New Mobo...Serious Power Problem!!

dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
edited February 2004 in Hardware
Took Sally's puter to get the planned upgrade done, this morning.

Sorry sir, we have not got the prossessor you ordered over a week ago.
OK, so i drive 65 K's to pick it up, to get the job done today.

Wonderful sir, now we can fix it. So the tech doing the job says: "I'll ring when it's ready". Great, how soon you reckon??? TOMORROW Sir!!!!!

I lost it. Planned over a week ago, to have it done TODAY. So....stick it where it fits, i'll do it myself. Just give me the bill and i'll pay and go.

Oh sir, by the way, we only have 1 x 512 stick of ram, not 2 as you ordered.

That was definitely the end of it.

Problem: Sally and i set about reading all the booklets that came with the mobo and cpu. Made 2 calls to a friend for confirmation about something.

In an orderly fashion we pulled the old mobo out, and fitted the new one.
When we hooked everything up to try it out, the power came on for a split of a second. Switched the power off, waited a short time, hit the go button and the same thing happened.

We have triple checked the wiring and plugs and cannot find anything out of place. All 240v plugs checked for contact. Tried again, still the same problem.

Since this is our first attempt at this task, we are at a total loss. The puter worked ok this morning and now nothing. To me it's like a bad connection or something simular. (grasping at straws here).

Anything you may think of, no matter how big or small, please gives a clue where to have a look. Just as a matter of reference, the case and psu are only just over 2 weeks old. :-/

Thanks

Jon & Sally (JonsHandbrake)

Comments

  • GunnyGunny
    edited February 2004
    It sounds to me that the MOBO may be shorted somewhere and the circuit breaker in the PS is helping you out. I would look for a standoff touching something on the bottom of the board first, make sure you're good to go there. Also, make sure you have your case switches wired correctly

    Then I would start out with CPU (and fan, of course) memory and video card installed, then power up. That should get you into the bios. If all works well there, then add the hard drive/CD-ROM and do OS installation, then any drivers required by the MOBO. Then finish up by adding any other devices you might have.
    By just adding one or two devices at a time, gives you a real good indication of the culprit when things go wrong
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    As Gunny said, it sounds like something is shorting. Take the board out of the case and try it on your desk. If it works their then check that the brass stand offs are only where the holes are on your motherboard. If any are where they shouldnt be then remove them.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Hi ya and thankyou for your prompt help your blood is worth bottlin. Jon is currently testing the motherboard........OK he has just put some foam under the Mobo and it fired up first go. Now trying to isolate the cause......please stand by for further update

    Kind regards

    Sally
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    OK, i placed the foam out of the mobo packing box and as Sally said, it fired up immediately. Checking the under side of the mobo, it appears as if a couple of bits of solder hang down further than the rest.

    Any safe way to cut/file it back????

    Standing by for possible answer. Thanks.

    Jon
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    You shouldnt have to file anything off a motherboard. How far does it hang down? (pics if you can get em)
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Pictures coming up. Just getting camera

    Sally
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Not too good with the camera yet.
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    From your pictures that looks normal. Have you tried powering it up out of the case?
  • GunnyGunny
    edited February 2004
    I agree, all looks normal on the underside. Most likely, it's a standoff problem, and as stated above, make sure that every one on the chassis matches up with a hole on the motherboard. If not, get it out in any way possible without tearing up the chassis.

    Sounds to me that once that's taken care of, you're going to have a nice computer up and running

    Lotsa luck
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Not out of the case as such, just with a mat of foam the same size as the mobo underneath. This did work a treat. Hard to tell from the pics as to the length of the solder. Most, if not all looks ok, just trying to be on the safe side and trim a couple back a touch.

    Did find one stand off was needed as the previous mobo was a touch narrower. I will now put the mobo back and see if it makes a difference. If not, could i put something under it as an isolator, ie, a sheet of blotting paper off my desk or would this cause a fire hazard with heat produced by the puter??
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I wouldnt recommend putting anything underneath. Just check your brass standoffs and try again.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Necropolis_UK wrote:
    I wouldnt recommend putting anything underneath. Just check your brass standoffs and try again.

    Yeehar, we have a WINNER..... Short-Media to the rescue once again.
    Can't thank you guys enough. After your suggestions of checking the stand-off's, screwing one extra one in did the trick.

    Now putting it back together and then for Sally to do her bit. Me lift heavy weights, she uses brain, lol.

    This will be a first for Sally and i to upgrade a mobo and prossessor. I'll make the coffee's whilst Sally has to delve into the unchartered waters of BIOS.

    It is 11:07pm here at the moment. Might be a long night.

    Thanks again guys, much appreciated.

    Jon & Sally

    Keep on folding :smokin:
  • NecropolisNecropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Great stuff. Now dont forget that HT = 2 Folding clients ;)
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    The standoffs should hold it up high enough that those are not a problem. Some mobo require a plasic (insulated) standoff in some locations. And, of course, metal (grounded) ones in others. Look for that info in the manual. Some times fiber washers are needed at some locations.
    You can also try to place a sheet of plastic under the mobo and isolate it from the case. I have a mobo that if I press on it while it is running it will reboot. It flexes enough to let something make contact.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Necropolis_UK wrote:
    I wouldnt recommend putting anything underneath. Just check your brass standoffs and try again.

    If the foam is thin closed cell pink or blackish (antistat foam) sheet like the older motherboards udes to ship with, I have used a sheet of that under motherboard and run wires (carefully) to ground motherboard at ground points to rough test a board, but board needs to be grounded just so to work. In this case studs in the right places made a difference, but I have isolated what board area has a bad ground this way.

    Typically, for best performance on a modern board, all the points with what looks like small and short flower petals of solder around them or rings that are silvery solder around them should be studded and screwed down to stud. Those are ground points. The ones at corners, with not solder, just holes, are there for nylon standoffs to support board.

    If a soldered lead sticks out of bottom of board more than about 3\32" (about 2.4 mm) then you CAN trim it off about there with a flush cutting pliers(very carefully, easy to damage motherboard or solder)-- 1\16-5\64" is normal ( about 1.6-1.8 mm). This is especially true for the remaining wire leads sticking out of bottom of motherboard around the immediate area of the CPU, some boards will bend as you tighten the HS Fan down. The modern boards want about 1\4" (6 mm) high brass studs.

    John D.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Thanks for that info John D. The black foam that came with the mobo as bottom packing is what i had in mind. This concurs with your thoughts.

    However.............UPDATE.........LATEST.

    After doing what was suggested, everything pointed to the mobo shorting out.

    NO, that was not it. Put it all back together and still same problem.
    Process of elimination.

    Started with the easiest PCI card. (2 x usb with digital sound socket). YES, beginners luck. Turns out it was the usb connection on the mobo. Tried the same pci card from my old mobo and had the same problem. Left it out and now Sally is formatting to her hearts content. Though i will have to get a new one under warranty, it is good practise for us (Sally) to have a go at setting up a new bios and doing a reformat to give our newly updated puter all the help it can get. Should motor along quite nicely once done. :type:

    HHHMMMMM, folding in HT :fold::fold: . Twice the fun, lol.

    Cheers dragonV8 & JonsHandbrake
  • GunnyGunny
    edited February 2004
    Yeah, no matter how experienced you are at building computers (hardware is a completely different animal than software) it's always best to start with the basics, then add components as you go. If you just start with everything hooked up then power up, you don't have a clue to the real culprit if anything goes wrong.
    Much better to start with what you absolutely have to have to power up, then add other devices in order of their importance to you. Then if a glitch shows up, it just about has to be the last device you added
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I'll be honest, I build them fully loaded and give it a fly. If it doesn't go I strip it back to the basics and then do it the right way, a piece at a time.
    They usually work fine. But the unexpected 'always' happens.

    So what is your new rig? How is it running?
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    dragonV8 wrote:
    Thanks for that info John D. The black foam that came with the mobo as bottom packing is what i had in mind. This concurs with your thoughts.

    However.............UPDATE.........LATEST.

    After doing what was suggested, everything pointed to the mobo shorting out.

    NO, that was not it. Put it all back together and still same problem.
    Process of elimination.

    Started with the easiest PCI card. (2 x usb with digital sound socket). YES, beginners luck. Turns out it was the usb connection on the mobo. Tried the same pci card from my old mobo and had the same problem. Left it out and now Sally is formatting to her hearts content. Though i will have to get a new one under warranty, it is good practise for us (Sally) to have a go at setting up a new bios and doing a reformat to give our newly updated puter all the help it can get. Should motor along quite nicely once done. :type:

    HHHMMMMM, folding in HT :fold::fold: . Twice the fun, lol.

    Cheers dragonV8 & JonsHandbrake

    Um, that motherboard should HAVE USB, and the USB it has will run all USB devices. What you can fairly often run into with a PCI USB card in a box with a motherboard that has USB is device resource conflicts. This happens a lot with USB on motherboard PLUS USB on PCI card. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 and about 90% of very old USB 1.0 devices. A PCI USB CARD IS NOT USUALLY WANTED OR NEEDED ON A MOTHERBOARD WITH BUILTIN USB.

    John D.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    edcentric wrote:
    I'll be honest, I build them fully loaded and give it a fly. If it doesn't go I strip it back to the basics and then do it the right way, a piece at a time.
    They usually work fine. But the unexpected 'always' happens.

    So what is your new rig? How is it running?

    I guess i'm a bit the same. Mostly i try to get things to work and if all else fails read the instructions.

    New rig started as a "old" P4, 2.4g, 512 ram. i suggested a couple of fans to cool it down. In my search found a new blue Thermaltake case and made the mistake of showing her. Had to have it. Next i showed her a Thermaltake V1000A, with clear side. That was it. Must have. Also wanted a bigger psu, so got her a Surepower 480W. Once the old puter had a new case it had to have more processing power.

    Emptied the new case today and fitted a GA-8IPE1000PRO2. Got an Intel 3.2G processor and 1G of Ram.
    So basically there is only the Audigy2 soundcard, a 4 port Usb card and 64MB Radeon 7000 graphics card carried over from the old system. Oh, and the 17" LCD screen. I just need to get a more uptodate graphics card so i can swap it for the 7000. As suggested in another thread, it is not a nessecity, it might just help improve the overall performance from a different angle. The 7000 will go into the old puter to make another folding machine, so the new one will be all new parts. Got her a Thermaltake matching keyboard too. The "old" handbrake 'll be going to Lan parties next, hehehe. :aol:

    At the present she is still having problems trying to re-format to suit the new setup. Started of ok, XP just decided to misbehave. Trying to have a second go, but it has almost stopped. AH, having a fresh go now, starting off, setting up the bios again. Bit of a unknown area. :-/

    As it is now 3:05 am, we are getting a bit tired, which doesn't help. I'm sure once all the hiccups are sorted it will be a nice little puter.

    Cheers Jon
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited February 2004
    dragonV8, the HT P4's fold Gromacs like crazy. I built up 1 right after Christmas and EM3 is showing that it has turned in almost 6500 points since then.:D By all means, set up 2 instances of F@H.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Ageek wrote:
    Um, that motherboard should HAVE USB, and the USB it has will run all USB devices. What you can fairly often run into with a PCI USB card in a box with a motherboard that has USB is device resource conflicts. This happens a lot with USB on motherboard PLUS USB on PCI card. USB 2.0 is backward compatible with USB 1.1 and about 90% of very old USB 1.0 devices. A PCI USB CARD IS NOT USUALLY WANTED OR NEEDED ON A MOTHERBOARD WITH BUILTIN USB.

    John D.

    John, the part that got me confused is, when the 2 port USB card is plugged into the mobo, the puter flashes power once and dies. Totally, no power.
    It is not really a card that plugs into a PCI slot, more like it is a holder that goes into the back of the case, locked in with a screw, refer attached pic.

    The leads have a plug, when connected to a socket in the mobo, the puter will not fire up. When it is disconnected from the board it fires up straight away.
    We also have a 4 port USB card, which fits into one of the five PCI slots, no prob's.
    The case has 2 USB ports on top of the case, no prob's, eventhough those 2 are plugged into the mobo adjacent to the problem socket.

    Life sure wasn't meant to be easy, lol.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Hi Doc, good to hear HT can double the workload. This has been mentioned to me earlier, just not too sure about the way to set it up. That will be a question to be posted a bit later, when the mobo problem has been sorted.

    To add insult to injury, Sally attempted to format C: last night a got confronted with all sorts of drama's. First attempt caused i386/msn14.ma_ not to load. Fault screen kept saying "Retry" or "Cancel". A retry would not work and a Cancel caused the next file of MSN to fail. Got to a total of 9 files, when she had to start from scratch. Even then the rotten thing was slow as, trying to reformat, sometimes just sitting there doing very little.

    I got up to a note from Sally that she had to give up it was taking too long and as the mobo will need replacing, which may mean starting all over again.

    see what happens today.

    Jon
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Just to do the right thing and advise of the outcome of this thread.

    Due to poor eye sight and a misunderstanding, i accidently plugged a firewire plug into a usb socket on the mobo. The fact that all the pins and holes matched had me fooled.

    You live and learn. I feel like a REAL DUMMY right now, but when this thread gets moved down the line and finally off the first page, it will have been forgotten about.

    No doubt in time to come someone here will remember and point it out to me in a most untimely fashion. This i will accept, as if it was someone else i might just do the same thing, hehehe.

    Jon
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