would appreciate some help troubleshooting Asus psz68 pro build

[Anteries]

High, having loads of niggling problems with my new i5 2400 Asus p8z68-v pro/gen3 motherboard.

My TP link PCI express is not working in the motherboard, the lights not coming on. It worked fine in a system I took out a few months ago.

I've updated the latest BIOS, but the weirdest thing. I can't scroll down to access the power on the settings. On the page slider bar won't go all the way down.

I have a message boots saying no hard drive detected, but it boots up fine. I did a fresh install of Windows 8 upgrade.

My main problem is no Internet access. I suppose my first port of call is to buy a new PCI express WiFi card to check my current one has got static damaged or something.

Is there anything I might have missed in the BIOS that might be stopping my WiFi card from powering up?

My power supply is a seasonic 12 it only has a four pin motherboard connection, my mother bought has an eight pin socket. Boot up and seems to work fine using the left four, I wondered if this might be the reason my WiFi card wasn't working but have recently got an adapter to utilise the the full eight pin socket.

To be honest I'm feeling a bit defeated by the whole thing. What is the best strategy to troubleshoot something like this? I'm beginning to wonder if it's even viable for me to try and put together a PC. As I am out of my depth when it comes to troubleshooting.

[Thorsson]

Left 4 is right and should be fine, although I'm surprised at a new PSU having 4 pins and I though the S12 had been replaced by the S12II. What is the power rating and what video card do you have?

Are your memory sticks (what are they?) in the right slots (if you just have 2)? If you take out the WiFi card does it boot properly? Have you changed any BIOS settings?

The best strategy is to put in the minimum number of components, and to swap things that can be swapped until you track down the culprit. But first make sure all the connections are solid.

[Bonebreaker777]

Agree with Thorsson.

- Disconnect any unnecessary components from the PC (keep HDD if necessary, but no PCIe GPU or WiFi card, just do the troubleshooting on the integrated GPU).
- If your new BIOS layout changed, check your BIOS version release notes, if there is anything mentioned about it, if not, reflash the BIOS or downgrade back to your old and working one.
- If the weird behavior continues even after the BIOS downgrade/reflash and with minimal amount of components, try to get hold of of some PC components from your environment for further experimentation (borrow PSU, etc).
- As soon your PC starts to working fine (ie recognizes HDD on boot, etc), start to add the non-essential PC components (like your PCIe WIFi card). But only one-by-one, not all at once, so you can notice changes in the PC behavior.
- Would help us to give you advice if you would post your configuration or just update your system in your profile.

Good luck

[Anteries]

Thank you both very much for taking the trouble to reply. I apologise that my original post was rather rambling and unclear. I had been working on fixing the computer for hours and was really fed up.

I think my comment about the BIOS is probably imaginary.

There are only two real problems, the first is basically my PCie. WiFi card does not work, the LED on the card is not lighting up.

The second thing is when booting I get the message "adapter 1 information ahci mode no hard disk found." this comes up about half a second and then it goes to boot normally. And happily boots into Windows 8.

When I go in the BIOS and change the SATA settings to IDE my computer won't boot, and when I go back into the BIOS to change back to AHCI mode none of the hard drives are visible and the red warning light relating to booting up comes on on my motherboard. He won't go back to the way it was before unless I click lode optimised defaults. Basically a bit weird. I have tried all the various SATA ports on the motherboard. Although it boots okay I would like to get to the bottom of what this error message means "adapter 1 information ahci mode no hard disk found."

In regards to the WiFi card I'm going to take it to PC World and see if I can persuade someone to put in their machine to see if it lights up.

The thing that is really frustrating me is all the blasted software which is now obsolete. It's all becoming a lot more expensive than I had hoped. and worst of all and struggling because I'm on the edge of what I know, I don't really understand what AHCI mode is, other than to have it you have to do a fresh install of Windows, which I've done.

[Bonebreaker777]

Advanced Host Controller Interface=AHCI - To explain what really AHCI is. Basically,if you would have a SSD, would be better for you to connect it to the SATA 3 port and enable AHCI to access advanced SATA functions.

But you don't have any SSD and here I found that people over the internet are suggesting if you don't need SATA3, then disable the Marvel controller and the SATA3 ports, so you will not see that message > ASUS SATA3 trouble

About the WiFi card, I can't really say much but just to try it in a another computer, or try a different card in those PCIe ports.