SN95G5 won't post - can anyone help?

[rainqueen]

Hi All

I've just bought a Shuttle SN95G5 and an Athlon 64 3500+ to go with it. After putting it all together, it powers on, fans work etc. but no beeps, no video, nothing. Just sits there with fans whirring away. I've taken everything out, and re-installed just the CPU and graphics card (an ancient Geforce 3 I had lying around which definitely works). Same result, no beeps, no video. I've installed CPUs, heatsinks etc. before, did everything on an anti-static mat, so I'm fairly confident I've not broken anything. Can anyone suggest anything to try next?

I bought the Shuttle box and the CPU from different places, so any idea as to which one is more likely to be the problem would help, as if I still can't get any joy I'm not sure what to send back. I don't have another board I can try the CPU in, as the other PCs around the house are both Athlon XPs, and I don't have another CPU to hand to check if it's the motherboard.

All suggestions gratefully received, as I'd really like to get this little baby working.

TIA

[Flibb]

I had a similar problem on a tower I built, turned out to be the on/off switch wasnt seated peroperly. Took me days to figure it out.
Allways worth checking simple things first.

[rainqueen]

Thanks Flibb. It seems to have power OK as all the fans are working, the power light comes on, and when I had a hard disk connected the light did flash on and off. Annoying these things apparently don't have a speaker as I don't know whether I'm getting any beep codes. As everything was already wired up in the case I'm not sure what to check - don't want to pull everything apart too much in case I need to RMA the thing.

Thanks for the help,
RQ.

[Flibb]

On the one I built on the fans started, HD whired but that was it. The switch had moved back in its mounting a couple of mm.

[rainqueen]

OK, I'll check it out, thanks.

[Jimmy Little]

sounds like it is the mobo rather than the cpu, i had a sim prob with a computer i built, i take it you are not getting a signal to the monitor either?

[rainqueen]

No, just the 'No Signal' message from the monitor. I know it's not the card, cable or monitor as I've tested all of them with another PC.

Did you get your problem fixed in the end?

Thanks,
RQ.

[Jimmy Little]

yeah in the end when i RMA'ed the mobo... if you can test another cpu in there somehow, failing something simple it looks like the mobo or the cpu, and i would reckon the cpu...

have you tried clearing the cmos? and what about ram is that tested and working? do you have two sticks of ram or one? if you have 2 try just booting with one, and test both of those

[rainqueen]

OK, in the end I got it to boot by clearing the CMOS, however all is not yet sweetness and light, After clearing CMOS, it boots and I get the 'safe mode# message. I can then go into the BIOS and modify settings. For the moment I'm using the default 'fail safe' settings as I just want to get the damn thing stable. However after I select Save and Exit and it reboots, I get the same problem again, fans running full speed, power lights on, but no video. I was given a tip elsewhere to disconnect it from the mains and then reconnect it, hold downing Insert when powering on, and yesterday this allowed me to boot it several times and install Windows. However today that won't work at all. The only way I can get the d*mn thing to boot at all is to clear CMOS and then select F1 to continue, but then the fan runs at high speed all the time and it sounds like a washing machine. I specifically bought this to be a quiet, high-spec PC so not what I was expecting!

Anyone have any ideas before I RMA the whole thing? I was very pleased with it when I did have it running OK and quiet yesterday, so I'm reluctant to send it back, but so far it has proved highly unstable.

TIA,
RQ.

[Jimmy Little]

have you tried doing a clean install after clearing the cmos? try changing some of the fail safe settings? what temp is the cpu on when in the bios?

[rainqueen]

have you tried doing a clean install after clearing the cmos? try changing some of the fail safe settings? what temp is the cpu on when in the bios?

Since I was able to get it to boot yesterday, I installed XP, updated it to SP2, and enabled Cool n Quiet. I tried disabling CnQ which didn't help, currently re-installing a fresh copy of XP (and having my eardrums blown by the fan in the process!)

I haven't really played around with the settings too much, I did tweak the RAM settings at one point but if it can't run on the minimum settings I see little chance of it working on anything else. I think I have the dodgy CPU temp problem as it's currently reporting it around 20-22 degrees when in BIOS.

Cheers,
RQ

[Jimmy Little]

yeah 20 - 22 is pretty low unless that is right after you turned it on, but maybe if its just sat in the bios and the fans are on full it could be that temp... can you try some other ram ?

[rainqueen]

Well, fingers crossed, I seem to have got it reasonably stable by changing the HT multiplier to x4! Don't know why that should do the trick, but so far it's looking good.

Cheers,
RQ

[Jimmy Little]

Well, fingers crossed, I seem to have got it reasonably stable by changing the HT multiplier to x4! Don't know why that should do the trick, but so far it's looking good.

Cheers,
RQ

glad it's all up and running mate!