No Startup :( Any help?

[RufusKing]

First time compy building with me dad, and we are now at a dead end, got all the parts etc. put it together, powered it on. Nothing. The MoBo diagnostic says FF (meaning attempting boot) but nothign happens.... stripped the connections down from the MoBo so there just the floppy drive, one IDE cable to the hard drive as Master, disconnected all the front paneling jumpers, re-seated the memory, re-seated the gfx card and have pretty much run out of ideas, it still wont go bast attempting boot.... any help please? its just getting depressing now

Cheers

Rufus

[petrefax]

FF..?

are you using an epox motherboard mate???

i just ask cos i had one of these & remember getting this code when i first built a system with it

[RufusKing]

indeed it is

[kemosabe]

Is it silent? Does anything make a noise, HD, fans etc?

[petrefax]

i had an epox 8rda3+ and i found that when i connected the front panel usb connectors, if i connected the 3rd "GND" connector, this caused problems, i have no idea why but it just did! so disconnecting this helped.




dunno if this is of any use since you've said you have disconnected your front panel stuff

also the 12v power connector was a little troublesome - if u got it connected, try it without & vice versa

good luck mate

[RufusKing]

Originally posted by kimosabi
Is it silent? Does anything make a noise, HD, fans etc?

Yup, I remembered to plug it in ... everything fires up properly by the sounds of it, and the fans move.

I'll try check out your suggestion petrefax and report back on my findings

[unrealrocks]

Try resetting the CMOS, pressing reset once you've powered it up, whats the PSU? You've put the heatsink on the right way round (we're talking AMD here right?)?

[RufusKing]

yup AMD, Is resetting the CMOS pretty easy? I know its in the handbook for the MoBo, but my paranoia about jumper cables is endless

heatsink should be in properly, everything slotted in properly.... been seated and re-seated, pressing reset when it on does nothing (noticable). PSU is a 350w (not sure of brand right now, I didnt put together the spec), should be enough to power a mobo, gfx, mem, 1 hd and floppy. disconnected the other devices for now (dvd drive, another hd)

[Flymo]

jumper cables are used for starting cars with flat batteries. I REALLY hope you havnt got any of those in your new PC or its no wonder it doesnt boot.

resetting the cmos is simply a matter of disconnecting the power cable, moving the jumper so that it covers the 2 pins to the right (out of 3), then moving it back to the two left pins, putting the cable in and rebooting.
Also, hold down the insert key on the keboard when you switch it on and keep it held in until you see the POST screen.


1 2 3
. . .


HTH

Flymo

[RufusKing]

will give that a go tommorow, cheers... not sure if holding ins will make a difference, holding it till the post screen will mean i'll be there a while, dont get a display up at all on power on

[RufusKing]

Ttried reseting the CMOS and no luck. Unplugged the power, moved the jumper for 2-3 pins for about 5 seconds and switched back, powered on and nothing as before.

Is it possible that the monitor (reasonably old now) doesnt like the video card, but I would have still thought that even if I didnt see anything I would have heard a beep at some poitn after the system check

[blockers]

Have you got any other systems to try the stuff in?

Some motherboards are fussy if you dont put the CPU fan in the right socket (on the motherboard) so try chaning where it is plugged in.

Make sure that the RAM is pushed down in the centre, i once managed to clip the RAM in but it wasnt fully down in the centre, so it just beeped at me.

Try with just mobo, gfx, ram (one stick), cpu (no hard drives/optical drives/floppy etc.)

Can you post the rest of your system please.

Will

[RufusKing]

IITSSS ALIVE!!!!!!!

Took out all the IDE and floppy cables and powered it up and no change , but then I restarted it and the diagnostic display changed to C1, so i reseated the memory again, plugged the power back in and it fired itself up (which it didnt do before) and then after a couple more resets it fired itself up.... it went all the way through to complaining I had no OS, things are back on track.... thanks for the help guys... this system is a christmas present to some good friends of the family, you guys have saved some big stress on getting it setup on time. Cheers.

[RufusKing]

same problem just crept up on me again, thought I would check on the system just to see it fire up again so I could stand there and smile, fired it up and the FF appeared.... unplugged the second IDE cable and reset the CMOS again, and it fired up same as first time I got it working.... lead me to thinking, does the internal battery need to be charged from first installation? is it flat and thats the reason its giving me problems? or anyhting else I didnt think of?

[floppybootstomp]

A flat CMOS battery normally wouldn't stop a system booting, you'd usually just get a prompt like 'Press F1 to set up system' or similar.

And most CMOS batteries on a new board will need a bit of a charge.

Fire the system up with nothing connected, in other words, just board, CPU/cooler, RAM & graphics card. If it boots OK, prompting you for OS, leave it on for an hour or so to give the battery a chance to charge.

And from what I read above, it sounds as if you may be having a problem with either an IDE cable or floppy cable. If possible, try substitutes.

[RufusKing]

left the system plugged in after I fixed it the second time and the probs not back....so i'm guessing its something to do with the power, and the CMOS, seeing as I need to reset the CMOS to boot it