Is it the motherboard thats at fault?

[Swiss]

Ok, received my order of components yesterday for a new work computer. After putting it all together I have come to the conclusion that one of the components is faulty.

Vital components
Mobo: Asrock K7S41GX
CPU: Athlon XP 2400 (266)
RAM: Generic 2700 (512mb)

After assembling everything and firing up for the first time, power was reaching all of the attached components (fans powering up, HDD spinning, lights on drives flashing etc..) but I'm getting nothing else. No POST, no display and no beeps!

From this point on, only the CPU, RAM and PSU are plugged into the motherboard. (Onboard graphics).

First thing I tried was to re-seat all of the components, this was done several times with very little effect. A couple of times after re-seating the CPU the system only powered up for a second or so then powered down.

Next up I removed the RAM and fired up, at last some beeps! But only to tell me that there was no RAM installed, still no POST or display.

RAM inserted again, CPU removed. After firing up the system again I am not given any display, POST or even any beeps, just the fans spinning.

This mobo has jumpers to set the FSB, have double checked that they are set to 266MHz. Have also tried with the board set to 200MHz and 333MHz but there is no signs of change.

At this point I have narrowed it down to either the CPU or mobo. I had an old Duron 1300MHz machine lying around, as the Asrock board supports Duron chips I swapped the CPU out with the Duron and still no display, POST or beeps...

I then tried the Athlon 2400 in the machine I took the Duron 1300MHz from. The system booted into Windows with no problems, although at initial boot stages the processors speed was measured incorrectly. I can probably put this down to not changing any settings, or a possibly incompatability issue?

As the CPU sort of works in the Duron machine, and neither processors work in the K7S41GX, I am comming to the conclusion that the Asrock is faulty. If anyone could confirm my conclusion or give me more stuff to try that would be great! As I'm in desperate need for this to work as it is need at work. Need to get the faulty part(s) sent back for replacement!

Thanks in advance.

[da_ging]

have you tried any different ram in the asrock ?

also have you tried resetting the cmos?

[mike_w]

Try putting the RAM in another machine and run Memtest on it.

[Swiss]

Forgot to mention that a resetted the CMOS, no effect tho.

Although I did just try the stick of 2700 in my gaming machine (P4 2.4c @ 3.2, Asus P4P800D) and it had the same effect, no boot, POST, or beeps! When I reinserted the RAM that was in there before, booted up - but did say my overclock failed (?!) - I set the BIOS setting back to default before testing the 2700. I have no 2700 / 2100 RAM lying around to test in the Asrock... So gunna have to pop to work to see if I can borrow any there, if not a trip to the shop is in need of!

Starting to look like the RAM is at fault now! Thanks for the help so far! Will report back soon...

[da_ging]

why cant you test the asrock with the ram from your gaming rig then?

[Swiss]

Its 3200 RAM in my gaming machine. The asrock only supports up to 2700.

[da_ging]

it will still work in the asrock ,using a higher speed rated bit of ram at a slower speed is fine

u could run the stick of 3200 at 2100 speeds if you wanted

[pre]

PSU? Plugged in the 12v connector?

[Swiss]

Turns out it was the memory, went and bought another stick of 512mb 2700, whacked it in and worked first time. Now I just gotta send the faulty one back for a refund... And while I'm at it, get my supposed Athlon 2400 swapped over, turned out they accidently sent me a Athlon 2200 instead.

I did try some 3200 RAM in the Asrock, but it didn't make a difference, it still refused to boot. Odd, because I thought it would have worked at a slower speed also.

Oh, and this mobo didn't have an aux 12v connector on it, do AMD boards have them? First AMD machine I've built in a while...