Ok I'm stumped, is my a8n-sli premium doa?

Started work on my computer upgrade today and I can't get anything to show on the screen at all.

The components are:

a8n-sli premium
3200 venice
2x 512mb ballistix ram (known to be working and tried in a1+b1 together and singularly in b1 and then b2)
x800xt (just tested and works in housemate's pc)
s12-500 seasonic (known to be working)
120gb wb sata (again known to be working as well as the sony cd-rw)

Nothing came on screen initially so the gpu was tested on the other pc and it was fine. It also had the 6 pin power connector in at all times.
All 3 power connectors are plugged in to the mobo.
CMOS was reset a few times to no avail.
As previously mentioned several different ram slots were tried.
At this point it is down to bare bones gpu, ram and cpu to try and get something on the screen.

After a bit of googling found a few threads about these boards having this issue but can't seem to find any offering a solution that works. One said that scan had told them to try taking the cpu out and then power on. That person then got a 'no cpu' message on their screen so i guess their board was working. When I tried it I got nothing.

So am I going to have to RMA?

Tomorrow i'll take it out of the case to see if there is a short, but since there was an a7n8x deluxe in the exact same spot a couple of hours before i doubt it will be that. Also will try and see if the venice works in my mate's dfi. Something tells me it will. Either way seems an rma is coming :(

Ok tried it out of the case as I couldn't sleep. Apparantly with nothing connected apart from the psu, a working board should have betty announce no cpu on the green jack if speakers are connected.

I get about 30 seconds of a voice starting to say no and then it shuts off.

I'm thinking rma but reading more threads they reckon it's a bios issue. Trouble is can I update the bios at all in this state? If I try to update it like this and fail I guess i'll invalidate warranty. Hmm....any ideas?

RMA. Don't think twice.

There isn't anything unusual about your components so it should work. Clearly it doesn't so I would RMA it and save all the hassle of trying to fix it.

Thanks for the affirmation guys, got my rma sorted and scan are picking it up on monday.

The board tripped out my psu so it's only really been the last hour that I have managed to get my old rig up and running now that it's reset.

Damn, got an email from scan about the rma which said nothing was wrong. So now I have a £35 charge to get the board back. Apparantly the notes from the tester were:

"No display out of box - cleared CMOS - displays fine. Loaded BIOS defaults -
booting fine. Suspect a possible dodgy BIOS setting."

I reset the cmos quite a few times and i'm no stranger to doing it, particularly as it's the same procedure for my a7n8x. To be on the safe side I followed the instructions in the manual closely as I realised the board might be faulty.

Anyone got any ideas? Is it possibly an issue with a venice core? I thought that board supported it out of the box. I'll ask them to flash the bios before they send it back anyway to be on the safe side.

Can anyone see anything wrong I might have done so I avoid the expense and hassle in future?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dodgybob

Damn, got an email from scan about the rma which said nothing was wrong. So now I have a £35 charge to get the board back. Apparantly the notes from the tester were:

"No display out of box - cleared CMOS - displays fine. Loaded BIOS defaults -
booting fine. Suspect a possible dodgy BIOS setting."

I reset the cmos quite a few times and i'm no stranger to doing it, particularly as it's the same procedure for my a7n8x. To be on the safe side I followed the instructions in the manual closely as I realised the board might be faulty.

Anyone got any ideas? Is it possibly an issue with a venice core? I thought that board supported it out of the box. I'll ask them to flash the bios before they send it back anyway to be on the safe side.

Can anyone see anything wrong I might have done so I avoid the expense and hassle in future?

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Hmmmm, it's harsh that they're charging you £35 for that... the board should support venice cores with no problem at all, so as far as you're concerned you bought compatible components did everything possible with no luck. Add to that the fact that it didn't even work when they first tried it either, the board obviously wasn't in a fit state for sale. They can't possibly charge you, post in the Scan care forum, someone will look after you there :)

On the issue of the problems, sounds like you've tried absolutely everything I can think of as well... let's just hope it's sorted when it comes back!

I've just posted in the scan forums, thanks for the idea Jim.

when i had my mobo, i had probs with getting it working.... guess what sorted it...

for some unbeknown reason, it only works if only the 24pin power lead is plugged into the mobo, if you put the little 4pin as well it dont work.... Baffled me for ages.

i find computers to be incredibly frustrating at times!

i had issues with an abit motherboard which would not POST. i replaced all the compnents etc had it out of the case and it would not work. sent it back to dabs who tested it and it worked fine! i had tried everything to get it working. but at least they still gave me a full refund

Thanks for all the posts guys.

Scan had another look at the board and found they tested it with a winchester. With a venice core they had the exact problems that I did. They've flashed the bios and are returning it free of charge. So good result and i'll definitely use them again, will just try not to get so stressed in future.

I'm really surprised that this is shipping with such an old BIOS. How long have Venice cores been out?

Well this doesn't bode well, I'm receiving a Premium tomorrow to use straight out of the box with an Opteron... if it doesn't work, there's no way for me to flash the bios :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimNastics

Well this doesn't bode well, I'm receiving a Premium tomorrow to use straight out of the box with an Opteron... if it doesn't work, there's no way for me to flash the bios :(

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Ask them to send you a BIOS chip?

Well I received the board back on Friday and tested it yesterday. It still gives no video on the screen. Looks like an RMA with both the motherboard and processor this time. I've posted the details in the scan care forums here:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.p...871#post622871

And guess I'll be phoning them tomorrow after my seminar. This is getting very frustrating.