So I’m building my wife a computer, and what type of motherboard does she choose? A Gigabyte motherboard.
I had another Gigabyte some time ago. I could never get it to work. Believe me, I checked, rechecked, and checked again all of the connections and configurations. The power light would flash, the processor fan would spin briefly, but no beeps. After kicking it around for awhile, I got rid of it. I honestly don’t remember how. I was so disgusted with it.
Fast forward to tonight. I’m putting together my wife’s new computer for her. Everything fits together perfectly, like Legos. I check, recheck, and check again all of the connections and configurations. I hit the power switch. Same thing. The power LED flashes and the fan briefly spins. No beeps at all.
I checked the documentation in the manual and online.
I am positive that the motherboard is installed correctly, all the way down to the front panel connections. I’ve built dozens of computers without so much as a hiccup. Gigabyte motherboards are my bane.
Please. Any suggestions?
What am I doing wrong?
Do Gigabyte motherboards have some sort of special configuration that I’m overlooking?
Have you tried running the board outside the case on a non conductive surface? The board could be grounding out on the case. I’ve seen that happen many times at the company I work at.
Above and beyond test-running it out of the case, unplug everything except CPU, RAM and the power switch. If it fails this, you truly are cursed by this brand and should get something else. My own choice would be an Intel board.
Chicago, what is the Model # of the board. Is the power supply new or from another machine? Does the board require a P4 power supply because there is an additional 4 pin connector required. This happened to me with a AMD Shuttle MOBO installation which I didn’t realize that it needed the extra power connection.It started and ran very briefly and shutdown. Just a thought from a prior problem.
I will try all of the suggestions above. It was just too late last night to put my Troubleshooting Hat on.
I did notice the extra power connection right from the start. Apparently, that is the new trend. It’s only job is to power the processor. That is correctly connected.
After everything is hooked up there are only two connectors from the power supply that aren’t plugged in. The first is a floppy power connector, and the other is a thin but wide connector of some type. I’ve been seeing this second type of connector more and more recently. It probably powers some sort of extra peripheral that I’m not aware of.
I guess there is a possibility that the motherboard is shorting out. I’ll check that out first.
Everything is new. I took it out of the box myself. The model number of the Gigabyte board goes somthing like GA8s800. It is the bargain basement bottom Gigabyte board. None of those extra bells and whistles like extra IDE connections or hardware RAID that Gigabyte loves to throw in there. The case and the motherboard are compatible.
Chicago Faucet I just built a new system with a Gigabyte 8KNXP mobo and had the same problem as you.
I’ve built a lot of PCs as well and never had that problem as well. So I removed every peripheral, and it booted. I then added each peripheral one at a time and attempted boot between each addition. It all worked.
I then had to swap my floppy, I put a new one in and same thing happened. I re-seated the power connecter to the floppy and it botted fine.
The problem was the power supply, but I still blame the Gigabyte motherboard. I went through two other power supplies from working systems before I found one that worked. Weird.
I have a Gigabyte motherboard here (VIA KT266 chipset for an Athlon 1800 – 7VRXP IIRC). I have had the exact same problem as you 3 or 4 times. It is always the power supply. I went through the whole rigamarole – strip off the peripherals, change the RAM, go to an old video card, check all connections a hundred times – at least twice before I figured it out.
For some reason, Gigabyte motherboards seem to chew through the cheap $15 power supplies. I dropped the bucks for an Enermax or an Antec power supply or whatever I have now, and it has been going fine for better than a year. I believe it also has a warranty so if I fry it, I can send it in.
Once, the dead Gigabyte/Athlon power supply seemed to work with an old PII that I had here. The other times it hasn’t.
I still like Gigabyte boards – they get great reviews, they run fast, they have tons of features, lots of BIOS options to screw with, good compatibility. But now that you bring light to this problem, I will warn people to buy a quality power supply before commiting to it.