ABit VA-10 not Posting?

Justin

I am putting a Athlon XP 1600 in there and I noticed that there is a resistor(?) sticking up right in the middle of the socket that seems to keep the CPU from laying all the way down in the socket. I am afraid to bend this thing down for fear of shorting something out. What should I do?

fatcat

the little prob is the socket thermistor. this allows the motherboard to monitor the temps of the cpu. it is normal for you to have to bend it down a little when u insert the cpu into the socket, as u want the thermistor to touch the bottom of the cpu. just bend it slightly and slowly, then insert the cpu and you'll be good to go.

Justin

Did that and still no post... The CPU is sitting securely in the socket, and everything seems to power up fine, there is just no video output to the monitor. CPU tested and working, RAM tested and working, new MOBO, Any suggestions?

muddocktor

Justin, my VA-10 has to have a sensor type fan hooked up to the cpu fan header or it will shut down within 5 seconds of trying to boot up. Is this what your board is doing?

twrx

Justin wrote:

Did that and still no post... The CPU is sitting securely in the socket, and everything seems to power up fine, there is just no video output to the monitor. CPU tested and working, RAM tested and working, new MOBO, Any suggestions?

Did you ever find the problem here? I just got this board yesterday, and today I'm on my second one. I can't get it to post for the life of me. Tested CPU, tested PSU, new memory. I'd be very surprised if I got two straight DOA boards. There must be something I'm missing. No beeps though - so I don't even have a clue what's wrong.

muddocktor

twrx wrote:

Did you ever find the problem here? I just got this board yesterday, and today I'm on my second one. I can't get it to post for the life of me. Tested CPU, tested PSU, new memory. I'd be very surprised if I got two straight DOA boards. There must be something I'm missing. No beeps though - so I don't even have a clue what's wrong.

Make sure you have a sensor type fan hooked to the cpu fan header. That board threw me for a loop too when I got it and wouldn't post, would only briefly power up then power down. It wouldn't even get to the post beep either. When I plugged a sensor type Sunon fan into the cpu fan header it posted up fine though. Also, are you hooking up the 12v P4 connector to the board? It's located right above the cmos battery. I never tried booting mine without that P4 connector hooked up but if you don't have it hooked up that might be the problem too.

twrx

muddocktor wrote:

Make sure you have a sensor type fan hooked to the cpu fan header. That board threw me for a loop too when I got it and wouldn't post, would only briefly power up then power down. It wouldn't even get to the post beep either. When I plugged a sensor type Sunon fan into the cpu fan header it posted up fine though. Also, are you hooking up the 12v P4 connector to the board? It's located right above the cmos battery. I never tried booting mine without that P4 connector hooked up but if you don't have it hooked up that might be the problem too.

I finally figured out my problem - stupid me. Although the RAM was brand new (fresh out of the box) I hadn't tested it in another computer. Turns out it was bad (brand was Centon FWIW). So, I guess as a heads up to people using this board - you will not get beeps (even warning beeps) if the board has no memory in it, nor will you get them if the board has bad memory. This may be common - I've only put together a few machines - but it is frustrating because you can't tell if you're making progress when there is no beep code.

muddocktor

Heh, that's a good reason to stick with a name brand memory such as Kingston, Crucial or Corsair I guess. Hell, Corsair's value PC3200 is pretty close to the prices that the cheap stuff is going for at Newegg also.