Alrighty, here’s the scoop and stats.
I decided to try my hand at computer assembly. I got a case and power supply (Antec), a Returned/Refurbished Abit BH-7 motherboard, Celeron 2.2 GHz processor, and 2 sticks of 512 MB Kingston PC2700 DDR RAM. I decided to use my old drives - floppy, hard drive, and two optical drives (DVD-ROM and CD-RW) from my old HP Pavillion 7845. I did not wipe the hard drive; I wanted to avoid having to reload everything.
I did the transplant today. All connections were checked and double-checked. I powered it up, and got…nothing. The monitor showed it’s “Video Cable Connected?” message, the CPU fan turned, and the LED’s on the mobo indicating power were lit. And that’s it. No attempt to boot from floppy, no POST, no nothing else.
I’m inclined to suspect the motherboard - that’s why I emphasized the fact that it had been previously returned (Newegg.com). Or perhaps I should have wiped the hard drive…
Any ideas?
First thing to check is to make sure the IDE cables are connected correctly with the red strip connected to Pin 1 at each connector (Pin 1 will be marked on the mainboard connector and is normally the one closest to the power connector on the drives).
Next pull out each and every card, memory stick and anything else and reseat them. If you still get nothing, drop it down to a bare bones setup. Pull out EVERYTHING save the processor and one stick of RAM and the video card and see if it will boot. If it does, one of the components you didn’t install is at fault. If not, try swapping to the other stick of RAM instead and try again. If you still get nothing, pull out all the RAM and the video card (so you’ve only got the mainboard connected) and try again to see if you get POST. If not, suspect the mainboard and/or processor.
Triple-check your connections. Make sure the jumper settings (if present–most moderrn mainbards don’t have any jumpers to set).
Well, it’s not the hard drive if you don’t get any POST at all. Lots of stuff happens before the computer looks for your drive, and you should get some indication of something happening. Q.E.D.'s advice is good, but I am inclined to hink your BIOS may be hosed. Before giving up I would clear the CMOS (instructions are on page 2-6 of the user manual, downloadable off your link if you don’t have a paper copy.) It used to be that clearing the CMOS would only remove user settings, but these days some companies have their entire BIOS backed up onboard so that clearing the CMOS is really restoring it. If that doesn’t work, try flashing the BIOS. Again, instructions and files are available off your link. Hope that helps!
Make sure BOTH power supply connectors are plugged into the motherboard. Clear the CMOS as Ptahlis suggested. Also, if the other suggestions don’t help, the motherboard may be shorting out on the case. Try setting up the motherboard outside the case, on a non-conductive surface (NOT the antistatic bag it came in).
Lot’s of things to try, from the “D’oh” to the geeky.
Are you sure you have the “soft power” and/or “hard power” switches connected right and are pushing the right buttons? Are you sure. Sounds dumb, but it happens. While you’re at it, check all LED/speak/switch connections. I once rescued a “bad” motherboard someone was throwing out. They had put an LED on a switch jumper. Easy to fix.
CMOS settings can affect how the MB thinks it should boot. The one I have been “playing” with lately has gotten set so it requires hitting the “reset” button so start, and not each press works, maybe 1 in 3. So I’m going to have to clear the CMOS (but not right now).
Find the emergency boot/flash BIOS setting. With this set, and a flash BIOS disk in the floppy, it will try to reflash the BIOS. Try this without a floppy in the drive and see if it seeks the floppy first.
And then there’s hotflashing the BIOS. For serious geeks only.
I had this exact problem on the first PC I built. Problem was that the “clear CMOS” jumper was in the “clear it” position, not the normal position. The assembly manual had the jumper diagram upside down, so I’d put the jumper in the wrong place.
If the power supply and CPU fans spin up then the switches are good, PS is good, connection to the mobo is good.
Aside from the video card you can yank just about everything else out (floppy, hard drive, optical drives, sound, NIC, keyboard, mouse) and still get some form of POST message. I think you can even do it without any RAM onboard - won’t get far but you will get an error message.
Check the CMOS jumper, make sure nothing is shorting it, you can also replace the CMOS battery (it’s a little flat battery like something out of a camera, if you need to replace it bring the battery to a camera shop, it’s something like $10).
My mobo is also an Abit board (Abit BP6, their original dual-Celeron board, still going strong). I’ve had several Abit boards and they never seem to have a consistent orientation for the drawings and diagrams in their user manuals - this gets very confusing when you only have a sketch of some jumper pins and have to figure out which way is up, is it 123 from left to right or right to left…
The problem with that, Ptahlis, is that the computer has to boot in order to do a BIOS flash.
Did I just un-learn something?
Not sure what you mean by “boot” but according hyperdictionary.com (and every other source I’ve ever seen) “boot” means to load and initialize the operating system. That’s what it’s meant to me for the last fourteen years too.
A bios screen will be displayed in a working computer without any drives or firmware boot devices installed.
A “boot” device is defined as the physical device that contains the non-BIOS code needed to boot the computer,
the following comes from qvctc.commnet.edu and is what I learned in '88 and have understood to be true since.
The “boot sequence” begins with a POST then CMOS and BIOS check then PCI initialization then the BIOS tests and displays the system configuration then the DOS is loaded and any config.sys and autoexec.bat files are executed.
Boot can mean whatever you want it to mean. In a modern computer, there are several layers of operating systems that load, in sequence, some unloading, some not. If you turn on the computer, hit DEL during POST, thus entering the BIOS setup, the system has booted, has it not? In the case of BIOS flashing, the system has to be able to successfully POST, then run the boot sector, then load the OS. The completion of any of these stages could be considered a boot, if you want to.
What’s your point? In order to do a BIOS flash, you have to have an operating system up and running, in order to execute the flash program. I said what I meant.
The first time my son and I built a computer, we had a similar problem. After countless phone calls to the various parts manufacturers, we eventually realized that we’d neglected to insulate the motherboard from the case. There are supposed to be little plastic thingamajigs (such a technical term, no?) that hold the motherboard off the case. I felt like such a putz for not realizing that, but just maybe you’ve done the same thing?
