Urgent help needed. New system won't work :(

Plotinus · Post by **Plotinus** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:26 pm

Have finally assembled all the different components in my system and tried to put it all together. In vain it seems. It only shows a black screen.

This is my system:
Motherboard: A8N-E
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 xp3200+
Heatsink: XP-120
GPU: Point-of-View GeForce 6600GT 128 Mb TV/DVI-out, PCI-Express
Harddrive: Samsung HD 160 GB IDE
Screen: Viewsonic VP171b
Case: Antec SLK3000B EU edition
DVD: Old Creative 5x something
PSU: A silent 400W with a 140mm fan
Mem: 2 Paired Corsair 512 Mb DDR-DiMMs (1 GB)
I have a 120mm fan on the heatsink (forgotten which).

After screwing all this together I can see that the system powers up:

- Green light on the "power on" led on the motherboard
- when the on-switch is pushed everything powers up as expected (or at least apparantly)
- all fans start to work (the noisy ones on the GPU and the motherboard are easily audible).
- The hardrive starts spinning and so does the DVD-ROM with the install disk.
- but the screen stays black!!!!!!! "No analog signal found" And there is also no digital signal!!!!

What can be wrong? Is it the GPU?

There were some mishaps during assembly:
- When I changed the framework that the XP-120 heatsink should latch on to, I forgot to change the screws and used the longer ones that was on the original framework. This put the motherboard under tension forcing it to "bend backwards" slightly. I did not notice this until later.
- When I installed the CPU I forgot to open the locking "lever" (*wince*). I just put it in place, applied thermal paste and moved on to installing the heatsink. As the CPU was loose, this was slightly problematic as it kept coming loose as I adjusted the heatsink in place.
- I found out that I was unable to reach the "lower" brackets on the framework forcing me to unscrew the motherboard from the case for the first time.
- I then managed to fasten the heatsink properly and put the whole thing back in the case. During this I repeatedly but accidentally struck the motherboard with my flat-iron. Those brackets are damned hard to put into place. No visible damage occured.
-I proceeded to install the rest of the thing without any mishaps, then stumbled on the "install processor"-instructions showing me the lever I forgot to use. I dismantled the whole thing, took the motherboardout of the case, uninstalled the heatsink (banging the flat-iron into the motherboard a few times in the process) and properly installed the CPU and started from scratch.
- Then I noticed the bend in the motherboard (after putting it back into the case etc etc), reminding me of the screws that came with the new framework forcing me to start from scratch again, this time using the correct screws. Everything went much better after that as I had got quite a lot of practice assembling the whole thing. But the flatiron still banged into the motherboard a few times.
- Finally assembled the whole thing successfully. Everything seems to work, but the screen does not detect any signals. Making me want to just break down and cry.

I've spent a lot of money on this thing and now it doesn't work. I fear it is because of all the things that happened during assembly, but nothing SEEMED wrong!!! The CPU is not even scratched, no pins broken or anything like that. I guess the motherboard won't last for twenty years, but that doesn't matter. There is not a scratch on it, despite my "best" attempts. Can it be only a faulty GPU???

Please help me. I am very depressed at the moment and I'd really need some advice.

jackylman · Post by **jackylman** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 5:04 pm

Reseat GPU and RAM (use only one stick and put it in the first DIMM socket). Push them in tight. Then unplug the drive cables. You don't need a drive hooked up to make it POST.

What core is the 3200? If it's a Venice you may need a BIOS update...

CGameProgrammer · Post by **CGameProgrammer** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 6:36 pm

This reminds me of something I asked just yesterday. Your motherboard should have beeped. If it does not, you haven't connected the speaker port. The case has a small onboard speaker used just for emitting beeps. There's a "speaker" connector on the front of the case that you need to connect to the appropriate location on the motherboard. After you do this, the motherboard should emit a very quick beep when it first turns on, and then if there's an error it'll emit a beep code of some sort.

For example, my BIOS emits one long beep followed by two short ones to indicate it can't find the graphics card. But there are many other things that can prevent it from showing things onscreen -- if there's bad memory, a bad CPU, or a host of other things, nothing will be shown on-screen, even though power is going to the fans and peripherals.

Plotinus · Post by **Plotinus** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:17 pm

I tried looking at yhe LEDs. They should be connected properly. But I do not hear a beep of any kind.

Another thing I noticed was that although the power ON LED works, the soft off (power off) function on the same LED doesn't work. Does it make any difference which way the LEDs are connected? At the moment they are connected with the "written" side "up" towards the rest of the board, should the maybe be turned around and have the written side "down"?

Also I noticed that the SLK3000B has three HDD Leds. But my motherboard only supports one HDD LED. At the moment the others just hang loose.

Can it be some of the above???

Mr_Smartepants · Post by **Mr_Smartepants** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 11:43 pm

Plotinus wrote:I tried looking at yhe LEDs. They should be connected properly. But I do not hear a beep of any kind.

Another thing I noticed was that although the power ON LED works, the soft off (power off) function on the same LED doesn't work. Does it make any difference which way the LEDs are connected? At the moment they are connected with the "written" side "up" towards the rest of the board, should the maybe be turned around and have the written side "down"?

You should definately read your motherboard manual!!

The pin-outs for the LED/switch wires NEED to be orientated correctly. I've seen it many times where a single LED wire was installed backwards and the system refused to boot. The switch wires (power/reset) don't care which way they're installed but the LED wires are finicky. Just disconnect all the LED wires from the motherboard and see if that boots it (after reseating GPU/RAM/monitor cables).
It should be this but you may have done (or not done) something during the assembly process to induce the non-boot condition. Recheck your steps.

CGameProgrammer · Post by **CGameProgrammer** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:00 am

Plotinus wrote:Also I noticed that the SLK3000B has three HDD Leds. But my motherboard only supports one HDD LED. At the moment the others just hang loose.

Can it be some of the above???

You need to plug in your speaker connector. It says "SPEAKER" on it, and it's the widest front connector not counting the USB one. Read the motherboard manual.

As for the hard drive LEDs, they can all remain disconnected. I've done so with mine, since I have no IDE hard drives, and the manual claims they're just for IDE drives.

Oh, and you're not using the term "LED" correctly. It stands for Light Emitting Diode and it refers to the lights, not the wires. You have exactly four LEDs on your case: one power LED and three hard drive LEDs. There are more connectors than that, though -- a power switch, a reset switch, a speaker connector, and a USB 2.0 connector.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:12 am

LED's must be connected with the correct polarity in order to work correctly, but even if connected backwards (or not connected at all), it will have no effect on whether your machine boots.

I would pull the CPU and make sure no pins are bent, and then reinstall. Boot with only one stick of memory.

If you have a new Venice core CPU (not sure it that applies to 3200+) you may have a bios problem, but it may boot with one stick of RAM.

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:58 am

My system does that if I forget to (re-)connect the additional power connector on the graphics card. Does your card have a molex or floppy power connector? If so, hook it up to the PSU, it needs the extra power.

m0002a · Post by **m0002a** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 1:00 am

Spod wrote:My system does that if I forget to (re-)connect the additional power connector on the graphics card. Does your card have a molex or floppy power connector? If so, hook it up to the PSU, it needs the extra power.

PCI-e 6600GT does not have a power connection directly with PSU. It gets all of its power from the slot.