting component is? Is it the picoPSU or is it the power brick? Since the overall wattage seems fine I think it might be something like insufficient amperage on a specific line. I'm not very familiar with that and I'm not sure where to start looking first.

Specs:
ZOTAC NF630I-E-E
Pentium Dual Core E2140
Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2x512 mb DDR2 800
pico-PSU-120WI-25V
Antec NP-100 Laptop Adapter

electrodacus · Post by **electrodacus** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 8:27 pm

Can you use the other power supply and undervolt the CPU then try again with the PicoPSU?. I see your PicoPSU is 80W and 120W peak but even so with noting connected except MB, CPU and RAM it should be able to work.
The Brick is no problem (except that is low efficiency

) but it will not be the weak link in this setup.
The only two line that are loaded are 5V and 12V but if the spec is right and they can deliver 6A it should work.
Do you have a multimeter to check the voltage on 5V and 12V line?.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:58 am

Yes this has me quite stumped. No I don't have access to a multimeter or anything like that. There's no voltage options in the BIOS. Only FSB. I should also add that I've tried the same cpu/PSU combo in an Asus P5PE-VM (Google Cache link) with GSkill DDR400 ram that booted up fine.

Maybe it is the amperage? The max amperage on the back of my brick says 15V/5.33A.

electrodacus · Post by **electrodacus** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 9:27 am

PartEleven wrote:Yes this has me quite stumped. No I don't have access to a multimeter or anything like that. There's no voltage options in the BIOS. Only FSB. I should also add that I've tried the same cpu/PSU combo in an Asus P5PE-VM (Google Cache link) with GSkill DDR400 ram that booted up fine.

Maybe it is the amperage? The max amperage on the back of my brick says 15V/5.33A.

I do not think that the brick is limited it can provide 95 - 100W and this is more than enough (is also an Antec brick so I guess is not a fake brick that can not provide the spec output).
With the PicoPSU I do not have experience but other similar PSU will shout down completely if one of the line exceed max output and your system is powering up and remain powered.
Maybe Ram or CPU is not compatible with the motherboard. Can you test this system with a different power supply?

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:32 am

Have you reset the BIOS settings with the jumper?

Mr Evil · Post by **Mr Evil** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:51 am

PartEleven wrote:...power draw at idle as ~70W from the wall...

And how much does it use while booting? For instance, my PC idles at 80W, but uses over 130W while booting.

Trav1s · Post by **Trav1s** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:30 am

I have the mini-ITX version of that board in one system here at the house. The first processor I had in it was an e2200 along with 2 gigs (1x2) Crucial DDR2-667. Straight out of the box it booted and worked with the "default" bios settings. Recently upgraded to an e5300 and 2 gigs (1x2) Crucial DDR2-800 without a glitch.

My gut reaction is that the pico/brick combo is the problem. Have you tried the complete system with another PS? Reset bios to "default" settings? A different processor?

According to Zotac's site the processor is supported. Not sure about the memory.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 1:45 pm

electrodacus wrote:Can you test this system with a different power supply?

Yes I have. Using a different PSU I've gotten this exactly motherboard/cpu/ram combination to boot. I was able to enter BIOS and change settings around. That's how I know there is no voltage adjustment.

dukla2000 wrote:Have you reset the BIOS settings with the jumper?

Also yes. I've even tried removing the battery + waiting several hours for all the capacitors to discharge before booting again. Doesn't work.

Mr Evil wrote:And how much does it use while booting? For instance, my PC idles at 80W, but uses over 130W while booting.

I don't remember off the top of my head. You're right in that the PC uses much more power when powering up, but also consider that the ~70W figure was in a completely different PC, with a less efficient PSU, and overclocked + overvolted. I figured I would be safe at stock and/or lower settings.

Remember people that I was able to get this cpu working in an Asus P5PE-VM (with different ram also), so maybe it's something to do with the motherboard/chipset?

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:21 am

OK, so it has to be some issue related to the PicoPSU/Antec adapter combo (as per your first post!).

I would doubt it is the brick - but would be handy to check the wall power draw during POST for both the Antec and your spare PSU. Obviously seeing the actual peak is a lottery but having an idea of what t is would be useful.

Another thought - does the pico-PSU have any minimum load requirements? Cant see anything in the manual from the Mini-ITX site but if you have a drive plugged in, do you have the same hang even on a reset (ie. drive up and running)?

But strongly feel it has to be a limitation on the +12V. The way to prove this would be use your spare PSU to provide +12V to the 4-pin mobo socket with the Pico in the 20-pin mobo. Hang an old HDD off the old PSU (to provide some load) then jump start the old PSU with a paper clip. Then try start the pico.

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:56 am

Woah - apologies for double post but ......

I presumed that you had an ATX 12V power connector (the 4 pin, 2 yellow & 2 black) on the Pico. But the default config from mini-box does not include one. Have you added one? If not, my test above will more likely prove that you need one (than that there is a 12V max power limitation in the Antec/Pico combination).

And when you have used the other PSU you have been plugging in an ATX 12V connector?

ntavlas · Post by **ntavlas** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:34 am

He did power on a different motherboard with the same psu so we can assume that he does use the 12v connector. Could it be incompatibility between the motherboard and psu? Between the motherboard and power brick? If it`s not the peak power requierment during boot up it could be a matter of timing, the pico psu/power brick is not providing the power when the motherboard needs it.

electrodacus · Post by **electrodacus** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:30 am

ntavlas wrote:He did power on a different motherboard with the same psu so we can assume that he does use the 12v connector. Could it be incompatibility between the motherboard and psu? Between the motherboard and power brick? If it`s not the peak power requierment during boot up it could be a matter of timing, the pico psu/power brick is not providing the power when the motherboard needs it.

Yes I also assume he is using a 12V connector. It is possible that is unable to provide peak loads when needed since the PicoPSU is so small it dose not have big enough capacitors on the output that will be able to supply the picks and probably the voltage will drop under a minimum and the board will stop all operations. I guess the PicoPSU is mostly designed for Atom and Via board with power consumption of 10 to max 40W.

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:40 am

ntavlas wrote:He did power on a different motherboard with the same psu so we can assume that he does use the 12v connector.

We need to wait for PartEleven to get back to be sure. But from my reading the Pico was previously running a Biostar M7NCG, which AFAIK doesn't have ATX 12V.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:10 pm

dukla2000 wrote:But strongly feel it has to be a limitation on the +12V. The way to prove this would be use your spare PSU to provide +12V to the 4-pin mobo socket with the Pico in the 20-pin mobo. Hang an old HDD off the old PSU (to provide some load) then jump start the old PSU with a paper clip. Then try start the pico.

This is a great idea! I'll definitely need to try this later tonight. Yes I have been using a 12V ATX adapter (molex -> 12V ATX) on the pico. I assumed that the board wouldn't work without it, but apparently some can? Anyway, the thing that weirds me out is that the other board, Asus P5PE-VM, boots up fine using the same configuration. Could it really be that this Zotac NF630I-E-E just has higher peak requirements?

EDIT: I have a feeling now that it might just be either a bad board, or some kind of RAM incompatibility. I just tried the "working" PSU again with no success. The one time I did get anything on the screen was when I swapped the RAM (also Crucial Ballistix, same speed but 2x1GB) but it was just a screen full of gibberish ASCII text flashing up and down. Kind of like the monitor screens from the movie "The Matrix", only at warp speed. Unfortunately I don't have any other spare DDR2 ram lying around, other than Crucial Ballistix. I could just go out and buy another set, but maybe at this point it's better to just RMA this thing and try again?

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 9:20 am

I really don't understand this anymore. I did some more testing this weekend using a more than capable PSU (Antec 420W):

OCZ Reaper PC8500 (2x2GB): works
Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC6400 (2x512MB): works
*Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC6400 (2x512MB): FAIL <--- ?????????

The starred (*) set of ram is the original set I've been having problems with. I suspected that I might have damaged it somehow, since I had to remove the heat spreader on one of the sticks. However,
it passes memtest with zero problems. I don't understand this anymore. The board is not DOA (OCZ Reaper ram works). The board is not incompatible with Crucial Ballistix (my other nearly identical set of ram works). The problem set of ram doesn't seem to be broken (passes memtest repeatedly). I am completely out of ideas. Someone help?

PicoPSU + Antec NP-100 (100W brick) = no boot Intel E2140

PicoPSU + Antec NP-100 (100W brick) = no boot Intel E2140

Re: PicoPSU + Antec NP-100 (100W brick) = no boot Intel E214

thoroughly confused